It was a tall humanoid figure whose body was composed entirely of black matter that twisted in various ways. On its face, it had a beige mask with two black eyes from which drops of blood were falling.
Flain quickly turned and stepped back. He looked around himself and at the figure. In this space, he truly felt strange; he had never been here before, yet he felt safe, the feeling most comparable to being in a house he had lived in since birth.
The figure also looked around.
"You're only Stage 3, and yet your soul already has some kind of image. You have such a strong tendency toward a domain already at Stage 3? You're a very interesting person. One could say it's a shame that I will take over your body. But if I let you go, I would gain nothing." A very unpleasant sound came from the figure.
But then the figure looked Flain straight in the eyes.
"You have very interesting ey—" it began to say, but suddenly stopped.
Its eyes on the mask widened, and its body began to twist even more.
"W-Who a-are y-you?!" came a painful scream from the figure.
Immediately, its whole body ignited in flames. The figure fell to its knees, crawled in the blood on the ground, and tried to extinguish the flames, but it was all in vain.
A few moments later, its entire body turned to dust, which vanished into the blood.
The space around Flain disappeared, and Flain once again appeared on the path in the forest before three corpses.
Flain didn't fully understand what had happened in the last few seconds. His eyes had ignited the figure, which Flain assumed to be a phantom.
He would have to ask Flor about it, because it intrigued him quite a lot.
The phantom had said that Flain had two souls in his body, and in one of those souls there were another two souls. Flain assumed that the first soul was his, and the two others within it were Aran and Ivy.
But the question remained—who was that other soul? Flain assumed it was also connected to another mystery: the voice in his mind.
He had long suspected that it could be the former owner who somehow still resided in his body, but now he believed it even more. That second soul might indeed be the soul of the former owner, which for some reason had remained in Flain's undead body.
Then there was the place Flain appeared in. Based on what the phantom had said and implied, that was Flain's soul, which supported the feeling he had experienced in that place.
Another matter was Flain's eyes. The phantom had said that Flain had the eyes of an exorcist, which by all accounts meant that he could see phantoms and the energy around them.
But for some reason, when the phantom looked into Flain's eyes, it began to burn. That couldn't simply be attributed to Flain having exorcist's eyes, since the phantom was clearly surprised when Flain stared into its eyes.
The fact that it began to burn might not have been because Flain looked into its eyes, but rather due to the influence of Flain's soul on it, or because it realized something, or something similar.
Those were Flain's thoughts.
Anyway, his mission was completed. In front of him were three corpses. One of Ikari, whom he killed, the phantom's previous body, and the phantom's body which it controlled before death. Flor hadn't said the corpses had to be in perfect condition, so this should hopefully be enough.
"Damn, I was already looking forward to a proper fight but that monster died inside that black barrier and I didn't even see it. But anyway, it probably wasn't a good fight if you fought only for a few seconds." Ghosty mumbled next to him.
"Monster? So you saw its aura and those hands." Flain asked.
"Yes, I'm not blind." Ghosty replied briskly.
Based on the phantom's words, Flain deduced that a phantom could only be seen if someone had exorcist's eyes, and obviously, that was rare. So it was unlikely Ghosty had them. Maybe lost souls could see phantoms even without exorcist's eyes.
But there was still one more thing that caught Flain's attention. "Black barrier?"
"Yes, when it grabbed you with that big hand, a black arc formed around you which looked like a barrier. I couldn't pass through it so I didn't see anything." He said.
There were multiple things it could have been. It might have been created by the phantom or it could have been a defense mechanism of Flain's soul, or something else. With how little Flain knew, no conclusion could be drawn from such a thing.
Flain put all three corpses into his inventory, maybe an extra one would come in handy for Flor. And if not, he would give it to Itai, stage 2 undeah were never in enough supply.
He leapt and set off back on the road again. He went at full speed, just as he had on the way here. At full speed, he was indeed fast, but his senses were not on the same level, so if someone suddenly appeared right in front of him, he wouldn't dodge it. When he really concentrated he could avoid it, but such an amount of focus he gave only during fights or while creating spells.
Six days passed and Flain crossed the border into the Empire of Light without any problems. Since he went through the same border crossing and was checked by the same guard, who was also a noble, he only stayed there for a few seconds and was already on the other side.
In two days he was back at his villa. According to Flor's words, he expected to return home in at least three weeks, but the fact he managed it in less than a week was far off from that estimate.
---
Flain opened Flor's door to inform him that the mission was completed.
"You accomplished it really quickly, you even surprised me." He said as he opened the door.
"Well, it wasn't too hard at the base, I even have an extra one if you need it." Flain said and pulled out the three corpses from his inventory.
"Why did you assume it would take me at least three weeks?" He then asked.
"Well, the trip there and back I estimated at a week. But waiting for the Ikari to come out always takes at least three weeks. Because they either move in large groups, at least 50, or they are in tribes. Only exceptionally do they move in smaller groups, you really got lucky." Flor explained...
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