[Ruins]

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Claude walked through the silent streets of the massive abandoned city, following the group as their footsteps reverberated in the once-still air.

The cobblestone path they treaded was worn and cracked, with moss and weeds covering sections of it like most of the city. The atmosphere was thick with an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional creak of withered structures settling in their decay.

"Karl? Do you have any idea where we are meant to go?" Claude looked at Karl as he asked, he didn't want to wander aimlessly in such a place for any longer than necessary.

"Well... I guess we could try to search the buildings around here." Karl scratched his chin as he replied with uncertainty.

He had never ventured into any ruin as they were often fraught with danger, so he was as inexperienced as everyone else in regards to what they were to do.

However, soon Karls's eyes widened as a thought flashed in his mind, 'Wait... Danger!?' 

Bang!

Suddenly, one of the buildings nearby, overgrown with flora and weathered, possibly a former home, collapsed in a thunderous crash. Dust filled the air as the building turned to rubble, the sound reverberating through the empty streets.

Gulp!

The distinct sound of swallowing echoed as everyone's throats bobbed in unison.

 With a nervous chuckle, Karl looked around at everyone, as he tried to maintain a semblance of composure. "Well... Perhaps we should wait till we can confirm the buildings are stable enough for us to enter."

"For now, we should probably head to the centre of the city, maybe the buildings would be better preserved there?"

Hearing his words, the group nodded their heads without hesitation.

As much as their blood was pumping at the thought of conquering these ruins, dying inside a collapsing building was not the way they wanted to leave this world.

Soon, they all began heading deeper into the city.

As he walked, Claude's eyes scanned the surrounding scenery. He only felt awe at the variety of contraptions that filled the city, despite their weathered and rusty appearances.

Filling his sight were giant clocktowers with their hands frozen in time, scattered around the dead city. 

Clocks and watches were something that Claude could only hear about from Raymond and were something exclusive to nobility.

Yet, the clock towers were all he could understand, everything else was completely alien to him.

He could see some strange oval-shaped balloon that rested on a tall building in the distance, its fabric torn and partially deflated.

Elsewhere, enormous steel pythons rested on long veined paths of metal.

Despite all the knowledge Claude had been taught, he couldn't even begin to fathom their functions

"Chief, do you think we got lucky? There doesn't seem to be any bloodborne here?" Someone from the crowd queried, hopeful about not having to deal with the bloodborne.

"Aye! You got that right! If they were here, we would probably be hearing their damn war chants by now as they charged over." Answered Karl, much to the relief of everyone around him, yet he continued.

"But... I think the bloodborne may be the least of our concerns... I feel like something is off about this place. And, no I'm not talking about those strange metal contraptions." Karl said, confusing everyone with his random bout of worrying.

Claude squinted his eyes as he tried to figure out why Karl felt something amiss here.

Suddenly, something flashed in his mind, "Animals... There are no animals in the city..." Claude said, further confusing most around him.

"Yes! For an abandoned city like this, wouldn't you expect it to be filled with wildlife? Especially prey, shouldn't they thrive in a place like this filled with nooks and crevices to hide themselves and a plentiful source of food with plants covering most of the buildings here...?" Peter's eyes beside him brightened as he understood what Claude was getting at.

"So where are they?" Karl paused his movements, as he grasped his chin and spoke.

The rest of the group understood the problem at hand, and chills crawled up their spines.

Such a thing didn't even cross anyone's mind until Claude mentioned it.

They all stopped walking along with Karl, warily looking at their surroundings as they tried to find whatever would cause such a thing.

Whoosh!

A soft sound of something flitting through the air managed to crawl into everyone's ears.

Rustle!

Strange sounds seemed to be emanating from all around them. The group's eyes darted around in a panic as they tried to find what was causing these noises.

"By Solhart above! What is that?!" Karl suddenly shouted, his voice breaking the quietude that enveloped them.

They all then looked at where Karl was facing, and their faces turned as white as chalk.

Floating towards them were a group of around a dozen semi-transparent humanoid figures.

They wore tattered garments; the males in long, flowing tailcoats with strange rounded hats, and the females in large, puffy gowns with trailing skirts.

Nevertheless, that wasn't what caused the group to panic so hard.

One could chalk the strange appearance of these figures off with their brains playing tricks on them.

Yet, something that couldn't passed off as an illusion was what could be seen within the torn parts of their dresses.

Where normally one would expect to be filled with flesh and blood was instead replaced with cogs and machinery.

"Damn! What- What are these things!" Someone stuttered as they stared at these approaching silhouettes.

Soon, a single thought flashed through the minds of the group as they stared down at these figures: Ghosts

Something they had all thought to be from stories and folklore, appeared before, as real as any of them.

Cold sweat dripped down their foreheads as they clenched their spears, spurring themselves to fight despite the weirdness of the situation.

They had all mentally prepared themselves to battle the bloodborne, but the thought of confronting ghosts had never crossed their minds.

Beside them, Karl had already calmed down somewhat and a a gleam of determination flashed through his eyes.

His hands reached for one of the large mechanical balls that Claude had seen them carrying before.

As he flicked some sort of switch on the device, he nestled the ball at the nook of his neck.

Straightening his legs and pushing his arm out, he flung the ball at the group of ghosts approaching them.

Boom!

A large explosion shook the area around where the ball had been before, enveloping it in smoke and causing nearby buildings to collapse.

'What was that!?' Claude found himself bewildered by the result of Karls's actions.

In all his time alive, however short that may be, he had never heard of an object that possessed such immense destructive potential.

Yet, now was not the time to focus on such a thing, Claude instead redirected his attention to the aftermath of the explosion.

He and the rest of the group clenched their fists as they watched they watched in anticipation.

Did it work?

Yet, their hope was shattered when the group of ghosts emerged from the smoke, seemingly untouched by the force of the explosion.

A sense of despair clouded everyone's minds seeing this.

How were they meant to fight something like this? 

"Lads! I know what you're all thinking! Our attacks might not harm these demons, but we won't go down without a—" Karl tried to cheer everyone up with his words, yet his speech was arrested mid-way as he lost control of his body.

It wasn't just Karl; everyone was unable to move. They could only blink helplessly as a strange whispering echoed in their ears.

They watched in horror as the strange apparitions arrived before them, stretching out their translucent arms and coming into contact with some of the village guards' bodies.

A sense of coolness soon enveloped their senses as they could feel their body temperatures dropping swiftly.

It was as if their bodies were turning into steel, losing their mortal touch as they grew rigid and ice-cold.

Claude was also in a similar situation he felt horrified as he could feel his body slowly turning ice cold, and the haunting whispers kept getting louder in his ears.

He could feel the strangely dressed ghost grasp his throat, blocking air from passing it.

'This can't be happening', he thought, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

'Ghosts? Are they real? Or is this some twisted illusion? Am I going to die now?' Pessimistic thoughts swiftly filled his mind.

Nevertheless, Claude fought to resist.

He had to survive. Not just for himself, but for his revenge—for those he had lost that night.

Desperate, his mind flickered to the ghost stories he heard in the village, trying to find something that could help him here.

Yet, nothing came to mind, after all those were simply stories to scare children.

Claude could only watch on in silence as his body had all its warmth drained from it. His mind drowned in the encroaching whispers, causing him to almost lose his ability to think.

Nevertheless, in this moment of hopelessness, something clicked in his mind.

'It's strangling me?'

An odd thought initially, but this gave hope to the now breathless Claude.

The ghost's previous ability to avoid the explosion without taking any damage, from Claude's understanding of ghosts from stories should be attributed to their immaterial forms.

Yet, this ghost was no longer immaterial.

And this meant one thing for Claude...

'Can I hurt it...?'