Purgatory (2)

Still owe one chapter...

...

Not long after dungeons appeared, humanity was invaded by monsters and foreign races.

Eblors, celers, orcs, and all kinds of terrifying monsters invaded the planet, destroying everything in their way, and causing wanton destruction.

But of the five worlds connected to the earth, one of them did not send an attack.

Humanity's first guess was that the race inhabiting this planet was not hostile and even considered forming an alliance with them.

Grave mistake.

The reason the creatures from this world did not attack was that they were unaware of humanity's existence.

So, when humanity reached out to them, they unleashed hell.

Bloodthirsty creatures, hungry for flesh and souls, rushed toward our planet through the spatial passages, unleashing a reign of terror.

These ghostlike lacked a physical body and used eerie and weird methods to attack and kill.

Their lack of a physical body made them much harder to face. Most of the time, the apparition of one of them meant an unavoidable slaughter.

Conventional weaponry was useless against them. Guns were not better than sticks.

They were nightmares incarnate.

For them, humans were just food, delicious and defenseless food that they could eat as much as they wanted.

Only Awakened could barely face them, and even they found it hard to cause these creatures any harm.

Humanity called them Specters.

The only fortunate thing was that most specters were stupid.

They behaved as mindless beasts who moved solely for their instinct to find food.

Occasionally, though, specters possessing intelligence appeared.

Unlike their mindless counterparts, this kind of specter was much more dangerous. They were extremely cunning, often hiding from Awakened while feeding from the souls of normal humans.

The period when the specters first appeared was the darkest part of the war.

Entire towns would become ghost towns overnight, with the entirety of their population being devoured by a specter.

Humanity, which was on the verge of collapse, started to fall.

If the Guardian Duke had not appeared, humanity could have faced extinction.

After that, specters became much harder to find. The ones that crossed over to our world were eventually killed or caught for experiments, making them almost a thing of the past.

Even so, the terror of the specters still remained.

The slightest suspicion of the presence of a specter was enough to cause a state of emergency in any district, and any dungeon or spatial passageway connecting to the ghostland is strictly regulated, to prevent any specter from crossing over to our world.

As for the world where the specters reside, there is little known about it besides the fact that it's a hell.

The World United Government has tried to send expeditions to the ghostland several times, but the result has always been the same.

The expedition forces were devoured after meeting hordes of specters.

And now, we are trapped in such a dangerous world.

"What bad luck." I muttered and Hela furrowed her brows.

The news that we were in the ghostlands took her by surprise. She had been warier since then.

Fortunately, though, we did not meet other specters for a while.

Perhaps it was because the specter we met before was too powerful, scaring other specters from approaching. After all, the staple food of specters is other specters.

But the danger was not gone.

We could meet other specters at any time, and honestly, I'm not very confident about facing them.

I was also increasingly worried about Ley's wellbeing.

In this kind of world, she could meet danger at any time.

'I hope we find her soon.'

We continued walking while I used Understanding to scan our surroundings. I also continued masking our auras just in case a specter approached us without us noticing.

However, even after five minutes, the forest appeared unchanging. We saw nothing but trees.

Just then, Hela stopped walking.

"Something feels wrong." She muttered.

My expression immediately became solemn.

"What is it?"

"The trees. They feel weird." She said expressionlessly.

I furrowed my brows and observed the trees carefully.

However, they seemed normal.

I thought for a moment and focused Understanding on the trees while being careful to not overload my mind like the first time I used Understanding.

At first, I found nothing.

But after a couple of seconds, I noticed something odd.

Something was pulsing inside the trees.

Some kind of energy was hidden in the roots and trunks of many of the trees around us, trying to hide their existence.

'Specters!' My expression stiffened.

There were dozens of them around us!

I would have not noticed them if not for Hela's warning.

Moreover, some of them were peeking curiously in our direction.

Although they had not detected us, it seemed that they had somehow felt something unusual.

"We must leave this place quickly," I spoke urgently while making sure to keep my voice low.

Hela nodded and we quickened the pace.

But little by little, the specters seemed to be becoming aware of our presence.

Although I tried to mask our auras even further, it was of little use.

Through understanding, I could feel the forest slowly becoming awake, as the terrors sleeping in it left their slumber.

At the start, they were hesitant to leave the trees, probably afraid of alerting the powerful specter we met before.

But soon, their hunger triumphed over their caution.

One of the specters was unable to contain their curiosity and left the tree.

It had a cloud-like shape, looking like a cute plushie instead of a terrifying creature.

But I did not underestimate it.

I held Hela close to me while using Confidence to hide our auras as much as possible.

The specter seemed confused when it failed to find us.

But it was too soon to become relieved.

Shortly after that, a second specter left the tree.

Next, a third, a fourth, and a fifth.

Eventually, dozens of specters came out from the trees, searching for us.

Hela's face became pale, and my expression became ugly.

By this point, it was just a matter of time before we were discovered.

There was only one thing we could do now.

I took a deep breath and stared straight into Hela's eyes.

"Run."

....

Remember to support me on my P4TRE0N!!!

P4TRE0N: p@treon.com/aidnovels