Chapter 376 - Burn The Castle Down
Elliot snorted after hearing Sayu. When he realized that he was the only person who laughed, he immediately recovered his posture. "Sorry. I just thought that for a moment, you were joking."
"What even are ghosts?" Hope asked.
"Ghosts are the souls that roam the world," Sayu said. "Usually, when a person dies and they have unfinished business in this world, they stay and haunt the living. Souls prey on humans who have weak mental fortitude."
"That would make sense," Lance said. "Among all of us, these three have the weakest mental fortitude, Viper being the weakest."
"And you really believe such thing?" Elliot snorted. "Ghosts are not real. They are just fictional stuff they tell you children so they would behave or something. It's not–"
Before he could finish, the room shook and everything went cold. He looked around and saw everyone having the same shocked expression.
The wooden panels, floors, and everything in the room became old and antique. It looked like a hundred years had passed in just a blink of an eye.
"The ghost!" Sayu gasped. "It has gained a tremendous amount of power!"
"How?" Lance asked. Elliot was about to say something but Lance stopped him. "Just listen for once."
"The ghost gains power through their victim's negative energy," Sayu said. "It was gaining three people's negative energy, and consumed one of them completely."
"That's horrible," Lance gasped. "Everyone, gather around. We're facing a beast that used to be human. If I could calculate the scale of this beast, it's comparable to a Palace Guard."
"That's not that hard," Connor said confidently. "Then we can just finish it."
"But I'm not done yet," Lance continued. "A Palace Guard that has the strength of a Knight and physical properties of a Phantom."
"Oh," Connor formed an O with his lips. "Can't we burst it down?"
"Yes, if we can catch it," Lance said. "You know how phantoms are. They're very tolerant to most physical attacks."
The room shook once more. Lance looked at Elliot who was then looking at Sayu. The woman was looking around in panic while holding the emperor behind her.
"We must evacuate first," Sayu ordered. "But then our problem would start."
Elliot quirked his brow up, "What problem?"
"The ghost has latched itself into that boy," Sayu pointed Viper. "That boy will have trouble evacuating."
"What should we do then?" Lance asked. "We can't just leave Viper here."
"We're not," Sayu sighed and faced Emperor Yamato. "My lord, I feel like we need to do the ritual here. The ghost has already latched itself to someone. We have the upper hand."
Elliot walked closer to them, "Tell us your plan."
"We may need to sacrifice that boy," Sayu said. "Since the ghost is with him, we can seal him in this castle and burn it down. The ghost possessed the castle itself before, so we couldn't possibly destroy it. But since this is a living creature, we can easily seal him and burn him down with the castle. Living creatures are bad for ghost's possessions."
"Absolutely not," Elliot said, crossing his arm. "We will not let you kill our friend."
"We have no choice," Sayu said. "The ghost had been haunting this castle for eons. It had collected enough energy to become something ruthless."
"Then we go berserk," Elliot chuckled. "I'm not a stranger to risk, my friends knows that. A beast like this is nothing."
Everything went dark and cold. Elliot flattened his lips while the people around him looked at him with glaring eyes. He chuckles and scratched the back of his head while he looked around to see the room.
It felt like they were in the break of dawn. It was dark, but not so that they couldn't see everything. They could also feel the cold, but not so much that they would freeze to death.
The feeling was odd and foreign, but familiar at the same time. Every strand of hair in their body erected, but they feel calm.
"Is this the power of the ghost?" Elliot gulped. "How is it this powerful?"
"Poison Fog."
Viper suddenly leaped from the sofa and ran outside the room, leaving a dark purple cloud that covered the entire room.
"Viper!" Elliot yelled, but he was too late. The boy had already fled.
"It's too late! He left," Sayu yelled. "There's poison in the air. Everyone, cover your nose and mouth. Follow me to the exit."
Sayu took a cloth from her pocket and handed it to the emperor. She then took a device from her pocket while letting the emperor out first.
The device was a white gem that was attached to a metal scepter. In the middle was a button that when she clicked, it made the gem lit up with a bright white light.
"Follow!" Sayu yelled. She exited the room with the light, making it easier to spot her through the mist of poison cloud. The group made their way outside of the room completely. Sayu then closed the door and slammed it shut, placing both her palms on the door that made it lit up.
"Close," Sayu ordered. The wooden panels of the walls weaved itself into the door, making it one of them. The door disappeared completely not a few seconds later.
"I wonder why that cloud didn't kill us instantly," Florencia thought as she panted. "I saw him use that cloud before. The boar we were fighting grew warts in its body and exploded like a bomb."
"That's horrifying," Elliot gasped. "Is that part of the Skill Gems set I gave him?"
"It was, but he enhanced it with his magic," Christina answered. "Viper isn't something we should take lightly. He's practically stronger than most Adventurers in the League of Nobles and Royals."
"We will find him, then," Elliot said. "We will take that ghost out of his body and we will reclaim our friend."
"But how, Elliot?" Ed asked. "You saw how easily he could escape us. And besides, how will we find him in the first place? This castle is too big."
"He's in the basement," Sayu said. "I have my eyes around the castle, and I just saw him take the stairs to the basement."
Four servants and eight guards made their way to them. Sayu greeted them and spoke in their language. For the Avancians, they just assumed that she was giving orders.
Watching Sayu act, Elliot had to recall what he read in the book Ilwoo gave him. The book said that the females were practically servants and are under the orders of the male, but Sayu was the one giving orders right now.
She was even the one who soothed the emperor's shock who was speechless all throughout the events. The guards nodded to her and escorted the emeperor out, while the servants nodded and left.
"I just ordered the servants to evacuate everyone in here," Sayu finally spoke to them. "We will head to the basement and do what you must do. I will trust you on this."
"But if we're unsuccessful?" Elliot asked. "What will we do?"
"We do our way," Sayu replied nonchalantly.. "We burn this castle down."