The Ghost System - Chapter 44

The agent rolled his shoulders, releasing the tension he had built up. Even if his opponents were pathetically weak, they had still outnumbered him significantly.

He glanced down at their bodies and grinned. It was always a pleasure to see his handiwork displayed so well in front of him.

Cheerful cries and the creaking sound of metal bursting open caught his attention. The hordes of humans at the other end of the hall had managed to break through the walls and were now funnelling outside into the night.

He scowled. He had planned to keep all the humans in one area and sift through them to find the one he was looking for, but now that they were escaping to the outside he would have to go hunting again.

Although this would delay him, it would only lengthen the thing’s lifespan for a little while. He would find it, kill it, and take its corpse back to the base as a trophy. He would go down in history for taking down one by himself, so he purposefully didn’t share his exact location with the others.. They were all still far away from Earth, but he definitely didn’t want them showing up in the nick of time to take away his glory.

His heavy boots whacked the floor as he walked forward. He came to a stop next to a platform where two humans were huddled together.

One was severely injured, nearly dead. The other one was unhurt but trembling in fear at the sight of the intruder.

He lifted his long arm and pointed at the shaking human.

From travelling through some of the human cities he had heard the common language, and with the help of his technology he already knew quite a bit of English.

“You.” He made out the unfamiliar word in his mouth.

The healer couldn’t stop shaking, knowing that this intruder had easily killed off twenty soldiers.

“Y-Yes?”

The intruder cleared his throat and reached for the mask on his face. His large fingers snapped open the buckles. He slowly pried the large filter mask off his head and revealed his face.

His jaw was sharp and his cheekbones were high. He would have looked human if it wasn’t for the long sharp pointy ears that protruded from the side of his head.

The healer stared at the intruder in utter shock. “Y-you’re not even human…” The healer shuddered.

“No, not human.” The intruder over pronounced the words as he pulled his fake white hair out of his face.

“Where is the Valkis Theofagos?” The intruder frowned realising that he had not learnt the human word for the being he was hunting. Each civilisation had a different name for the beings, so a direct translation often did not make sense to people of different worlds. Since he did not have any other choice, he did a direct translation.

“Where is the God Eater?”

The Healer’s face crumpled up in confusion, he had no idea what this so called ‘God Eater’ was.

“Huh…?” His lips trembled.

It was obvious to the agent that the human knew nothing, but it still annoyed him.

The agent motioned his index finger downwards. The Healer’s head slammed into the floor of the platform with a sickening crunch.

The agents eyes then drifted towards the heavily injured human laying on the platform floor. He only had to glance at it to know that it would not survive. He decided to be merciful since it was dying anyways and left the human alone. Instead he reached into his large coat and retrieved a small silver cage.

Inside the cage a large almost transparent butterfly type creature fluttered it’s wings.

The agent grinned and licked his lips in anticipation.

*************

Rhys was panting like a dog, nonstop running for twenty five minutes just had that affect on him.

He dry heaved as sweat dribbled down his face. It felt like his lungs were made of sandpaper and he tasted blood in the back of his mouth like he always did when he exercised too much.

[“This is embarrassing to watch.”]

Rhys didn’t even have the energy to talk back to his teacher, he only scowled as he ran. He was almost there.

[Stamina +1]

“Finally!” He chocked out the words.

Suddenly he felt a little better, still exhausted but slightly less dehydrated.

Rhys looked up and was proud to see that he had reached the signpost. The signs pointed in the different directions of the different buildings. Rhys was relieved to see that the tunnel to the Main office was straight ahead.

Once he reached the tunnel everything would be okay. He was sure that military forces would be surveying the tunnel, and would see him, a freshman student, running to the main office. Then he would able to alert them of where the intruder actually was and everything would be fine.

Honestly he was a little surprised he had not seen any military personnel yet. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to watch the area surrounding the tunnel for the intruder?

Rhys was only a few meters away from the steps that led to the tunnel when he heard a light flapping noise a few inches from his head. It sounded like a bird had flown past him. He spun around confused, scanning his surroundings looking for whatever had made the noise.

He saw nothing and was about to head for the tunnel when he heard that same fluttering noise pass right by his ear.

He came to a stop and scanned the air around him. However, again he saw nothing.

He looked around anxiously anticipating the arrival of the black clad intruder. Yet after no sign of anyone or anything approaching he gave up.

He continued towards the steps but the sight of strange glimmer right in front of his face stopped him in his tracks.

There was a strange blotchy patch of air in front of him. It was similar to a hot-road mirage when the heat in the air distorts the images you see.

Rhys stared tentatively at the distorted patch at a loss as to what was going on, intriguingly, the longer he looked at it, the more he could decipher it’s shape, the could better make out the outlines and soon he recognised a familiar creature.

“A butterfly… An invisible butterfly?”

He could see it clearly now, an almost invisible butterfly as big as his head was fluttering it’s wings in front of his face.

[Aura Detection used +2 Exp]

[Name: Abyss Butterfly]

[Aura: None]

Rhys could see that the butterfly was without an aura, not even a faint glow surrounded it…

“It doesn’t have an aura?” Rhys stared at the large transparent butterfly. “But the book of the Dead said that all living creatures have an aura.”

[“Then you can be sure that it is not a living creature. That filthy being must have brought it here…”]

The teacher sighed, faintly annoyed by the situation. [“It seems you will have to fight after all.”]

Rhys could only frown at the teacher’s sudden pessimism.

‘So that intruder has something to do with this butterfly?’

[“Oh, yes…”]

“Even if he sent this thing, I’m right here at the tunnel, I can alert the real soldiers.” Rhys sidestepped the large butterfly and made a break for the stairs leading down into the tunnel.

The butterfly immediately sprang into action and attached itself to Rhys’s back.

Dismayed, Rhys turned his head back to watch as his Aura was sucked into the butterfly.

The butterfly’s form stared to darkened, like a drip of ink dispersing in water, the transparent insect quickly turned a deep red colour, and its formed swelled up to three times its original size.

Rhys tried to swat it away, but his hands passed through it like it wasn’t there. A skill he was dismayed to see that another creature had.

[“Don’t bother…”] The system chuckled at Rhys’s useless action. [“The Abyss butterfly cannot be touched unless it wants to be touched, and it cannot be seen unless it wants to be seen. That is its ultimate power.”]

Rhys let his arms fall to his sides, believing that it was useless to try and shoo it away. “And it’s other power is stealing people’s auras?”

[“The Abyss butterfly can only feast on the auras of higher beings, that is how it survives. These creatures are one of the few beings that can coexist with us. If you survive your battle with the filthy being, you should take it in as a pet.”]

Rhys was baffled by how calm and relaxed the teacher sounded in this moment. It was the teacher who initially told him to be to runaway from the intruder, but now his teacher was slowing him down.

[“The chance to level up your skill is here, you should take advantage of it.”]

A lightbulb went off in Rhys’s head, as the Knowledge he had absorbed form the book of the dead suddenly flooded his mind. He immediately used his Aura Detection skill.

[Name: Abyss Butterfly]

[Aura: Ghost]

The butterfly finally unlatched from his back and hovered in the air just in front of him for a moment. Rhys kept his eyes peeled, watching every flutter of it’s wings.

The night was cold and there was no wind blowing, so it was deathly quiet without the leaves rustling in the wind. Rhys could only hear his new heart beating and the gentle sound of fluttering wings that he dared not take his eyes off of.

The butterfly flapped it’s wings one last time before it exploded into a cloud of red that swallowed Rhys whole.

He instinctively raised his hands to cover his face from the cloud of red dust but stared in awe when he realised that the butterfly had not exploded into dust. Actually, there were thousands of tiny red butterflies all fluttering around him like red autumn leaves.

Even for someone like him who never really appreciated the beauty in nature or art, he found the sight breathtakingly beautiful.

[Alert]

[Congratulations!]

[A skill has levelled up]

<Skills>

[Aura Detection Lv 4 >>> Lv 5]

[Skill ‘Aura Detection’ has evolved to the skill ‘Aura Inspection’]

[Aura Inspection Lv 5:

The user is able to decipher auras. The user will gain a deeper understanding of a being by looking at their auras.]

‘The skill levelled up just from watching the abyss butterfly multiply?’

[“I can safely say that you have used your Aura detection skill the most out of all your skills yet it wasn’t the first one to level up. That was because the variety of creatures you detected was not good enough. Not that you got the chance to detect such a rare creature, of course you will finally able to improve the skill.”]

“It came just in time too.” Rhys muttered ruefully as he looked out between the swarm of red butterflies.

Time slowed as he stared at the intruder dressed in black, standing just outside the humongous swarm.

The intruder knew this would happen. He sent the butterfly after Rhys, knowing it would create this very big, very visible swarm around the target he was looking for, like a giant red ‘X’ marking the spot.

Rhys glanced back at the silent empty tunnel. There was no way the military had not seen him through the cameras. It was obvious that they would rather sit back and watch instead of coming out to help, perhaps they wanted to see the strength of this intruder and were willing to use an expendable freshman student to do it, after all he was on the Termination list.

Rhys chuckled wondering if they were watching him on some big screen TV.

Even though he had tried to go and get help, he hadn’t considered that the people he was seeking help from, wouldn’t care to step in.

He nodded, finally understanding that he was really alone in this world. And alone was how he would have to survive.

All that was left to do now was fight.