"You lowlife mutt! My father will not stand for this. This land is my birthright. The only place deserving of ilk like you is grovelling under my heel for scrap. You wort—"
Smack!
Josephine was intent on spewing vile insults. However, the detective quickly interrupted, sealing her mouth with a talisman before she could continue.
Taking hold of her other hand, he forced both behind her slender back, then turned to Lorelei, "Are you sure we can't simply bring her in unconscious? I'm not sure any at the precinct would be happy to handle this dú fù [She-devil]."
"Sadly, we'll have to bear with her for a little longer since the spell I cast can only protect her while she is awake," she sighed. "It's also possible the curse's effects may return once she's incapacitated, and we'll lose our only arrest on this case."
'Is this really enough? After all those people died, she just gets to be confined to a cell?' Damon pondered, staring at Josephine's frosty expression. Although he could not hear every word of their conversation, he had no issue reading their lips.
["She is a noble boya. The chances of her father simply having her released are high, but I'd say this Valentino has already thought of that.']
"Niño,.. I would like my final payment to complete our trade." Valentino coughed and said slowly. "I must leave this place while the night is still young."
Damon immediately shifted his gaze to Henry, who fiddled with the pistol. While they had been walking, his brother had made several attempts to decipher what had caused the earlier jam.
The fact that Valentino had damaged such a piece irked him to no end, but he was confident it would not be an arduous task to mend.
"The erratic spiritual energy reinforcement deformed the cylinder's edges so it won't spin, but I should be able to find a gunsmith to fix it. " Henry replied.
The corners of Damon's mouth twitched as he reached into his inventory, searching for a suitable crystal. He noticed it was suddenly harder to find anything inside and quickly realized the concealed space of his skill had expanded further.
'The skill mastery must have increased…'
Damon could not help but be delighted at this discovery. In this advancement, the once small room he could only entertain storing compact items in, seemingly became large enough for an entire living room furniture set.
Damon pressed his lips together as he retrieved a blue crystal and habitually pushed the thought to the back of his mind. The ice-cold affinity filled within sent a chill through his warm palm, and just as he was about to hand it to the man, his vision suddenly filled with a holographic panel.
*******************************
[<<< Status Panel Updated >>>]
[>>Estate Soul Reaping(Available)<<]
["Foolish phantoms remain trapped within walls of wealth. Are they still human or have they long since been the buds of a rotten tree?"]
["Your objective is to collect these phantoms"]
["Your Success Conditions are as follows."]
[" 1. Acquire a single sealing spell aligned with either the Death or Darkness affinities."]
[" 2. Prevent the souls of these phantoms from passing on to the afterlife at all costs ."]
[" 3. Collect all the souls dwelling on this land before the church officials."]
["Upon completion of this quest, the user will be gifted a Manual on soul infusion to aid the progress of his technique mastery. But failure….. "]
[Quest Duration 48 hours]
'So this is your doing…' Damon sighed inwardly. At first, he was dumbfounded that Tomoe could even propose a quest so outlandish. But he then recalled his master had nothing better to do.
Naturally, messing with him would be her favourite pastime!
'The reward is tempting, but I'm not doing this master..!'
As daring as Damon was, his fearlessness had not reached heights comparable to those of Vincent. Unlike his brother, he understood to temper his ego as a newly awakened specter, at least until he had the strength to do as he pleased.
'Only an idiot would attempt to hinder Kruger and Lorelei simultaneously,' he mused. However, that thought was cut as he felt a gaze boring through him.
"Is there something wrong?" Valentino's accent faltered as his voice sounded with impatience and discomfort. "I know you are still apprehensive about me, but I can assure you I have done nothing to warrant the attention of the churches."
"Sorry, mister, that's no—"
Damon opened his mouth, then abruptly stopped. He flinched back, eyes widening as he looked past Valentino
On the windows behind them, different faces leered at him with slackened jaws and sinister expressions. They pressed against the glass with ghostly white hands as a cold film spread on the surface.
As their attention was redirected, Henry and Valentino also froze on the spot.
Damon wanted to warn them against staring while their mystic sense skills were active when he suddenly heard the man squeal.
"T-the… spiritual energy is rising!" he said, his eyes shimmering with a golden glow.
Despite the distance, Lorelei sensed it as well. She studied the building for a few seconds with her enhanced vision, expanding the range of her mystic sense to cover the structure. At that moment, she saw more shadows rising from the floors, and her spiritual energy erupted.
"You three, get down from there!"
As her voice echoed, she dashed toward the base of the stairs, leaving the stunned detective behind with his straggling captive.
'Something's definitely wrong here!'
Damon sucked in a breath of cold air as he heard the deaconess.
He quickly imbued the icy crystal with death affinity to complete his agreement with Valentino, then tossed it towards the man, breaking his sight free from the ominous window fixtures.
Thereafter, he moved towards the left side of the staircase and skilfully vaulted over the metal railing. With his legs slightly bent, he trampled the flowers beneath without care as he landed, and the sound of the other two followed behind.
"H-How are there so many of them.?" Henry stood up in exasperation, his shoulders quivering as he looked back. "It's practically a ghost festival at this point!"
'Maybe if we could still see the lights inside….' Damon noticed the growing darkness and instantly recalled something.
It was well-lit when they had entered the building!
Those glary lights had illuminated every corner and corpse, allowing the second and third floors to reattain a shred of mundane familiarity. However, they were now completely masked, drowned out in the mass of laughing phantoms.
Damon was a little worried the glass might not hold against the spiritual force. He turned to Valentino and inquired, "Are they all faces you know?"
"Certainly Not!" he replied, "Even if we accounted for the indoor servants and grounds keepers who do not reside on the property and were not here tonight, I am still sensing an additional thirty beings lingering in the building beyond what we can see near the windows."
Damon's mind raced with questions, but before he could process this information, Lorelei came to a stop before them, her expression becoming grave.
"Have either of you been taught a sealing spell or skill? " she pressed, anxiety evident in her high-pitched voice.
"We only recently became Specters, remember? There's no way we would have anything like that!" Damon shook his head earnestly, mirroring her tone. Through reading the young woman's intent, he could tell she already had a solution brewing in her head.
She glanced at Valentino, her eyes narrowing slightly, and added, "I suspect there is a gate opening below the manor and it's rather old."
Feeling the scrutiny behind those eyes, the man had to dispel that suspicion. "I swear to you and the goddesses I have no knowledge of a—"
Crack!
As he started, the sound of glass faltering reached their ears. First, it was only one, but then.
Creak..!
Creak…! Creak…!
With each sound, another jagged line spread across those transparent surfaces.
'Ugh.. It's getting closer.'
A chill ran down Damon's nape, his hair standing on end as he and Henry struggled to keep their composure. He could almost hear the laughter slipping through.
For ages, laughter had often been a way for humanity to express the fleeting delight and joy felt in their lives, yet the voices held nothing but sorrow and pain, tapping ever so slightly against his mind.
A thief in the night quietly breaking in.
At the same time, he looked over and saw the blue-haired deaconess shove the figure wrapped in white into Valentino's slender arms. She stared intently at him and voiced sharply, "Save your defence for later. Look after her while I handle this!"
Just as her words fell, she swiped her hand to the side, and a wand appeared in her grasp. With the poise and grace of one conducting a choir, her hand moved through the air before her, conjuring a series of wave-shaped runes. Her tassels fluttering in the wind.
Watching Lorelei's fluid-like hands, Damon began to wonder if musical themes were naturally connected to the doctrine of the goddess Olympia. He had no idea whether the deaconess also boasted a musical background; however, the gestures she performed matched Cecil's, as if they were linked to the same source.
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet began to rumble.
Lorelei acted at that moment. Her hand rose in the air with white spiritual energy, and she began to cast a spell.
"Innerer Geist [Inner Spirit] Imprisonment"
"Restrict all that is imminent."
"And by thy water's decree."
"Claim them undersea."
The syllables reverberated around them for half a second. Then, as the Detective and Josephine got closer, a louder rumble shook them once more and sent vibrations through their bodies.
Damon and Henry were able to discern the spell was the same one she had attempted to use on them. But neither was prepared for what followed.
Woosh!
As if by her command, four torrents of water rose from the lake, flowing towards the base of the structure. In an instant, they shrouded its entirety and began to condense.
Before their eyes, an enormous dome of ice formed!
With his senses focused, Damon tried to perceive what affinity had been used. The water affinity was rather palpable since he had previously seen Vincent's water manipulation skill. But there was something else woven into the frozen barrier. The air around them was not just cold.
"Could she be using a higher output of space?" he wondered under his breath.
Henry squinted as he stared at the barrier. He knew this feeling, but it took him a moment to place it. "No, her output is much higher than mine… but she's definitely using the Time affinity."
Lowering her arms, Lorelei turned to Valentino, who stood dazed in awe, and her expression remained sharp. "Is there another way to return to the main gate from here?"
"The fastest route would have been via the horse stables, but regrettably, you have already sealed them off with your spell.. We would have to either walk around the grounds or alongside the lake until we reach the edge of the property," The man replied.
Damon looked around and said with a long sigh.
"We should get walking then."