Evil Spirit

"Professor, did you find anything about what's causing these ghosts to act this way?" Simon asked hopefully. Just the way the ecclesiastic carried himself gave off an air of confidence and put Simon's mind to ease.

Vincent pretended as if he was looking around and answered in a deep voice. "Unfortunately, I just arrived. If it weren't for the foul smell coming from this place, I would have never guessed that an evil spirit lurked here."

"Fo.... foul smell?" Simon glanced around and took sniffed nervously. "Do any of you guys smell anything?"

The servants all shook their head simultaneously. Vincent wanted to add a bit more flavor to his story of how he got here but gave up after finding Bell staring at him suspiciously. "We must hurry, the voice of this girl will give us clues."

Without waiting for a reply, he pushed the door open. Cold air blew out of the room making a few members of the group shiver unconsciously. The sobbing sound also grew louder and the voice that was previously weeping nonstop finally moved out of the loop.

A silhouette of a little girl appeared on the furthest corner of the room. She looked to be around six or seven years old. As her body bobbed up and down because of her cries, the stuffed toy she was cuddling came into view.

It was half her size and in the shape of a human. A white shirt covered the toy's body, exposing only its face. It seemed to have been damaged previously as a line of stitches ran across its face.

The girl did her best to suppress her sobs and spoke fearfully. "Mommy.... Robert won't let go of me. He keeps on following me in my sleep. Chase him away please."

She paused and looked at the door as if she was listening to someone and continued hysterically. "It's not me. Robert is the one holding me. Why won't you believe me? He speaks to me. Take him away."

As she reached the end of the sentence, her voice turned demonic. The windows began shaking intensely before shattering explosively.

Everyone covered their head with their hands to block any incoming shards. When they raised their heads after the glasses all fell to the floor, the room was empty. There was no sign of the little girl or the toy.

Having witnessed the scene, Simon's face paled in fear. Noticing the change, Bell asked his client. "Your reaction seems a bit too much. Do you know anything? If you do, please tell me everything. This looks more serious than I had imagined."

Simon nodded repeatedly and took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "My father told me this before he passed away. I hadn't given it much attention as it sounded too unreal."

"But now you believe it?" Bell pressed further.

"Yes. According to my father, the original owners of this house all met tragic ends. It all started when their little girl disappeared. I don't know the specifics, but accidents grew all too frequent and her parents eventually went mad. As for the other residents of the house, they either fled the place or died horribly because of unexplainable events."

Vincent swallowed a mouthful of saliva. He only wanted to go on an exciting adventure, but now, he was stuck trying to deal with an actual evil spirit that might very well be way out of his league.

The presence of Bell didn't help either. Vincent had already done research on him and knew that Bell was an iron ranked spiritualist. While his expertise lay in dealing with spirits and ghosts, his combat abilities were severely lacking when compared to a silver ranker.

If it were a living opponent he was facing, Vincent wouldn't have cared much. After all, he could have easily ensured his safety even if the opponent turned out to be stronger. But he had never dealt with an evil spirit. The one he had defeated earlier was nothing more than a powerless ghost that was being influenced by the evil spirit.

"The evil spirit is most likely inside the doll. We have to find it if we want to be rid of this problem." Bell guessed and looked at his client. "Have you seen that doll before?"

"Yes.... it was in the basement when I first came to check on this house."

"Basement? What basement?"

"Huh? Didn't you guys check on the basement this morning? I thought you were going to check everywhere." Simon asked back in confusion.

"Master, what are you talking about? There is no basement here." A servant who had accompanied bell during the day stepped forward. As far as he knew, there wasn't any underground space on this house.

"What? There is a basement. And it's the only space I left alone during the renovation. Follow me."

The group followed after Simon and soon reached where he remembered the entrance of the basement to be. But as he stood there, a look of confusion appeared on his face. He was certain that there was a door leading to the basement here. Thinking that he took a wrong turn, he looked around to see if this was indeed the spot.

And when he observed every spot, he was sure that this was where the entrance was supposed to be. But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find a single sign of the entrance.

Noticing his strange expression, Vincent stepped forth and asked. "Are you sure the door was supposed to be here?"

Simon jolted his memory and confirmed, "Yes, I am sure of it. The door was right below this candle stand."

Vincent nodded and told the man to step back. He looked at the candle stand set to the wall and placed his palm directly below it. Closing his eyes, he focused mana on his hands and invoked a spell.

His sleeves puffed up and started floating eerily. Just as Simon and the rest were wondering what he was up to, a boom sounded out and the concrete wall was riddled with a head sized hole. Looking through it, the group could see a stairwell leading below.

"I hope you won't mind this." Vincent spoke emotionlessly and repeated his action once again. This time, he put much more strength on his spell and the entire wall that had been erected in place of the door crumbed at once.

Bell finally stopped looking strangely at this hooded figure. Though he was still wary of him, he didn't dare show any hostility. From the spell just now, the difference in strength was apparent.

He suppressed the uneasy feeling taking over his heart and followed after the hooded man. Simon steeled his resolve and ran after the two immediately after ordering the servants to stick close to him.

After a couple of seconds, the group found themselves in a spacious basement. Furniture and other objects were placed sporadically with cloth covering them. A layer of dust had settled on them, giving a grayish color to the originally white cloths.

In the middle of the room was a giant mirror. It's edges with decorated with intricately carved designs and a green jewel was embedded on its top end. As the group gathered around it, the scene in the mirror changed. The reflections changed into an empty wall and blood seeped through it.

As the reddish liquid exited the concrete and dripped down, a sentence was formed with it. "Come in."

Looking at the words, the group couldn't help but suck in a deep breath in apprehension.