We rarely fear what we know but make reasons to fear that which we do not.

~Manannan, God of the Sea & Weather

Crow explored his current landing spot but found nothing he could use as a temporary shelter, so he hopped in his boat and kept moving through the Cursed Grove. As night came on, the swamp forest became creepier than ever. The temperature dropped significantly, and he could see his breath. It was an unnatural cold but explained how a Snowmoon Serpent survived in this place.

Two things crossed his mind. Since the cold was unnatural and out of place, then there was definitely a cause. The second thing was that the serpent he just fought couldn’t have arrived here naturally, so it was most likely a guardian someone set in place.

The temperature drop was so drastic that he could see where land was because the water surrounding them started to freeze. The thin sheet of ice spread at a pace the naked eye could see, and he started shivering despite his cultivation level and Shield. Crow was forced to put a heavy cloak on as he paddled through the dark, creepy environment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shadowy person watching him from behind a tree. When he turned toward the location, the person was gone, but he trusted what he saw. After another fifteen minutes, he spotted people on that same landmass at least a dozen more times. It was also by far the largest island he’d seen, well maybe. It was hard to tell during the day, but this land had no break.

It’d make sense that people were living there—if people actually liked living in a place like this. Seeing the restless waters ahead and the stirring of night creatures, he decided to take a risk. Paddling hard, he used the boat to break through the layer of thin ice until he bumped against what felt like a rock.

After hopping off the boat, he realized the ground was frozen solid. Once the boat was stored, he walked toward the tree he spotted the last person he saw. He kept his eyes out for sign—it was the first thing every Druid learned about woodcraft. The forest spoke, but it was up to the Druid to learn to listen.

The problem was there was no sign, no footprints, no broken branches, or bent plants. Reviewing what Crow saw through his Sage’s Mind and Three-Headed Crow sight, he knew this was the right place. Something was wrong because his eyes caught something his vision ability did not. The more he thought about it, the more nervous he became.

In his heart, Crow knew what he saw but didn’t want to admit it—ghosts.

Why am I always drawn to places like this? Was it my choice of spells and techniques? It didn’t overall matter because he knew he needed to leave this island immediately. Only when he turned back did he realize it was too late. Mists had risen up around his back trail, and he could feel the faint hum of mana indicating he triggered a formation. If he wasn’t mistaken, the mists were some sort of confusion array, and with his meager strength, he didn’t believe he could navigate through it.

Besides, there were definitely ghosts in the mists. The faces of thousands of people appeared and disappeared like the ebbing and flow of a tide. The freaky part was all of them had their mouths wide open as if they were screaming out an opera of fear, but it was like sound didn’t exist in this place.

As if reading his mind and sensing his confusion, ghosts appeared from within the trees, rising up from the cold mist that had somehow permeated the area around his feet. The entire forest was carpeted in a thin layer of that frost-like mist. These ghosts all pointed in a specific direction, which terrified him more than the silently screaming ones.

Crow didn’t want to ever go in the direction they indicated. It was a bad idea. So bad. Yet, his feet were moved for him as ghostly hands grasped his legs and walked him forward. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break free but suspected that his heavenly flame could destroy them. He hesitated to use it because, unlike the pointing ghosts, the leg graspers were an illusion. They were part of a formation he actually knew called Forward Step—which just meant no matter what action he took, he’d always take a step forward. It really boggled the mind when a person trapped in it would step back because even that moved forward. Essentially it was a formation that worked like quicksand. The more he fought it, the more he’d end up sinking further into the formation. Wherever it wanted him to go, he knew he didn’t want to end up there.

Out of curiosity, he activated his Ghostly Aura and was overwhelmed with a cacophony of sound. The chaotic screams of the ghosts reverberated in his head until he thought he’d lost his mind. Despite that, he didn’t deactivate it. Using the pressure, he tried to push his comprehension of the aura to another level by struggling under the weight of their grief, anger, and unrest.

Crow didn’t know how long he endured, but he felt his Ghostly Aura had reached a bottleneck. Taking a step forward and then another, he felt the pressure increase. At some point, his awareness of the ghosts had grown. Behind the pointing ghosts, who seemed to be singing a haunting hymn, darker, more malevolent spirits were held at bay by the ghostly chants.

Somehow he knew if the pointing ghosts stopped chanting, he would die.

He’d long realized that he couldn’t resist the Forward Step formation too. Ghostly Aura gave him an idea, which is why he was using the ghosts to help him break through. On a whim, he activated Ghost Steps and realized he could avoid the formation. Since his feet didn’t touch the ground, it rendered the formation inactive. However, the second he did that, he noticed the ghosts stopped chanting. Those malevolent spirits charged at him, seeking his warmth, the fire of his vitality.

Deactivating Ghost Steps, the chanting started up again, and the malevolent spirits that got two close were torn apart by the hymn. Crow grinned when he saw that. After a few more steps forward, he sat down and cultivated while enduring the pressure. He entered his Soulscape so he could use the time dilation to think about his next steps. Namely, he needed to reorganize his abilities.

He noticed something about Ghostly Aura—it aligned with Ghost Form that was part of his Ghostly Visage technique. They weren’t exactly the same, but he’d quickly merged the two concepts along with Become the Ghost, the first stage of Ghostly Visage. Crow, using the environment to his advantage, converted his other ghost-related abilities into his Ghosting ability. He realized that the Ghostly Aura was a much better foundation for all of them. Provided his Ghostly Aura gained enough advancement, it would allow him to open up the other abilities within Ghost Phasing, Ghost Steps, and Ghostly Visage.

After rearranging his abilities based on his thoughts, he now had Ghosting and Three-Headed Crow. Under Ghosting, he had three specializations that relied on the Ghostly Aura: Ghostly Phasing, Ghost Steps, and Ghostly. Ghostly had the most changes with his new format because phasing and steps focused on a linear advancement. Still, Ghostly had a lot of miscellaneous abilities that could be learned out of order. Crow felt this could be further refined and spent time analyzing all of it.

Ghostly also combined the Becoming the Ghost and Ghost Form together, which was basically what he discovered before. It allowed him to use Ghostly Aura as the base and temporarily become a ghost as long as the Ghost Mana within him wasn’t depleted. He could still use the camouflage ability without the aura, but it was much weaker in comparison.

In the end, he broke those abilities out of Ghostly Visage and made them their own progression. So the stages of mastery were Ghostly Aura, Becoming the Ghost, Ghost Form, Ghost Eyes, and then Ghostly Existence. Now that he understood Ghost Form, he felt that Ghost Eyes was something he could learn now. Ghostly Existence was not something he could master any time soon, and its complexity was way beyond his capabilities currently. He wasn’t even sure Ghost Mana would activate it but wasn’t sure what type of mana would be more effective.

Which left him with a fourth branching under Ghosting which he called Myriad of the Dead. Myriad of the Dead started with Faces of the Dead, which allowed him to take on the appearance of anyone he killed. The next phase was Deathly Appearance which allowed him to feign death and take the appearance of anyone he’d seen die, including those he killed. Myriad of the Dead, which the entire line was named after, was an illusion ability that made the person fighting him see the ghosts of their past. Anyone that Crow’s opponent had seen die had a chance of appearing. It targeted the person’s fears and was a very vicious spell. Curse of the Myriad was like Myriad of the Dead only as a curse. The victim would randomly see the faces of those they killed on the people around them.

The last two stages were at a level Crow didn’t fully comprehend, but the first was Become the Wraith, which he renamed to Wraith Form. It was similar to Ghost Form, only he could attack a person’s soul. The upgraded version of that was Reaper Form which would allow him to destroy souls—similar to what his father could do. Overall, he wasn’t comfortable with the Myriad of the Dead spells because they felt taboo and sinister. However, he didn’t neglect them because their utility wasn’t something he should ignore. Instead, he decided to make some ground rules about using them.

Once everything was reorganized, and his new Ghosting ability was reformed with Ghostly Aura as its foundation, he felt infinitely better about it. It felt more complete this way. The best part was that the Ghostly Aura could convert mana from his Shield into Ghost Mana. It allowed him to control many aspects of the aura, like power and range.

Using his new comprehension, he left his Soulscape to use the pressure of the surrounding ghosts to improve once more. Almost all of that, he used to train his eyes and activate Ghost Eyes. Days or hours passed, he couldn’t be sure which, but he finally succeeded. Once the vision changed, he saw the world of spirits, and it was almost like Mana Sense in that he experienced the world through sensory-based sight. The only difference was that this ability funneled through his eyes so he couldn’t see in every direction.

Ghosts, previously hidden in the darkness, were now visible. The world lit up as everything Crow saw had an inner light. The full spectrum of colors was confusing and disorienting. At first, he couldn’t make much sense of it because nothing had precisely the same color, but he was shocked when he realized he saw auras. Crow had no idea if this was how the spell was supposed to work, but Ghost Eyes worked on living, dead, and inanimate.

The only problem was that his head felt like it was being split open by an ax after about thirty seconds. The pain was beyond excruciating, and even his normal vision was temporarily affected. In the future, he had to be careful to not overuse it.

“Hehehe,” a sinister voice laughed from beside him. Crow’s skin crawled, and he turned slowly and hoped nothing was there. Nothing was there, but it didn’t stop that creepy feeling that made his back tingle as if something was about to reach out to him from the dark. “You can see me, but not with those eyes.”

Crow fell back as he felt a cold blast of air against his cheek as the voice spoke once more. He wanted to scream out but was too terrified. Activating Ghost Eyes, he saw a being that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Its legs and arms were twice the length of a typical human, and it squatted on them so that its head was over Crow’s and looking down at him with large unblinking eyes. Its smile was much too wide for its face. As it sneered, its lips pulled back, revealing a row of pointy teeth like that of a shark.

Cackling, its long fingers stroked Crow’s face, and he felt his flesh sear as the bitter cold seeped in.