Chapter 261 – Arrest and Fear

Chapter 261

After waiting for quite some time, they finally set off. Not long afterward, they arrived at a road leading to a village rumored to be haunted.

Aaron, who was leading the expedition, walked at the front of the group, guiding the four people following behind him.

"This place is actually pretty creepy, isn't it?" Zavi remarked, sensing that something was amiss in their surroundings.

Seeing an opportunity, Celvira slowed her pace until she was walking alongside Zavi, who was at the very back of the group.

"Ku, ku, ku. Could it be that you're scared?"

"Shut up," Zavi grumbled, shooting her a sharp glance.

For a moment, Zuhen's attention shifted to the rear for a few seconds before he turned his gaze forward again, watching every step he took.

Since the terrain was steep and rather slippery, they were extremely careful with every step. After all, they had only just arrived and had no idea what other dangers might be waiting for them along the way.

Then, up ahead, they came across a large fence overgrown with vines and thorny bushes. Not far beyond it stood a row of wooden buildings, several sections of which had already decayed and become nests for small animals.

They had no idea how long the village had been abandoned or what had driven its inhabitants to finally leave.

Although traces left behind by the villagers could still be found, the five of them had agreed to search for other remnants before taking any further action.

Meanwhile, still beside the first trace they had discovered, Zavi stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the ground beside him.

"This... This looks just like that game," Zavi said with a faint smile, briefly recalling a warm memory that he could not put into words.

It was a game that was most enjoyable when played by more than six people, and people in the old days called it Engklek.

"Engklek, huh? Why haven't these lines faded at all? Can't rain wear away the ground marked with white chalk?"

Confused, Zavi decided to play it first before focusing on his search. Besides, he knew he couldn't stay in this place for too long, especially not by himself.

After raising his right foot and preparing to step into the first square in front of him, Zavi finally jumped from the first square, landing in the fourth and fifth squares with both legs spread apart and his feet planted on the ground.

Then, he continued to the final square on his left foot before once again landing with both legs spread apart and his feet firmly on the ground.

Once he was satisfied, Zavi finally took his first steps toward finding something remarkable in the haunted village.

After walking a few steps, the early morning breeze seeped through his pores before chilling him to the bone. Zavi folded his arms across his chest, and a few seconds later, he rubbed his suddenly stiff neck.

'Is this place really haunted?'

As usual, Zavi decided to communicate with Celvira to ease the uneasiness in his heart. To be honest, this was the first time he had ever experienced such a sensation, and he couldn't remember the last time he had felt anything similar.

"Didn't that man tell you about it beforehand?"

While keeping her attention on the search for remnants in the village, Celvira answered Zavi's question in a rather sarcastic tone.

"Yeah, but..."

Celvira snorted.

"No buts."

She immediately cut off their communication for the time being.

Realizing this, Zavi raised his head slightly and cursed under his breath. Unbeknownst to him, his words had already attracted the attention of the supernatural beings lurking nearby.

Whoosh!

"What the hell was that?" Zavi immediately turned around as a cold gust of wind struck his body in an instant.

After standing still for a moment to observe his surroundings, Zavi became increasingly certain that the worst was about to happen to him.

With his mind drawing a blank and his breathing suddenly catching in his throat, Zavi quickly turned around and ran as fast as he could to find the others.

Agreeing to search for abandoned belongings in the village had been a foolish idea, one that had never even crossed his mind before, let alone something he would have agreed to. But it was already too late. Zavi himself had agreed to the idea and had willingly separated from the others.

'This is how I end up putting my own life in danger. I know it. I've even done something similar before, back when I set off for that auction.'

As he continued running, Zavi thought of ways to deal with the situation while his eyes darted incessantly from side to side.

A hundred meters from where he had been before, not long after he had begun thinking of a plan, a shrill laugh suddenly rang out from every direction.

His steps froze instantly, and he frantically raised his head to search for the source of the laughter.

Not long after panic overwhelmed his mind, his left foot shifted, followed by the rest of his body, as footsteps sounded from his left.

His eyes remained fixed on something lurking beyond the darkness, making him forget how to breathe normally.

Two seconds later, a black cat emerged from the darkness surrounding the courtyard of a house. Meowing, it approached Zavi.

Sensing that something was wrong with the cat, especially since it wasn't moving like an ordinary cat, Zavi took two steps backward and held his breath.

On the narrow path overgrown with tall grass and illuminated only by moonlight, Zavi immediately turned around, deciding to let the cat go.

He had barely taken two steps when his body froze. The cat meowed again, but this time, its meow was followed by a shrill laugh.

Zavi slowly turned his head and gave the cat one last look before continuing on his way. But suddenly, the black cat appeared right in front of him, as though refusing to let him escape.

'What the hell is wrong with that cat?'

The moment the thought crossed his mind, more identical black cats emerged from every direction, surrounding Zavi as he stood in their midst.

In a situation like this, he should have tried to remain calm and observe his surroundings before taking action. However, this time, Zavi acted more aggressively, blowing up the black cats without the slightest mercy.

A final groan rang out before explosions filled the area. Just when he thought everything was over, another strange occurrence unfolded. The cats that should have been dead from the explosions reappeared, surrounding Zavi exactly as they had before.

Zavi swallowed hard, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

"This place really is haunted."

As the words left his trembling lips, a ghost in the form of a woman wearing a thin, flowing white dress floated in front of Zavi's face, bringing her horrifying face almost into contact with his.

Zavi wanted to scream, but the words suddenly caught in his throat. He wanted to run, but his body refused to obey. In this tense situation, with his knees so weak that he could barely stand upright as he normally would, Zavi could only close his eyes, hoping the ghost would disappear from his sight.

But doing so was not as easy as he had imagined. The shrill laughter and the cats' meowing gradually gnawed away at his sanity and consciousness.

Not long after enduring that torment, his eyelids, which had been tightly shut, slowly opened for what might have been the first and last time.

As Zavi's body trembled more and more from an unimaginable fear, there was one important thing the female-shaped ghost did not know.

Ghosts, demons, evil spirits, and other supernatural beings could not kill humans. Zavi knew this fact. However, because they were so cunning, they had several ways of bringing about a human's death.

They could attack the weaknesses of human nature, such as lust, anger, arrogance, sorrow, and so on, before waiting for their victims to fall into situations they themselves might not even realize they had entered.

That was precisely what the horrifying female-shaped ghost was doing. It attacked humans like Zavi by overwhelming them with fear through their painful memories.

Such overwhelming fear arose because the "ghost" had inhabited the village for far too long. As a result, the evil energy inflicted upon its target was so powerful that the target's chances of survival were almost zero.

However, having anticipated this situation even before entering the village, Zavi did not show an expression of fear. Instead, despite the cold sweat covering his face, his expression was unmistakably one of disgust.

Before the female-shaped ghost realized that the situation around her had deviated from her plans, she slowly raised her nearly transparent head and discovered that numerous beings of her kind were surrounding her.

Before she could react, the many ghosts floating around them began cannibalizing one of their own.

Unwilling to let them drain her spiritual energy without resistance, the female-shaped ghost tried to fight back. But when that failed, she made her final decision and screamed as loudly as she could.

Zavi, who was still frozen with fear, felt his eardrums vibrating violently. Not only that, even as he remained motionless, he felt a burning sensation in his ears as thick liquid pooled over his shoulders.

In the distance, Aaron, who had just completed his task of capturing the supernatural being Setan, immediately turned around and stood up upon hearing the shrill scream.

Although the source of the scream was quite far away, Aaron immediately pinpointed its location thanks to his Exorcist ability.

'I didn't know Actitus could control ghosts. Was this his doing?'

Since the scream had come from the village entrance, where they had gathered to discuss their plans before splitting up and heading in different directions, Aaron decided to leave the large traditional house with its intricate design and return to the others.

Once everyone had gathered, rather than asking about the scream that had shaken the ground, their attention was drawn to the ghosts of various forms silently floating around Zavi.

"Is something wrong?" Zavi asked, trying to figure out what was going on by looking at their expressions.

"That...?" Felina finally voiced her thoughts, pointing at one of the ghosts that had caught her attention.

"Want to take it?" Zavi murmured, seeking confirmation.

"No. Thank you," Felina replied in a rather defensive tone.

Meanwhile, Zuhen, who was usually talkative even in the most critical situations to lighten the mood, was now completely silent. Even Felina, who had been with him for years, was surprised by such a drastic change in his behavior.

Even now, Felina couldn't stop thinking about the same question following the chaotic incident that night.

Was that mysterious man's ability really that dangerous?

She didn't know the answer. What she did know was that she had been trying to gather as much information as possible about the abilities and identity of the man named Loki Wesborn.

"Is something wrong?" Zavi asked, approaching Zuhen.

Zuhen nodded hesitantly before patting both pockets of his coat, thinking he might have a cigarette in one of them.

"Nothing, but... Are you all really not worried about that man and his terrifying abilities?"

After keeping his concerns bottled up for so long, Zuhen finally voiced one of the worries racing through his mind.

"That's why we're trying to find him," Zavi said in a serious tone.

'If I'm not mistaken, this is from an old story, isn't it? Finding information about his abilities is already difficult enough, let alone his identity. I've been thinking about this for far too long, but it was only after reaching one final conclusion that we all ended up here, before heading to that meteor city.'

"To be honest, I haven't given it much thought, even after learning that we had been asleep... or perhaps unconscious for several months."

Still unaware of the cause, Zavi tried to connect it to a problem he had experienced the previous year, although the details were different this time.

"So..." Aaron narrowed his eyes and asked, "Can we move now?"

"Of course," Zuhen replied before turning around and taking the lead.

Then, wanting to ease the invisible burden weighing on their minds, they each began chatting to lighten the atmosphere.

"I almost died from that scream earlier, you know," Zavi said jokingly.

"Is that true?" Felina asked, showing a little interest in the conversation.

Zavi nodded.

"It felt as though my entire body had vanished and my tongue had come out."

Meanwhile, Aaron, who was walking alongside Zuhen, tried to strike up a conversation by asking him a few questions.

"Don't you smoke?" he asked in a somewhat detached tone.

"Unfortunately, no," Zuhen replied with a sigh.

"From what I know, people who are addicted to cigarettes tend to be unable to think clearly if they go without smoking for a day, or even a few hours. Is that true?"

"You don't smoke. Did you hear that from someone?" Zuhen asked quietly, glancing at him.

"No," Aaron replied.

"Then...?"

"Just from what I've observed," Aaron stated with a faint smile.

Meanwhile, behind them, the ghosts that had previously been under Zavi's control slowly disappeared, returning to the places where they had been staying.