Wraiths and Sirens!

"What are you doing?", Bryce asked, surprised by Jason's action.

Jason ignored Bryce and slowly brought his hand into the ray of sunlight.

"Jason, stop that", Bryce shouted and got up to pushed Jason away from the sunlight but stopped.

Jason's hand was already in the sunlight but it didn't catch fire. There was some kind of steam coming out of his hand which meant that the sun still burns him but not as much as it does to other vampires.

"My hand is not on fire", Jason commented with wonder in his voice.

"...Yeah", Bryce said. He didn't even know what to think.

Jason closed the curtain again. Even though the sun didn't burn him as much as it would have before, it still hurts.

"It must be because of the spell. It must've lessened the sun's effect on you", Bryce said.

"Yeah", Jason said in agreement.

"What else can you do?", Bryce asked.

Jason thought for a while before answering.

"It's kinda like what you did to Cashel last night", Jason said.

"...Illusory pain?", Bryce asked.

"Yeah, something like that", Jason said.

"Really?", Bryce asked.

Jason nodded.

"Try it on me", Bryce suddenly said, surprising Jason.

"No", Jason said.

"Come on, try it. I can take it", Bryce tried to convince Jason.

"You sure?", Jason asked.

"Yeah, come on", Bryce said.

"Okay", Jason said.

He narrowed his eyes and gazed intently at Bryce for a second.

"Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!", Bryce said hurriedly immediately after he started feeling a slight pain in his head.

Jason immediately stopped and said, "I thought you said you could take it".

"Well obviously, I lied", Bryce said. "Anything else?", he asked.

"Yeah! I also feel a little bit stronger. I 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 also be faster", Jason answered.

"Let's go out and test it", Bryce said and immediately started to walk towards the door.

"In the sun?", Jason asked.

"Oh yeah, right. You're still allergic to the sun", Bryce stopped in realization and joked with a chuckle.

*****

After about thirty minutes of flying, Charles along with Wilson and Ivan landed near their destination; the very last mountain. There wasn't anything peculiar to it and it looked exactly like the other mountains but Charles knew that it was far from ordinary as it housed a wonder flower.

"Woah! Beautiful!", Ivan said, looking in a particular direction.

Wilson looked in the same direction - at the waterfall had they landed a few meters away from. His eyes twinkled and his mouth dropped.

A few meters away from them was a massive waterfall that crashed into a large river, no more like a lake. The massive waterfall crashed into the lake, but that wasn't even the most amazing thing. The water seemed to be made of bright colors and looking at it felt like looking at a liquid rainbow. It was large and very beautiful that it made both Ivan and Wilson wonder how they missed it and only noticed it after landing.

"Wow", he couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of the scenery.

"Cool, right?", Charles said. He had been there once or twice but was still entranced by the beauty of the scenery.

"Do you think it has a name?", Ivan asked.

"Yep. It's Lake Charles", Charles said making both Ivan and Wilson scoff.

"You can watch as much as you want while I go get the flower", Charles said as he walked towards the lake and started taking off his clothes.

"From where exactly?", Wilson asked. Curious.

"Underneath the lake. There's a cave below and if I can get in without alerting the guardian, I can easily grab a flower and immediately swim back up", Charles said.

Every spot that housed a wonder flower had a guardian and thus one wasn't an exception. The guardians differ depending on the terrain. For example, if the wonder flower was in a cemetery, the guardians would be zombies, ghosts and even wraiths and all creatures related to dead bodies and corpses. And if it was a forest terrain the guardian would be like a sabertooth tiger or a wendigo or even Bigfoot. And since this was a lake, the guardian should be a supernatural or extinct creature that is related to bodies of water.

Charles now had only his underwear on, he flashed Wilson and Ivan, making their faces twist into different expressions.

"Wish me luck. If I never come back up, I'm probably dead", Charles said, half joking and half serious.

He gave them a thumbs up and dived into the rainbow lake named Lake Charles; courtesy of Charles Clinton himself.

Immediately after diving into the lake, Charles's body started to change. His skin started getting harder and scales appeared all over him. He grew fins in certain areas of his body and gills on the sides of his neck. His feet and hands became webbed. His teeth became pointy and super sharp.

With his transformation, one might thing he would be hideous but that was far from the truth. The transformation seemed to have enhanced his features and made him much more attractive.

This was one of Charles's many specialities; Transfiguration - specifically transformation or shapeshifting. With this, he can change himself or anything into almost, if not everything, into anything he wishes.

Right now, Charles had taken the form of one of the many merfolk. Merfolk is a collective term given to creatures like mermaids, mermen, sirens and the likes of them.

Charles dived down like the lake was his home. The lake was pretty deep and really dark, but Charles could see clearly with his new pair of eyes.

*****

Back on land, a few minutes after Charles went under the water to fetch a wonder fruit, Ivan and Wilson were looking around while they were waiting for Charles.

"Is it drinkable? I'm starting to get thirsty", Ivan asked.

"How would I know?", Wilson asked. This was his first time coming here too. Charles was the only one who had been here before.

"I 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘. I thought you might know", Wilson said.

He looked around at the dispersed trees to see if he could find any edible fruit to eat. He looked and soon spotted one. It was high on a large and tall tree. The fruit kinda looked a yellow apple. It was really high but with his night hunter powers he could get to it with no problem.

Ivan jogs over to the tree and without stopping, he steps on the trunk of the tree and propels himself almost about three meters in the air and grabs into the branch nearest to the ground. Come to think of it, all the trees here are all very tall and large. He swings like a spider monkey off the branch and lands perfectly on his feet on another branch on the same large tree.

"Show off", Wilson mumbled under his breath.

Ivan climbs and swings up the tree and within seven, he had the yellow apple-like fruit in his hand and then plucked it.

"Catch", Ivan shouted getting Wilson's attention before throwing the fruit down to him.

Wilson caught the fruit. He took out a dagger and used it to peel off the outer layer of the fruit.

Ivan climb up to another fruit and plucked it. He also took out a dagger and peeled off the outer layer of the fruit. After he was done, put the dagger away and took a bite out of the fruit. That's when something caught his eye.

He squinted his eyes to have a better look at what it was and when he saw it, his eyes went wide.

In the sky, about a mile away from where they Ivan and Wilson were, there was a very large dark cloud that was heading their way. The cloud could cover a whole neighborhood. But that wasn't what made Ivan's eyes go wide. In the middle of the dark cloud was a humanoid creature, directing the dark cloud towards Ivan and Wilson.

The humanoid creature had a boney figure, large and long boney claws and was covered by a black cloak that seemed as if it was made out of shadows. It covered the creature from its head to its non-existent legs. The creature was non other that a wraith: not just any wraith but a cloud wraith.

Cloud wraiths are like ordinary wraiths but while ordinary ones are very sensitive to light, cloud wraiths aren't. They roam about above cloud. Cloud wraiths can create dark and large clouds for ordinary wraiths to hide under. This one must have seen them when Charles was flying them here and must have followed them.

Seeing this, Ivan squinted his eyes looked on the ground and surely there were dozens of wraiths under the shadow of the dark cloud heading their way. Ivan climbed down and jogged back to Wilson's side.

"We've got a problem", Ivan said.

"What?", Wilson asked.

Ivan pointed at the dark cloud and Wilson immediately knew what was happening when he saw it.

"Shit!", Wilson cursed.

He immediately took the crossbow that was suspended on his back and loaded it. Ivan also took out his short swords and prepared to fight.

Ivan's swords were made out of the bones and sometimes scales, of monsters called "Shadow monsters" or "Sentimons" that are created by the dark magic of the "dark fae". The tips of Wilson's arrows were also made out of Sentimon bones. Weapons made out of Sentimon bones are called "Shadow weapons" or "Sentiweapons".

Ivan and Wilson's weapon weren't Sentiweapons anymore. If you look closely at the weapons, you'd notice that there were runes drawn on the edges of both their weapons. With a command, the runes started glowing with a golden light.

Charles made the runes to enhance all their weapons. Charles calls the Sentiweapons that have his runes "Holy light weapons". They are super effective against undead creatures.

The runes around Ivan's swords began to glow and so did the runes around Wilson's arrowheads.

The two then engaged in a fierce battle with the dozens of wraiths coming their way.