Chapter 2: Sealed No More

The white hot irises of Weber darted between the terrorists.

They put a step forward, he did same. Then over and over, building momentum they ran towards Weber at killer speed to catch him, but they couldn't grab him.

Not cause he ran past them.

Not cause they ran past him.

But cause he was intangible.

Weber furrowed his brows and looked at his body. He could see through his body and saw the ground.

"An anomaly. So, this is what the government is hiding?" One of the terrorists said.

"Shut up! I'm no one's property!" Weber yelled ran towards him at high speed and sent his fist towards his face, but it went through.

Weber's heart dropped.

"What's the use of being incorporeal if you can't have impact as needed?" Weber said clenching his fist and looking at them.

Torrents of mana blasts flew towards him from the attackers and hit him hard and bursted fire energy, sending him several feet away.

Weber staggered to to his feet. And his eyes widened as he realized he was no longer incorporeal. And his clothes around the chest area was damaged, but his skin took only mild damage.

"If I was my usual self, I would have died. I'll think of that later cause," Weber dodged an incoming attack from the evil group, "I can't die here!"

He opened his palms wide and put his palm onto the back of the person that punched him intending to hold him and slam him to the ground, but a blast of mana came out and blasted the attacker, sending them hard into the ground and making a hole on the floor.

Weber gasped and look at his hand, then his expression grew dark and he turned his attention to the others.

"Don't try anything funny," he began as he saw them preparing an attack. "Wrong move and he dies," Weber said, pointing his hand to their comrade on the floor.

But it was a bluff. He has no idea how to release the blast.

The two standing cult members looked at themselves and shrugged "so be it." They said, preparing an even stronger attack.

A large ball of mana the size of an elephant was conjured and they sent it towards Weber. The terrorist member on the floor attempted to leave, but Weber quickly picked him up.

"Where are you going?" He said and used him as a shield, but the blast was too much and and it incinerated the terrorist member. And Weber felt most of the blast, which sent him through the remains of by the vendor's shops.

As the dust settled, they walked through the fire that was on the make shift shops of the vendors and the smoke they caused.

"This will be a warning." The terrorists said in union.

Then the sky turned black and a strong and cold wind followed.

The two men began hearing whispers in the air.

"Die instantly or suffer forever?"

The voice kept repeating itself several times in the mind of the men and it caused them severe headaches.

Then inside the smoke, they saw white glowing eyes staring at them.

"How can you be a monster and you live amongst people?" One of the men asked.

"How can you kill so many people when you're trying to help people?" Weber replied, a white aura around him and his voice cold.

"Hypocrite!" They yelled.

"May God forgive me." He smacked his lips and spun around at high speed and slashed their throats, splashing their blood around the floor and they collapsed to the ground.

Weber looked around. The market was destroyed. Law enforcement reinforcements never came. People were dead. And the sky went from red to pitch black.

"That's odd, I thought killing them would make the sky normal," Weber thought

He heard barrels rolling from a distance and it snapped him out of his thoughts.

It was a woman hiding behind barrels with a camera. Weber furrowed his brows.

"No one needs to see what happened here," taking a step forward, he sensed mana users approaching the area.

"Probably the law. No one needs to see me," he said, looking at his body.

Then his body became intangible again and Weber blinked several times and sighed, "I might as well use this to escape."

He began running through anything at high speed until he was 10 miles away from the scene and he hid behind a pile of boxes at an ally way.

He brought out his phone and it was busted from all the fighting.

"Great. I can't afford one with the rising cost of things for now," he focused his vision on the parts of the screen that were still intact. "And my appearance is still a problem."

He took a deep breath and only released more power that coursed through his body, brightening his eyes and whitening his hair all the more.

"Shouldn't be powering down like that be easy, just like how it works in anime?" He said, gritting his teeth.

Then his mind wondered back to the terrorists group.

The One of the Rite.

Was it that they had a hand in the farm and region that was captured?

Just how strong can they be? And what caused the sudden change in air and the sky before he killed them?

While pondering this, his hair turned back to its usual black and his eyes went back to the usual hazel color.

Looking up, the dark pitched sky returned back to normal.

"I wish my memories could help, but they're returning at a pain stakingly slow pace." Weber remarked.

Looking down, he noticed bruises and cuts all over his body and his shirt had been destroyed during the fight.

"Now I look like a tyrant..." He thought as he observed himself and grimaced.

Walking down the sidewalk, he made it to the apartment he was staying in.

Going up the stairs slowly and catching his breath, he made it to his rooms door and took a secret key from a flower pot close to the door and unlocked it.

As he came in, he saw his friend Josh at a corner of the living room with books, but he passed him without a word.

Josh, an average height blond, with green eyes, was clad in a blue shirt and black trousers, flipping through his book absent-mindedly. Then he whipped his head around and saw Weber, but it wasn't the usual average height 22 year old in blue jeans and a black t shirt.

Weber was bruised all over and was missing his shirt. But what stood out to Josh wasn't the injuries.

Something about Weber made him pull away from him.

Weber was doing some stretches and when he saw Josh, his brows knit together and a frown crept up on his face as he observed Josh seating at the edge of his seat and staring intently at him, with his eyes wide open and his Jaws tight.

"What? You look like you've seen a ghost," Weber said, jumping onto the couch absent-mindedly.

Josh didn't respond and when Weber slowly turned to his direction, he found him more pale than before.

"Are you trying to make me laugh? I don't know about you, but my day has been crap." He said grumbling.

Then Josh slowly raised his hand and turned on the TV and it was footage of Weber against the Ones of Rite.

"Y-you see? When and how did you start using mana like that? I-I never heard of a mana type like that!" Josh said, sweat all over his face.

Weber whipped his head to the TV and was frozen as well. Even though he was doing the fighting, him watching himself more felt like he was watching someone else.

"You were born without mana essence, like me, so how did you do that?" Josh said, which made Weber bewildered as well.

In order for a person to use mana, they need mana essence. A mystic element that's passed down through bloodlines. But Weber doesn't have any, so it shouldn't be possible to manipulate.

Not everyone has mana essence , but those that do can increase their power with the right amount of training.

"That's not all, huh..." Weber said sighing as he looked at the headline:

Ghost Kills Terrorists.

"BS. Now, turn off the TV or change the channel." Weber said sharply and lied down on the sofa.

Josh furrowed his brows "Excuse me? You could become a pet for the government and that's all you say and do?"

"What do you want me to do? Celebrate and go around like a jobless vigilante?" Weber replied.

Josh smacked his lips "you don't get it. You have to do one of the two: play on the run vigilante or be a play thing for the government. You saw how there weren't reinforcements cause of lack of man power."

"Well, Josh," Weber said sitting up with a grimace "I don't have time or strength for ANY of that. And I don't even know how the power works!" The lights in the room started flickering.

Then Weber stood up and glared at Josh and "I want nothing to do with that power—" Weber's eyes began shaking uncontrollably and a headache made him crouch to the ground.

Josh rushed to him and put a hand on him "What's going on? Tell me something!" He said quickly and his heart was racing when he observed the lights flickering.

Looking down at Weber, Josh's body stiffened.

Weber's irises had become hot white and his eyes were wide open.

"Stop! Stop! Why won't my eyes stop shaking!" Weber's eyes kept darting left to right and he rushed to his feet, making his head throb, then his eyes settled on the door and the lights stopped flickering.

"Y-you okay?" Josh asked, his skin pale.

Josh jumped as a door knock snapped his attention.

Weber's eyes went back to normal. And he rubbed his head, "not this again, Josh, can you get the door? I'm going inside."

"No...don't leave me a lone..." Then he thought of how strange his friend had become.

"On second thought, I don't know if I'm better a lone or not," he said, heading towards the door wearily.

"Who is it?" A tall woman clad in a dark blue coat and white trousers waved at Josh.

"Hi! Can I come in? I think I have some interesting info—"

"Leave. Just leave." Josh said matter of fact.

The woman folded her arms and smirked "oh please, you know you're not like that. Aren't you that first class student with a 5.0 in your first year? You're smart, you won't turn down info now from a journalist, would you?"

Josh clutched his jaw "I don't know how you know me or who you really are, but you have five minutes, come in."

She smirked and entered the living room and sat at the one seater and Josh the three seater.

Weber came in after having bandaged himself.

"You are?" Josh asked matter of factly.

"Betty. Betty Fallon. I'm a journalist."

"Good. That means it's time for you to leave." Weber said sharply.

"That's not how to treat a guest. And do you even know why I'm here?"

Weber shrugged, "doesn't matter. You'll only bring trouble."

"Oh really," Betty began, squinting her eyes "did you know that I could stop you from being implicated?"

"This is why I said you should leave..." Weber said, putting his hand on his face, "whatever, go on."

"If you've seen the news, you'd know that the "Ghost" ran after the conflict, of course. The problem? It might be in this building."

Weber and Josh's hearts leaped and they tensed.

"So, if you don't want conspiracies, you tell me everything you know."