Defeating the Ghost

Mayton was nervously following after Celyse as she led the way through the dark hall. She stopped at every step to check out the positions of the ghosts inside the hall, again and again, to avoid alerting them.

Mayton had a traceless talisman that erased his presence almost perfectly while there was a faint white sheet of light covering Celyse which Mayton assumed hid her from the ghosts. But still, if they went too near to a ghost it would be impossible to avoid its senses.

They were already too high up in the tower, and the ghosts here were much stronger than the ones in the lower floors. Thankfully, the legendary ghost that was after Mayton culled the numbers of the ghosts from time to time to stop another ghost getting strong enough to threaten its position in time so there weren't that many strong ghosts around.

After an excruciatingly nerve-wracking ten minutes of walking through the dark and quiet hall, Mayton and Celyse reached the other side without any mishaps and let out a collective sigh of relief. Their relief was short lived though as they heard the all too familiar scream belonging to the legendary ghost once more.

''Damn it. That was a lot closer.''

Mayton cursed with a whisper, not daring to raise his voice. If the ghost continued to close in at this speed, they would get caught sooner or later. Unfortunately, they couldn't do anything else than moving forward as fast as they can and hope that Leyzhen will find them before the ghost managed to catch up to them.

''Stop dawdling and continue moving.''

Celyse urged Mayton in an uncharacteristically nervous voice. She was even more nervous than Mayton but for a completely different reason. The ghost should have been closer to them according to her plan.

That meant something or someone was preventing it from moving unhindered, and she knew just who that someone was.

She took a huge risk for this plan and things were going her way even since Mayton attracted the legendary ghost to himself without a need for her to intervene. Then, just when she was planning to alert the ghost back in the storage room, Mayton again made her intervention necessary.

Her plan was already close to fruition. If she could achieve her aim successfully, her power would skyrocket, but if her plan failed only one outcome awaited her, death.

--- --- ---

Meanwhile, Leyzhen was rushing toward Mayton and Celyse as fast as she can without a care about who she alerted.

She began to regret things now. She regretted letting Mayton come to the Tower of Screams. She also regretted letting Celyse join them. But most of all, she regretted being complacent. If she wasn't overconfident, Mayton, her only clue to find out her parents' fate, wouldn't be in mortal danger right now.

She was beginning to panic. She could see that the distance between the ghost and Mayton's duo was getting lesser and lesser. She had to somehow reach the ghost before it reached them and the ghost not affected by the constraints set down by the Tower of Screams was faster than her. She had no idea how to go faster while also continuing to keep her cultivation sealed.

Just when she was contemplating the idea of unsealing part of her cultivation to boost her speed and injure the ghost once more before getting expelled from the tower again, she saw something that made her shelve that plan immediately.

At a crossroad with two different stairs both leading to a higher floor, Mayton's group chose one of them then returned after a few hours, but the ghost still didn't return. This meant that if Leyzhen just waited here for a while the ghost would come and find her by itself.

''This is even better than what I thought as the best case scenario.''

Leyzhen muttered to herself as she started to prepare for her fight against the ghost. If used her advantage to the fullest and with a bit of help from luck there was even a slim chance to defeat the ghost without unsealing her cultivation.

She was done with her preparations after an hour and was meditating to be in her top condition when the ghost finally appeared at the stairs. From its reaction or more aptly the lack of it, it was easy to deduce that it wasn't aware of Leyzhen's presence.

It glided down the stairs hurriedly, but when it was finally on the same floor with Leyzhen, it abruptly stopped and tried to return to the stairs with a scream. It saw the ground was littered with various symbols, and despite its ignorance about the way of formations, still understood what it meant. Unfortunately for it, it was already too late.

''Here we go..''

Leyzhen whispered as she began to activate the formations she set up one at a time starting from a trapping formation.

Behind the ghost, the jagged stone surface of the tower sprang up to block the stairs to prevent it from escaping. Since the stone that made up the surface of the tower was a special material used to cage in souls*, with a bit of strengthening against physical attacks it was perfect to trap the ghost for the short term.

Leyzhen opted for a simple earth type formation that altered the geography slightly instead of a complex formation that used pure qi to operate despite being a divine cultivator because her cultivation was sealed and she couldn't power such a formation throughout the fight without unsealing it.

Then without wasting any time she immediately activated the second formation. This was a formation used to power up the attacks of its user utilizing the all kinds of qi present around the user. Leyzhen normally didn't use it because she could use the qi around her without the formation but now it came in really handy.

After activating the formation, she pulled out a pure white sword from her sleeves and jabbed it in the direction of the still unprepared ghost. With her jab, a pure white sword light manifested from the point of the sword and stabbed straight towards the ghost's semi-corporeal body while absorbing the qi around that changed its color to a grayish black.

The ghost let out another scream as it tried to disorientate Leyzhen and earn more time before her next attack while at the same time reflexively using the attack it was most familiar with to defend itself. Its claw.

The bloody claw shattered as soon as it made contact with the sword light just like last time despite Leyzhen's attack being much weaker and stabbed into the ghost, leaving a huge gaping hole on its center. Such an attack wouldn't be enough to harm the ghost if it was in top condition but it was already seriously injured on its first encounter with Leyzhen.

Seeing the result, contrary to what one would expect, Leyzhen wasn't happy at all. She utilized all of the qi she could in the surrounding to power her attack, aiming to finish her opponent off in one strike but failed in the end. This one attack almost depleted the qi present on the whole floor, rendering her boosting formation useless.

The ghost was also aware of the depletion of the qi as it lunged at Leyzhen in a bid to force her into the defensive. But Leyzhen had no thoughts whatsoever to do so. She instead of putting up her guard, pulled out another item from her sleeves, this time a blood red comb and combed her hair once with it.

As soon as the comb went all the way down to the end of Leyzhen's hair a horrifying wail that stunned the legendary ghost mid charge was heard. After hearing the wail, the ghost's body that had a hole at its center rippled and became a bit more incorporeal.

The ghost wasn't used to fight with strong enemies and with its extremely limited number of techniques, it was unable to fight back against various ways Leyzhen utilized. Since it was unable to cope with Leyzhen, the ghost decided to try to charge past Leyzhen in a bid to escape.

Seeing the ghost's reaction, Leyzhen gritted her teeth and combed her hair once more. This time the wail was accompanied by a creepy sadistic chuckle making everyone who heard it imagine a scene where someone twisted was torturing her victim for fun.

While terrifying normal humans, the chuckle had a much worse effect on the ghost as it phased out of existence for a second then appeared a few steps away. But its body was already crumbling as pieces of soul scattered away when it appeared again. The ghost didn't stop even for a moment and immediately charged down the closest stairs, leaving a trail of souls in its wake.

As soon as it was gone, Leyzhen vomited a mouthful of blood as patches of her silky smooth golden hair that the scarlet comb touched began to blacken, finally, falling down to the ground.

The comb was indeed a powerful magical item, but there was a price to pay to use it. It subjected its user to the same treatment its raw material suffered, a hellish torture increasing in intensity with each stroke.

''It still got away in the end...''

Leyzhen muttered disappointedly as she glanced at the stairs the ghost took.

Despite wanting to finish the ghost off once and for all, she knew that she had no time to waste. The ghost wasn't a danger anymore but the real danger, Celyse, was still together with her unaware victim, Mayton.

After wiping the blood at the corner of her mouth and swallowing several pills to aid in her recovery, Leyzhen continued on to next floor without resting. But her severely decreased speed indicated that she was not in good condition at all.