144 Mortal World 10

For a week, Lia has trained with Yano and made tremendous progress. She was able to let her lifeforce flow out of her body freely and to a large amount yet still had to rely on the rings.

Lia had to admit that Yano was a good teacher. He explained things clearly and easily and had a lot of patience. His little tricks were also incredibly useful and Lia wondered how Yano discovered them. Was he just that talented or was it luck?

Every night, Lia accompanied them purging ghosts, this time it was with Yano, Mil and Skyla. Yano never let Lia go without him, he said seriously that he was Lia's teacher and needed to be there for her.

Their mission was to purge an abandoned factory with an abundance of ghosts swarming around. Reports of mortals have noted that there were scary things going around the factory until curious self-proclaimed ghosts hunters or non-believer enthusiasts came to check out the factory.

Because there were actual ghosts all of them died and the factory became a hot spot for more people to gather around to scout the phenomenon. This only resulted in more people dying, fueling ghosts and attracting more ghosts.

"Again," Skyla said as they ran across the field to get to the factory, "Those talismans! What the hell, who's that? And we still can't figure it out!"

Skyla was frustrated. She was right. Now in almost each of their missions, they saw the talisman hanging around, but no investigation pointed at any specific person or clue towards their origin.

The area of the factory was outside the city. There were several abandoned factories with construction sites all over the place, yet it was clear that nothing would be built here again for a long while.

"There are quite a lot of factories, which one is it?" Lia looked around but each factory she saw had no signs of ghosts but they were all the same.

The concrete walls were chipped away at many parts, the windows were broken or just like the door, completely ripped out. Grass and weed grew inside and around the ground. All in all, this was a place littered with trash void of ghosts and abandoned for an indefinite future.

"This place's huge," Yano scowled, "Might be somewhere in the back? Here," Yano took Lia's hand, I can't have you get lost."

Lia had the incredible urge to punch him but before she could do anything, Yano already pulled her along with him.

"You both check the surrounding areas to see if there are other ghosts."

"You just want alone time with her," Mil rolled his eyes, "Arent you always together?"

"Mil, my good friend, I'm giving you and Skyla some alone time. Of course, we both," Yano looked at Lia with his little smile, "are always together."

Lia pressed her lips together as Mil and Skyla got gradually smaller and now Lia could only see Yano's annoying face.

While Yano still ran at a fast speed, he summoned a sword from his hand and gave it to Lia.

Lia turned her head away and said, "I prefer daggers."

"Oh, alright," the sword instantly vanished and Yano held a knife, "How many? 2,3,4,5,6—"

"1 is enough!" Lia grabbed the dagger but then meekly mumbled, "or 2…"

Yano laughed and gave her another. Under the moonlight, his raven black hair had a silver shine to it which were reflected in his eyes and his carefree laughter magnified the beautiful night.

For a second, Lia was entranced. She didn't know how someone could be this free-spirited and seemingly enjoying their life. He was the complete opposite to her and she could feel that bit by bit, bit by bit he influenced her. And she didn't like it.

They scouted the place until they finally found the factory. Up until now, they saw no vengeful ghosts but this sight here could even make exorcists despair.

The whole factory was filled to the brim with ghosts, they were mashed up against each other, no space between them, as some of them even leaked out of the windows and doors, desperately trying to get inside.

Just what was in the factory? Just what were those talisman, capable of controlling the ghosts, mindlessly, to this extent? The even more bone-chilling discovery was that a group of mortal young adults stood in front of the factory.

They whispered and pulled each other to let someone go in while all the eyes of the ghosts inside the factory moved along with them, glued to their bodies, patiently waiting for their victims to enter, so they could feast on them.

Yano pulled Lia behind another factory, "Can you take care of the humans? Bring them away from the factory, I'll purge all the ghosts inside."

"Alone?" Lia was sceptical, even if she had her corpses, there were around 1000s of ghosts at least inside the factory. It wasn't easy purging them and Lia still didn't know what power Yano had.

"Are you worried?" Yano's infuriating smile reappeared, "I'll be fine. This is nothing, I've done way, way worse."

"No need to brag," Lia couldn't stand seeing Yano's self-fulfilling smile.

Yano was still holding Lia's hand when he raised it to his lips and pressed a kiss on the back of her hand.

Shocked, Lia tried to pull away but instead, Yano pushed her closer to him and whispered, "Be careful."

Then he let go of her and rushed to the factory from behind, so the mortals didn't see him. Quickly trying to get over what Yano just did, Lia walked up to the mortals.

"Are you going in?" a simple question made the 5 mortals jump up and scream in panic.

"D-Did you just hear -what I heard?" a young male turned to his friends. The others nodded. Lia's face blanked, "I'm not invisible."

"There it was again!"

Were they just stupid or dumb?

"I'm behind you," Lia ran out of patience.

"Oh," the guy said and then laughed nervously. The five of them looked at Lia and sighed in relief.

"Don't scare us like this!" another guy said, "You also here to scout the ghost facility?"

"Is that what it's called?"

"Yeah!" a younger boy answered, "Rumours say that a thousand workers from the other factories have been locked in here because guess what, they wanted a pay raise! So, the employers locked them here and let them starve to death! Now," the boy made a ghostly imitation, "They want everyone's blood to satisfy their anger!"

Mortals always made up stories for ghosts. It was definitely not true. The ghosts inside the factory were from all around, not just factory workers.

"There's no point doing something stupid," Lia sighed.

"You can go with us! We'll protect you."

"You're afraid to go alone, how could you possibly protect me?" Lia bluntly said but this rubbed one of the guys the wrong way.

"Who are you calling a chicken? I'm a proper fried wolf!"

"No one-"

"Watch!" the taller guy shouted cutting Lia off and raced to the entrance where the ghosts excitedly watched their prey charging at them.

Lia cursed and ran after him. Just before he could step a foot inside, Lia grabbed him from behind, however, a few ghosts have been able to touch the mortal's leg. Now that they have experienced the smooth flesh, their cravings couldn't be contained by the factory nor the talisman and they flew out to eat their fill.