Chapter 29 [Bonus 4]

An old man covered in ash walked along the river, with his form naked and gaunt. His filthy dreadlocks that had once been white, swayed as he moved and the necklace of mortal teeth clacked with each step. His bones peeked through his skin while his flesh hung loose. He seemed to be the very definition of frail and week. Yet, his yellowed eyes held within them the life that the rest of his body lacked. His brown pupils oscillated as they observed the word while he continued his march on the bank where the corpses met their end.

The heat from the burning pyres would have been uncomfortable for most mortals, but the ash-covered man was not most mortals.

in the dim light of the green moon, the naked man stepped into a pile of animal excreta but the man kept on walking. He didn't even bother to pause for a moment to clean his feet as he continued his march. As a result, mud, filth and shit accumulated on his naked feet.

The man finally stopped as he seemed to have found what he had been searching for. His yellowed eyes fell on the pyre that had long since lost its flames yet still smouldered. The orange of embers clashed with the green moonlight, creating a haunting scene.

However, this was not what he saw. In his vision, the world swam with colours that were not real, for the world was an illusion and what was true was false.

He did not see the smouldering pyre and the charred corpse within. Rather he saw two wavering mixtures of the Five Great Ghosts intermingling, while one of them devoured the rest. He saw the Fire Ghost devour the other four, the Water, the Earth, the Air and the Sky. This vision of his was the effect of his Tier 3 Skill, [Spirit Vision].

Grants the user the Vision of the Spirits.

Tier 1 Effect: Allows the user to see all the Spirits.

Tier 2 Effect: Allows the user to see the Law Scars withing Remnants and living creatures.

The old man reached into the mix of the Five Great Ghosts and felt not the heat of the smouldering pyre. His Tier 3 Spell [Immaterial] did not allow the world to affect his physical body.

Makes the user Immaterial.

Tier 1 Effect: Grants the ability to turn immaterial.

Tier 2 Effect: Grants the ability to turn the world immaterial, within limitations.

Thus, without burning himself, the ash-covered man pulled out an overcooked part of what had once been a mortal's corpse. This overcooked part was one of the mortal's lungs.

The old man with filthy dreadlocks squinted his eyes at the combination of the Five Great Ghosts within his hands. He squeezed it and the Remnant within popped out as the overcooked flesh turned to mush in his hands. The man cared not for the mess however and activated the Tier 2 ability of his Skill [Spirit Vision].

Immediately, the contents of the Remnant became known to him as the Law Scar within exposed themselves in his vision.

"Another useless Spirit seed. Tch! Tch!" The man scolded the piece of Remnant in his hand as if he were scolding the mortal to whom it had belonged in life. "You should have raised your children better! This is what you get for neglecting them! For just focusing on work! Work, work, work! What did it get you? You family didn't even bother to make sure that your Spirit doesn't rise! They didn't make sure that your body completely burnt down! They performed the rituals! They set your pyre! But if your Remnant remains, what use it that! Useless! Such a useless life! Tch! Tch! Tch!"

The Remnant didn't react. How could it? It was a Remnant, not a mortal. However, if enough time was given to the Remnant so that the Great Ghost Sky accumulated enough within it, then the Remnant would have replied. For then it would not have been just a Remnant. It would have been a Spirit.

Spirits are mystical existences. They are not creatures but beings for they are not truly alive and care not for death. They are formed from the accumulation of the great Ghost Sky within a Remnant and the resulting interaction with the Law Scars within. Mortals often call them ghosts but mortals are mortals and ignorant.

Spirits are not ghosts because they are not Egos of the dead. Due to this, Spirits need not possess the form of the creature they arose from. Rather, their form resembles the sum of the Law Scars within the Remnant that gave birth to them. As a result, a greedy mortal might give rise a spirit that resembles a Tasmanian devil while a coward might give rise to a Spirit that resembles a bug.

However, the naked man's melancholy was broken at that moment as the spirits on the bank responded and screeched at him in response to his words. The spirits were of all shapes and sizes. Some Spirits resembled porcupine while some resembled turtles. Ugly fishes swam in the air and worms peeked out of the earth.

However, they were all visible to him and only him. These were not the Spirits that came into existence due to the Skill [Spirit Summon] and were not powerful enough to manifest completely in the physical world. Not only this, their forms seemed to exude a sense of unreal-ness that was the mark of a Spirit. It was as if they existed there, but not. This unreal-ness was not wrongness or demonic nature, this was just a result of their ethereal nature.

However, all this did not stop the Spirits from getting offended. Thus, they postured, they growled and they threatened the naked man.

"Ha!" The old man's eyes narrowed as he scoffed and pointed his bony finger at the angry Spirits. "Am I wrong? Tell me if I am wrong! Your descendants cared not about you! They left your Remnants intact and let you rise! It is no one's fault but your own! What are you scowling at me for?!"

If he had been intending to placate the Spirits, then his words failed spectacularly. The filthy man cared not for it though as he aggressively pointed at the porcupine Spirit. "You! Your progenitor had so much hate within that their progeny did not even fake a ritual. They left the body to rot!"

The naked man's head swirled and he pointed at the ugly fish swimming in the sky. "And you! Your progenitor cared for nothing but itself! Their progeny merely lit the pyre and left! When the flames died down, dogs fed on their flesh!"

"You surround me for speaking the truth! If your progenitor had faced these truths, you wouldn't exist! Now get lost before I mould you into a tool for the mortals to use! Do you want that? Do you want eternal servitude?!"

The Spirits hesitated but not for long and soon they retreated. The old man huffed. "Tch. Tch. Tch! These ungrateful things! They should thank me that I do not cleanse this land of them! Tch! Tch! Tch!"

The ash-covered man's eyes then fell on the Remnant in his hand and his yellowed eyes narrowed further. "You! Will you be like them too? You will, won't you? It's better if you don't rise then!"

With that last statement, the ash-covered man who wore the necklace of human teeth ate the overcooked piece of the human lung.

-X-