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    The forms that emerged from the sea mist were only nominally “men”. They had all the parts that made up a human: skin, eyes, even hair to an extent, but those parts were…lacking. The skin was too tight and wrapped around what looked like desiccated flesh, their eyes were shriveled and cloudy, and their hair was wispy and brittle looking, more like straw than healthy human hair.


    In short, they looked super creepy. But what they looked like was nothing compared to the SOUND. The screams that came from their gaping, nearly toothless mouths wasn’t just LOUD, it affected us on a psychological level. I was able to brush it off, as were Abel and Bethy, but those of us with less training dealing with psychological pressure looked spooked. We sent the rest of them inside with Wesley and his family, while the three of us waited out here.


    Abel grimaced at the hideous Pale Men (weirdly they DID all seem to be men, which made wonder if the Pale Women just didn’t exist or traveled in a different group), shaking his head in disgust. “I’m not even sure I want to touch those things long enough to beat them to death.”


    Bethy nodded. “Super gross,” she agreed. “They look like overcooked chicken wings. You know, like when they cook all the moisture out and its just like shriveled meat and fried skin on a bone? They probably taste way worse though.”


    “No eating the sea zombies,” I told her sternly. “You don’t know where they’ve been.”


    Hesitating slightly, I triggered Dantalion. We were pretty firmly inland, so I didn’t have to go through mind break as I stared into the endless abyss that was the ocean. I kept the radius of my detection penned in to a hundred feet or so. Dantalion would enable me to investigate the enemy and determine what exactly they were. Whether that would HELP us at all was probably anyone’s guess, but more information never hurt anyone. Except me. Very recently.


    To prepare, I triggered Sammael and Mornax too. Three forms was easy when one of them was Sammael, and now that I’d perfected my techniques enough to use them outside their forms, I didn’t strictly need to be in Mephistopheles or Belial unless I wanted to up my damage output.


    Next to me, I saw Abel vanish, replaced nearly instantly by a simulacrum of himself made of shimmering blood. I blinked at the transformation. This must be his ‘Ragam Blood Body’, the one he’d mentioned to Sebastian. He caught me watching and grinned toothily. “Pretty cool, right? You haven’t even seen the most impressive part.”


    “I’d imagine it’s the fact that you somehow folded an entire full body manifestation with your spatial powers and condensed it down into the appearance of a normal person.” I said somewhat smugly. His expression fell and I laughed. “Dantalion is active, manifesting a form this close to me is just asking me to figure it out.”


    Still, the Ragam Blood Body WAS impressive. Despite appearing about five foot ten, Abel’s blood body was actually hundreds of feet tall. He’d manifested his Path through Ragam and then used his ability to warp space to condense it, but it wasn’t ACTUALLY any smaller. Because of that, any attacks on Abel had to go through what looked like a layer of blood energy but was essentially feet after feet of Path affected manifestation, essentially bleeding energy from every blow.


    Abel’s Path was The Infinite Blood Sea, a fusion of his Ragam, Path of Blood, and spatial abilities. I knew he’d been working on merging the last into a cohesive combat style, and his new form had definitely achieved that goal.


    Even Bethy looked a bit impressed. “Wow, that’s pretty cool,” she said enthusiastically. “Can I lick it?”


    He glared at her. “NO! I’m not stupid. I saw your dad eat plasma at that conclave. You think I’m going to let you LICK my infinite blood sea? We’re about to fight zombies, I’m not weakening myself because you want to know what space tastes like.”


    “I bet it tastes like cotton candy,” she said, clearly ignoring almost all of what he just said. “Or nachos. Space seems like nachos, right?” She didn’t have a chance to explain that comment because her head jerked up excitedly like a hunting dog catching a scent. “Oh! First!” She vanished into a cloud of bats, and we both realized the Pale Men had made landfall.


    “Shit,” I cursed. “BETHY, leave some for us!” I flashed forward in a burst of black flame, the Ten Demons Tree coming to my hand as I appeared among the incoming wave of sea zombies. I crowed with joy as my staff whirled, the ends smashing into the bodies of my attackers, extinction events consuming body parts as I laid waste to the terrifying creatures. I saw Bethy reform amongst them , claws out and shredding muscles and ligaments as she whirled among the mostly dead, dancing to a rhythm only she could hear.


    Abel was as brutal and efficient as ever, his fists shattering the air as he punched out in short, sharp jabs, crushing monsters with every blow. Each punch shattered a whole enemy into dust, clearly playing with the compressed space of his condensed form to unleash horrible strength across a larger area.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    Between the three of us, it took us only moments to destroy them all, and we were left kind of…underwhelmed.


    Bethy pouted. “That was lame. I was all excited, but they were super weak. Why don’-” her voice was cut off as a torrent of mist exploded up from the shredded bodies at her feet, funneling into her mouth and down her throat, sending her stumbling back, choking.


    I cursed, flashing forward and triggering Zagan, bringing my hand up to flood her with purifying energy, but stopped as she held up a hand.


    As we watched, Bethy twitched a few times, growling, and her eyes flared red. She shook her head, blurring the space with how fast she moved, and the mist that had invaded her seemed to have trouble catching up, some of it left behind in the air. When there was a decent cloud of mist she whirled and hissed, striking like a cobra, teeth sinking into the mist as she savaged it, tearing into the incorporeal being with a snarling ferocity I’d rarely seen from her.


    We heard a scream, and a body manifested from the mist, one of the stronger Pale Men, hiding amongst his brethren, hoping to possess someone. Dantalion identified him easily at this range. The transparent humanoid screeched an even more disturbing cry than usual, its ragged fingernails clawing the air as it tried to drag itself away from the vampire.


    Bethy inhaled heavily, and as we watched, she sucked the entire spirit back into her body, gnashing her teeth as she did until it vanished down her throat, and then she swallowed loudly.


    We just stared at her, panting heavily, eyes blazing red. I half expected to need to help her calm down, but she closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and then suppressed the bloodlust. “Well,” Abel said brightly. “That was fucking terrifying.”


    “Yup,” I agreed. “And not just to us. There’s another bodyjacker over there mixed into the crowd I killed. He didn’t have time to get me and now he’s too scared to try. Bethy, if you’d be so kind?”


    Even as I spoke, the incorporeal monster screeched and exploded off the ground, trying in vain to streak away back into the misty sea. He didn’t manage to get very far before Bethy appeared behind him, sinking her claws deep into his misty body and dragging him mercilessly back toward us.


    “I got him,” she said sulkily. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that first one.”


    She tossed the monster spirit on the ground, pinning him with a sharp heel, then bared her teeth at him menacingly. “Hey, snack. You better answer my bestie’s question or I’m going to gargle you with sparkle crackers.” I hadn’t had the fizzy candy she mentioned, but she’s talked about them before, a favorite of hers as a child. Apparently, despite the lack of context, the threat was still effective because the struggling ghost creature froze, going completely still under her foot.


    Nodding smugly, she glanced at me, as if passing the torch. I was already learning plenty from Dantalion, but nothing useful. I honestly didn’t have many questions for this thing. It was a monster. It wanted to eat people. Not much mystery to its motivations. But I thought of a few things.


    Since it used to be human, I decided to directly ask it about the area my friends were supposed to be. “Do you know how to get to Ashcrag?” I demanded in my coldest voice.


    It stared at me, shriveled ghostly eyes fixed on my mask. “He asked you a question,” snapped Bethy, grinding her heel. The monster screeched again, and I winced as I felt the impact against my soul. That was such an unpleasant ability. Finally, after seeing its screams weren’t working, it calmed down and moaned piteously, flopping limply to the ground. “Mercy,” came a grating, warbling his. “Mercy for this lost one. Mercy, great things for poor Io!”


    Suspicious but interested, I gestured for Bethy to ease up. “Well, I asked you a- DODGE!” I screamed the last as my Danger Sense, which had been silent since before we finished the fight, roared to life. I hurled myself sideways, Bethy and Abel following suit, just in time to avoid an arrow from the ocean headed right for my back.


    The blazing missile of light crashed into “poor Io” with the white hot intensity of supernova, and the monster screamed in agony as his soul appeared to be literally annihilated by the impact.


    I whirled, staff up, wings in front of my friends as I triggered Gluttony, but there was no followup. In the distance, out on the water, I saw a small wooden boat. On the boat sat a figure with a bow the size of ME, the string relaxed and no arrow knocked. When we spotted it, it stood, swept into a courtly bow complete with hand flourish, and then sat down, beginning to row away.


    Bethy surged forward, ready to pursue, but I caught her arm tightly. “Don’t,” I said bluntly. “See that little green candle on the boat? That’s the same fire we saw on the bridges. It’s some kind of protection. You absolutely do NOT want to go out on that water without it.”


    She hissed angrily, but closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths. “Right, that’s fine,” she said slowly, as if convincing herself. Releasing Gluttony but not Mornax, I put a hand on her shoulder, triggering Life Nova. Her shoulders slumped. “Sorry, sorry, I’m fine. That was…unpleasant. Attempted possession gets my back up.”


    Her voice was rough and ragged, far from the effervescent and bubbly chirp I was used to. I sent another surge of Life Nova into her, and that drew a smile from my “bestie”. Abel cleared his throat. “Glad you’re ok, fangs, but we’ve got bigger problems.” He pointed at the destroyed spirit being. “That attack was DANGEROUS. I don’t know about you, but I think it might have killed me if it landed.”


    “I could have taken it,” she said thoughtfully. “But it wouldn’t have been much fun. How bout’ you Shane?”


    I nodded. “Same. But you’re right. That was…that was a powerful blow. I think we just met one of the D-rankers from the god worlds. I hope they were one of the stronger ones too, because if not, we might actually be in some trouble.” That had been one of the strongest targeted attacks I’d ever seen from a D-ranker, INCLUDING myself.


    Turning back towards the village, I frowned. I needed to talk to Wesley, see if he’d heard anything about them. If they were geared for sea travel they’d probably been here for a while. I didn’t know when my friends had arrived, but the others might have been here even longer. This could pose a problem.