Chapter 8 Preparations.

Inside the Kingdom of Taro, the ghosts were getting ready for the upcoming battle. The other half were doing rituals and were increasing their strength. The other half were in a meditative state and were refining their dark energy.

There were two ways for ghosts to increase their strength. The first method was to consume other souls the more you consume the more essence you would have, once they have enough essence they would meditate and store it in their consciousness. Based on the quantity their rank would be decided, the higher the rank the more light energy would be needed to penetrate their consciousness. Also with higher ranks the power of their attacks increases significantly, A ghost with an affinity of 13 (the highest) was capable of destroying a city with just a thought.

The second method was through rituals. This method needed sacrifice and intense rituals. Also was very risky as compared to the first method. However, ghosts who do rituals draw their power from negativity in the air and hence have an unlimited supply of energy. However, the amount of energy they could draw from their surrounding would depend on their attainment of ritual. The drawback of this power was it was not good in direct battle if the attainment was not high as the lower ranks of ghosts who did rituals were weaker than those who increased their strength through consuming souls.

The souls who would consume souls were known as Soul reapers, whereas the ghosts who did rituals were known as Soul Saints. The kingdom of Taro had both Soul reapers as well as Soul saints.

The other aspect of their strength was based on their creativity, with negative energy they could create dark weapons. Their strength would be based on the amount of essence used as well as their compatibility. Some ghosts would use swords as their weapon with it they were able to cut their opponents' souls, also some of the swordsmen were capable of inducing hallucination just with the touch. Some would use energy balls, they would have concentrated negative energy and it would act as a bomb when they would trigger a reaction. The bombs were usually used to cause large-scale damage or to ghosts or humans who had great defence or were a level higher. Some ghosts were capable of bringing natural elements for help. Like the King of Ether was capable of bringing clouds and was capable of creating illusions with their help. Souls also had a common power which was the power of will, they were able to transfer their will to someone weaker and can make them do their bidding. The power of will would depend on the state of the victim as well as the quality of will.

Currently, Taro was training inside the lake, His training room was located in the depths of the lake inside a cave. He was currently practicing his sword. The dark energy moved according to his will however, unlike a normal sword, his sword was capable of creating illusions as well as hallucinations. As it was not a real sword but a sword made from his energy he was capable of molding it according to his will. Its range would constantly change along with its power. However what was impressive was his footwork, Taro was extremely agile and was too fast even for elite ghosts. After some time he stopped his swordplay and picked up a sword with its help he created a light energy as sharp as Lucifer and used it with his left hand. The powers of the light sword were different, it was not his innate energy but was drawn from an enchanted stone however it was as lethal as a swordsman from Light Path.

On the other side, the blessed land of Oden was destroyed. The normal people killed themselves to become souls, they used their emotion of revenge to trigger their negative powers after death and due to that they were all less greedy as compared to normal ghosts. However their sacrifice did not end there, they started consuming each other, and only 33% of ghosts remained. Roan and the Knights under him were the only living beings there. Soon they started their march towards the city of Ether.

Inside the city of Ether, the knights were practicing the light energy, like dark energy the light energy too was the same, however the way to increase it was to have pure thoughts, they were constantly meditating and were increasing their light energy.

The path of light was weak as it took too much time compared to the path of dark. However, the dark energy had a major flaw it was weak against light energy. So a weak light energy user was capable of killing a high-level ghost. However, if they were to fight any third being the ghost would come out at the top as he was only weak against light energy users.

Inside his chambers, Lucifer was training his sword and, at the time was in a state of trance where the light energy was naturally flowing inside him from the stones. Lucifer came out with this technique when he lost his hand. He realized that all humans were already consuming light energy however they were unable to convert direct light energy into essence. So he meditated and understood his body, then he understood his soul, then slowly he came to the part where light energy was entering his body and exiting, he synced that light energy with his breath, then he started mixing it with the breaths, then he started transporting it to his soul. That way after a long time he learned the technique of absorbing energies. Apart from that he was capable of creating illusions, however, unlike ghosts, he could only create illusions with the dome.

Also, Lucifer was capable of using light energy to increase his defense, offence and speed. He would use the breath to move the essence to his legs, hands and eyes and then manipulate it to increase speed, defense or insight.

To increase speed he used light energy to make himself light and would eat away the friction, to increase defense he would form a thick layer on his hand or a part of his body and for offence he would make his sword sharp with minute energies so that his penetrating power would increase. Also sometimes he would use them on his eyes to see through illusions and hallucinations.

Once he got out of the Trance, he started thinking about the tactics he would deploy for the upcoming battle. His plan was simple he wanted to take over two cities together. For that, he had Karl as the leader of the ghosts of Oden and Roan as the light of Oden.

He planned to take over the remaining three cities and then help humans learn his absorption techniques. And then use both humans and ghosts to take over the world.