Chapter 116: Desperate Straits 1

Kent drew a deep breath.

He had decided to test his suspicion.

The next time the black mist surged toward the room, Kent deliberately delayed his Illumination spell by half a beat.

It was only the briefest hesitation—

just enough time for the fog to enter the room, but not enough for it to actually reach him or Daphne.

Then something strange happened.

The black mist slowed as well.

It had clearly possessed enough momentum to pour straight through the window.

Yet at the very moment it should have crossed the threshold, it abruptly stopped just outside.

“Kent…?”

Daphne stared at him in alarm.

When she saw that he had not immediately cast another spell, she assumed his mana had finally run out.

Her face filled with worry.

Kent turned toward her and forced a faint smile.

But no matter how he tried to hide it, the smile looked strained.

He slowly exhaled.

Then the Illumination spell gathering in his hand dispersed.

Kent looked toward the darkness outside the window and asked in a low voice,

“What exactly do you want?”

“Have you been doing all this just to toy with us?”

“Hahaha!”

The black mist outside suddenly began churning.

“So humans are supposed to be the most cunning race?”

The fog rapidly contracted.

“From what I’ve seen, you’re not particularly impressive.”

“Hahaha!”

As the darkness withdrew, the Phantom Wraith finally revealed itself again.

It laughed openly, its voice filled with mockery.

Kent stared at it—

and felt a shock run through him.

The Phantom Wraith looked different.

Far different.

Its body was much clearer than it had been before the battle.

Even its voice had become noticeably more distinct.

At this moment, it almost looked like a living young woman.

And the more Kent looked at it, the more disturbed he became.

Its appearance now resembled Daphne.

Not perfectly.

But enough to make the resemblance impossible to ignore.

Kent suppressed the shock in his heart.

“Why?”

The Phantom Wraith tilted its head.

“Why?”

Its voice, once harsh and metallic, now sounded almost entirely human.

“That’s simple.”

“We Phantom Wraiths survive by feeding on the souls of living creatures.”

“You already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

Kent sneered.

“What I don’t know is how many tens of thousands of lives you had to devour before you managed to build that disgusting body of yours.”

“Heh.”

The Phantom Wraith gave a soft laugh.

“Humans.”

Its expression became mocking.

“And you still call yourself a mage.”

“In your eyes, are those lowly commoners really equal members of your own race?”

“How hypocritical.”

Kent fell silent for a moment.

The words were unpleasant—

but he could not completely deny them.

Kent himself had never considered one life inherently more valuable than another.

But people who thought that way were rare.

Forget mages.

Even moderately powerful nobles often treated commoners and slaves as though they were not truly human.

They could beat them.

Humiliate them.

Even kill them.

And in many places, the price for doing so amounted to little more than a small fine or some insignificant punishment.

Among mages, the situation was even worse.

Mages were often described as the people closest to the gods.

And those who saw themselves as standing above ordinary humanity rarely cared about what happened to lives they regarded as beneath them.

Still, Kent could not simply accept the Phantom Wraith’s argument.

“I’ll admit that many mages are exactly as you described.”

He looked coldly at the creature.

“But what about your kind?”

“Which powerful Wraith wasn’t built upon the lives of countless living beings?”

“Hmph.”

The Phantom Wraith gave a disdainful snort.

“Human.”

“No amount of arguing changes the truth.”

“We Wraiths kill because we must survive.”

“And besides, we are not the same race as humans.”

“But you?”

“You kill members of your own kind.”

“So tell me—who is truly disgusting?”

Its lips curved into a cold smile.

“If anything, I find your bodies far more revolting.”

“And as for what you humans keep inside those heads of yours…”

The Phantom Wraith shook its head mockingly.

“I truly have no idea.”

“Forget all that.”

Kent drew a deep breath and refused to continue the argument.

“What I want to know is this—why did you do all that just now?”

The Phantom Wraith studied him with her gray-white eyes for a moment.

Then she asked,

“Do you know why there are so few truly powerful members among the Wraith race?”

“No.”

Kent answered aloud, though unease had already begun stirring in his heart.

A disturbing possibility suddenly occurred to him.

Could it be that all those light spells he had thrown at her had actually been helping?

The answer that followed nearly made him want to curse himself to death.

“Heh.”

The Phantom Wraith smiled.

“We Wraiths grow stronger by devouring the souls of living creatures.”

“That allows us to increase our power very quickly.”

“But every soul we consume carries countless memories and emotions.”

“Those memories remain inside us.”

“So do the fear, hatred, grief, desire, madness, and every other emotion belonging to the dead.”

“As more and more of them accumulate, they eventually begin interfering with our own consciousness.”

“When that happens, we have no choice but to divide our spiritual bodies.”

“Otherwise, sooner or later, the conflicting memories and emotions will drive us insane.”

“And once a Wraith loses its mind…”

She smiled faintly.

“It usually ends up becoming food for another Wraith.”

Kent’s expression grew darker with every word.

“That’s why our race may be numerous, but the quality of our members is another matter entirely.”

“Only a tiny number of Wraiths are lucky enough to survive that stage without splitting.”

“And that is also why Wraiths occupy one of the lowest positions among necromantic creatures.”

Her smile widened.

“As for what I was doing just now…”

“I was using your light magic to erase some of the useless memories inside my body.”

“The results were quite good.”

“If I hadn’t happened to meet a rare light-element mage like you in the underground world, I would probably have been forced to split into two Wraiths before long.”

She even gave Kent a pleasant smile.

“So really, I should thank you.”

“You treacherous bastard!”

Kent shouted the instant she finished speaking.

At the same moment, two Soul Dispersion spells shot from his hands.

Not one.

Two.

And the instant they were released, Kent decisively severed the spiritual links connecting him to both spells.

Then he grabbed Daphne by the hand and ran.

The Phantom Wraith had shaken Kent’s confidence earlier.

But Kent had, after all, lived through two lifetimes.

It did not take him long to recover his composure.

More importantly, he had never stopped sensing the faint pressure of the creature’s spiritual lock upon him.

Just now, while she was enjoying her success and thanking him, that pressure had weakened for the briefest instant.

Kent seized the opportunity without hesitation.

“DAMNED HUMAN!”

The Phantom Wraith’s furious roar exploded behind them.

“Despicable!”

“Treacherous!”

“I was going to spare you!”

“Now you can both wait for death!”

“I, Joko, will never let you escape!”

The Phantom Wraith had been in an excellent mood only moments earlier.

The fragments of memory Kent’s light magic had erased were enough to allow her to continue cultivating toward an even higher level.

Wraiths could strengthen themselves not only by devouring the souls of living creatures, but also by consuming other Wraiths.

Originally, Joko had refused to believe the reports brought by the weaker spirits.

They had claimed that Kent could use necromantic magic.

But how could a light-element mage possibly be a necromancer as well?

At first, she had remained cautious.

Yet throughout their battle, Kent had done nothing but cast light-element spells over and over again.

Little by little, her suspicion had faded.

And just when she finally lowered her guard—

Kent struck her with Soul Dispersion.

Her fury was immediate.

“Spare us?”

Kent thought bitterly as he dragged Daphne along by her soft, warm hand and ran for his life.

“More like you wanted to keep me alive so I could clean out the unwanted memories in your head whenever you needed it.”

“Are we not going outside?”

Daphne asked in confusion.

She had noticed that Kent was not heading toward the temple entrance.

Instead, he was running deeper underground.

Kent glanced behind them as he ran.

Seeing nothing immediately pursuing them, he finally answered,

“That Wraith was right outside the window.”

“If we run out through the main entrance, we’ll practically run straight into her.”

“And outside is that enormous open plaza.”

He tightened his grip on Daphne’s hand.

“In terrain that open, we’d be at a huge disadvantage.”

“Oh.”

Only after hearing Kent’s explanation did Daphne realize that she had not thought the situation through carefully enough.

Her admiration for him immediately grew.

If Kent had known what she was thinking, he probably would have been so surprised that his jaw dropped.

In truth, his decision was simply based on the circumstances.

The Phantom Wraith had been lurking directly outside the window, and that side of the temple was closest to the vast plaza outside.

In a wide, open space like that, describing a Wraith’s movement as “running” would hardly be accurate.

Flying was much closer to the truth.

Wraiths could pass through certain physical obstacles, but only when those obstacles were not too thick.

And strangely enough, the higher their level became, the harder it was for them to phase through solid matter.

A Phantom Wraith’s greatest strengths were instead its extraordinary speed, its complete lack of footsteps or movement sounds, and its ability to alter its appearance.

Those traits were precisely what had earned the creature its name.

The narrow underground passages, by contrast, limited those advantages.

For Kent and Daphne, the tunnels were actually the best terrain for dealing with a Phantom Wraith.

Everything had its advantages and disadvantages.

Power always came with limitations.

Joko, meanwhile, was nearly beside herself with rage.

Soul Dispersion did not inflict particularly severe damage on a Phantom Wraith.

But it could not simply be ignored either.

The spell behaved almost like a cancerous growth.

If left untreated, it would slowly spread through the Wraith’s spiritual body.

Eventually, it could consume the entire creature and destroy it.

There was only one reliable way to stop that from happening.

The affected portion had to be abandoned.

That was the true reason Joko was so furious.

For Wraiths, the size and completeness of their spiritual bodies were directly tied to their strength and level.

The two Soul Dispersion spells Kent had cast were not powerful enough to reduce Joko’s level.

But removing the contaminated sections still meant tearing away pieces of her own body.

And that was anything but painless.

A Wraith was, after all, essentially a living soul-form.

To tear apart the spiritual body was no different from ripping apart the soul itself.

For any sentient creature, that kind of pain was almost unbearable.

“Damn you!”

Joko snarled.

“I’ll devour both your souls!”

“Cunning, filthy humans!”

After struggling for some time, she finally tore the two contaminated sections away from herself by force.

The severed fragments rapidly condensed.

In the end, they became two tiny silvery-white droplets, each no larger than a bead of water, and fell outside the window.

Joko immediately extended her senses.

Kent and Daphne had already entered the underground passages.

Her gray-white face twisted with fury.

Grinding her teeth, she rushed after them.

Yet beneath that rage, another emotion was beginning to rise.

Excitement.

Joko desperately wanted to know how Kent was capable of cultivating two completely opposing types of magic at the same time.

Light magic.

And necromantic magic.

The two were natural enemies.

Yet somehow, Kent possessed both.

The thought of devouring his soul made Joko almost tremble with anticipation.

If she could discover his secret—

if she herself could somehow wield both light-element and necromantic magic—

then perhaps even that old monster in the deepest part of the underground ruins would no longer be a threat.

The moment she thought of that existence, however, Joko involuntarily shuddered.

Even she feared the old creature hidden below.

Strangely, though, there had been no sign of him since yesterday.

Not even the faintest trace of his presence.

Joko did not know what had happened.

But that only made Kent’s soul even more tempting.

If she could devour him and obtain the secret behind his contradictory powers…

Perhaps everything would change.

That thought sent another thrill through her.

Joko accelerated.

Her speed increased by another third as she plunged into the darkness after Kent and Daphne.