Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth had no way to know the details, but he could imagine the kind of tragic death these children had gone through and he doubted the perpetrator had peacefully gone to the afterlife.

He shared his concerns with Sandra. Although he didn't really know her, she was the expert on these matters. Since he was too lazy to invent some excuse, he shared the secret of Undead Amity during his explanation.

"There was this kind of effect..." she mumbled but quickly answered his question.

"You are right. To bind other ghosts against their will and keep them from finding peace, it needs a powerful and malicious ghost. A person that was already a cruel and evil person in life. This main entity was our main goal when we started further investigating this place."

Seth did not want to know what kind of people were looking for this kind of merchandise. He couldn't think of anything good that came from a soul like that.

The blacksmith had roughly read the notes she had given him about the house. It had already mentioned a big number of ghosts, probably controlled by the main entity. However, seeing the situation with his own eyes...

Despite having no idea what it took to create the chains, the impression they gave him spoke of unimaginable atrocities. He had seen this operation as a way to pay for his souls, but what he saw made him genuinely angry and aggrieved.

He was no saint and he knew that. If he had a choice he would avoid situations that made him feel like this 10 out of 10 times, but now it happened and he felt obligated to end this. He stomped back out onto the long hallway lined with doors, the rotten wood under his feet crumbling with every step, as the exorcist lady followed him.

"Listen, we should still be careful. You said it yourself, you don't really know the full extent of the effect. It might be very possible that an intelligent and sufficiently powerful undead won't be affected."

"Do you have a plan, or do you want to aimlessly wander around this place?" she kept asking.

Seth closed his eyes and tried using <Soul Capture> to detect more ghosts, but he failed. How was this possible? There were no clear signs he could follow anymore as if the soul aura in the mansion had become homogeneous. Could it be that their opponent had noticed what they did and reacted?

This quickly!? Unwilling to show that his initial plan was foiled, he employed a tried and true method.

"The plan is to meticulously check every door and every room we come across. We will save any survivor and free any ghost we come across until we find the big fat spider at the center of this net." Seth explained.

There was no complicated thought behind the blacksmith's strategy. It was his gamer instinct. Unless a cue or hint was given, it was best to just comb through all the places one could visit.

Sandra looked at him a little odd, but his explanation made sense. At least they would be sure about what places they had already checked. Seth checked the doors to the left and Sandra the doors to the right.

"This one is blocked from the other side. I can't open it." Sandra lamented, pushing at the door to no effect.

Seth only looked at her with some surprise before he came over and simply punched through the door. This was real life after all, not some computer game. Why would he be stopped by some rotten wood door?

"Hik!"

The fist blasting through the door prompted a hysteric scream from inside the room. Sandra and Seth looked at each other. This didn't sound like a ghost. " A Survivor?" they has the same thought and the blacksmith proceeded to rip the door from the frame.

The room was like most of the other rooms, mostly empty. Most rooms only had some rotten remnants of old furniture and rusty scrap in them. This one had an additional figure whimpering in the corner.

"No, please! I don't want to die. Please let me go. I can't take this anymore," he sobbed weakly.

Hugging his knee, and crying, there was a boy, maybe 17 years old. He wore the black version of Sandra's outfit. His arms were resting on his knees and they could not see his face. The exorcist lady touched his arm and signaled him to stay at the door, while she approach the boy carefully.

Seth did not stop her. The boy didn't give him the same feeling like the little girls, so he was probably not a ghost.

"Jackson, it's okay now. We came to help get you. You have to calm down. You are safe now," she said calmly to comfort him.

"Vice-Captain?" the boy paused his sobbing and looked up.

Sandra jolted back and Seth grimaced at the sight. Jackson's eyes were only bloody cavities and someone had cut off his nose and lips. The blood on his face had already dried and the wounds had festered.

Worse than the sight were the implications. With the augmentation of the system, these kinds of wounds would heal over time. Maybe he wouldn't regenerate his eyes and his nose without some healing magic, but there was no way they would reach such a state.

Not to mention that Jackson was of the same class as Sandra and would probably know some healing magic or have some potions. This meant that whatever had injured him, applied a kind of curse or magic that hindered the healing of the wounds.

This had become one of the most frightening powers in a day and age, where almost all ordinary injuries like cuts and bruises would vanish in a day or two. And a cleric could heal almost any malady.

"Vice-Captain! My- my eyes, my, my, ..." he gave up trying to speak as he could hard pronounce words without his lips. Despairing, he went back to crying bloody tears.

"It's okay, Jackson. We will get you out of here and fix you up."

When she tried to touch his shoulder, a hand suddenly stopped her. Seth had grabbed her wrist to stop her from touching the boy.

"Who is there? Is there someone else?" the boy asked alarmed by the second set of steps.

Seth had stepped her because he felt something with <Soul Capture> the moment Sandra approached Jackson. It seemed like the method to hide these ghosts stopped working when they started taking action.

The blacksmith signaled her to be silent. He didn't fully know where the ghost was hiding, but it was clear Jackson was a bait. Since the situation started to change when she tried to touch him, Seth did so in her stead.

Jackson suddenly tried to jump up and run away, when it was not the soft hand of a motherly figure that touched his shoulder, but the strong grip of a cold gauntlet. No matter how much he struggle, the Wraithguard had closed on his shoulder like a vice and he couldn't get away.

"What are you doing?!" Sandra exclaimed unclear who she was talking to.

"I see now. There you are."

With Jackson in his hand, under the influence of Wraithguard, he could see the state of the boy's soul.

The next moment Seth shoved the young boy away, but as the boy fell to the side, another silhouette stayed in the tight grasp of his gauntlet. On the other side, Sandra caught the unconscious Jackson before he fell to the ground.

Under the mysterious power of his item, it was unable to get out of his grasp, much less use its powers as a ghost. It was a vicious-looking ghost, like a shrunken and desiccated old man or a gremlin. It had been hugging the boy's soul and controlling his actions.

"This has to be one of those other existences you spoke about," Seth concluded, talking to Sandra.

"Probably. It might be the ghost of someone that helped the main entity or was lured here by it.

The blacksmith nodded. The ghost was ugly and evil and didn't invoke any pity in Seth, which meant that its soul was quickly added to his collection.

<Snatcher's Soul (Big, Uncommon)

The soul of a man filled with a greed for power and control during his life. >

The description didn't even mention any talents or anything. For now, he just put it away, he was sure there would be a use for it in the future.

"Let's bring the boy out and continue."