Chapter 343: "You can see me?"
Even before turning to whatever presence stood behind him, Rohan had a feeling it wasn’t something from this world, as an unusual chill went down his spine. He didn’t move for a few seconds, before he slowly straightened and turned around to face it, and his brows shot up at what stood at the doorway of the room.
A spirit. A very dark one, nothing but swirling black, thick mist with glowing red eyes flickering within the smoke.
"Where did you come from?" Rohan asked with genuine curiousity, for he knew this was no place for a spirit.
"You can see me?" came the voice from within the mist. The sound was breezy and distant, echoing faintly even though the spirit stood near.
Rohan’s brows knitted together as he asked, "Am I not meant to see you?"
"No!" yelled the dark spirit. "No one sees me!"
Rohan also knew the living shouldn’t have the ability to see something from the other world, but the fact that he could see the spirit didn’t surprise him. He could also see Kuhn, who didn’t belong here either.
"I can see you," he said flatly. "If that makes you feel any better. What are you doing here?" He crooked his head sideways to study the smoke, not the least bit frightened by the thing, though the spirit had no intention of speaking with him and had come for another purpose.
"Keep whatever you took from there back in its place," came the breezy voice of the spirit. The words carried a clear warning as it swirled around the doorway, making a low, buzzing sound like humming bees.
Rohan knew about dark spirits. He had been a man who had studied many things about death and whatever lay beyond it through Kuhn, and he knew this was a remnant of a soul, left behind in the form of black smoke in this house. Probably Isabelle’s part that had not left even after she died. That meant she had unfinished matters in this world, leaving this part of herself behind in the same room she had died.
Or, according to the Dawsons’ beliefs, perhaps she simply didn’t want anyone here anymore and was hell-bent on driving people away, just like the madwoman they claimed she had been, even after her death.
It wasn’t her real soul, but only a part of it. From what he had learned, souls could be divided into different fragments according to one’s emotions, but such division could only be done with a reaper’s power. This part here was evil, the kind no one would want to mess with. It was said such spirits were left behind to haunt a house and drive away those who resided in it after a bitter death. Worse, they had the power to possess a body.
This was the kind of spirit that called for an exorcist to be summoned and drive it away.
No wonder the town was deserted. Haunted town indeed. Rohan found it intriguing as he tucked the diary into his pocket, along with the portraits he had taken from the chest, and then pat his coat where he had put the book as he murmured. "Whatever I take from here will be going out of here with me, spirit. They belong to me now."
The smoke had no face to hold expression, but Rohan could tell his words had not pleased it, for the temperature of the room suddenly dropped, and the smoke grew larger in size.
"I will kill you!" it shrieked.
Rohan saw the attack coming, but he had no chance to avoid it. The spirit wailed so loudly that it distracted him for a moment, the sound piercing through his head. In that moment, it used its power to crack a wooden plank from the floor panel and sent the sharp edge flying toward his eyes, intending to blind him. He barely managed to raise his hand to block it, and the wood pierced straight through his palm, jutting out the other side, only a fraction away from driving into his eye.
Rohan hissed in annoyance at the unexpected pain. "Damn you!" he gritted, as more wood began to split from the floorboards and doors, flying at him like weapons. All the while, the spirit’s deafening, enraged wail filled the room, ringing inside his sensitive ears. He opened his wings wide, using them as shields to block the attacks and protect the vital points of his body from fatal harm.
He had come here for answers, not to fight a spirit, especially one with no body to fight or harm. The best option was to find an escape. But even that proved impossible, for everything inside the room was breaking apart and turning into weapons to strike him down.
A thick, sharpened piece of wood hurtled toward his chest, and Rohan’s eyes locked on it. With a swift movement, he knocked it away with his elbow, though the effort left a shallow cut across his arm that oozed black blood.
"I didn’t come here with the intention of stealing your things, spirit!" Rohan shouted through the chaos, raising his voice above the storm for the thing to hear. But if the damn thing heard him, its screams only grew louder and more piercing, so loud that Rohan fought the urge to cover his ears.
"I WILL KILL YOU! KEEP THE THINGS!"
This time, the spirit’s scream shook the fragile house itself, rattling the walls and even the ground beneath. That was when Rohan decided to unleash his own powers to force a way out.
Balls of flame grew large in his palms, blazing brighter and hotter as he hurled them at the smoke, trying to burn a path to escape. But the flames passed through the entity harmlessly, only making it smoke swell larger and rage even fiercer.
"I just fucking trapped myself," Rohan muttered with a dry chuckle, realizing his flames were only fueling its anger.
Shards of wood, broken glass from windows, and splintered door fragments rushed toward him from every direction, moving so quickly even his speed could barely keep him ahead. He fought them off, edging closer and closer to a shattered window behind the spirit. He had already taken what he wanted from the chest, leaving the house was his only choice now as fighting the smoke was like fighting an invincible person.
But the moment he managed to finally leap onto the window frame, wings spread wide to take flight while still knocking off weapons coming in his direction, a shard of glass he missed to avoid from the many coming at him, sliced straight through his throat, cutting clean into his windpipe.