All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 158: A Ghost of a Chance

Chapter 158: A Ghost of a Chance

My struggle with the void felt like it took forever. With each nanosecond, it stayed outside of me; I could feel it trying to spread. It wanted to consume. Not in any monstrous malicious way, but more like a cloud of expanding smoke. It was simply its nature. Like how water was wet, the void was hungry.

It was funny that it had taken such an effort to force it out of me, but the second that it got a taste of those weird energy ghosts, it only wanted more. The zombies running into me and getting consumed weren't helping. My awareness faded as I locked my will against the primal force, and ever so slowly, it retreated into my dustbin.

Finally, the bubble of complete darkness shrunk to the size of a golf ball. With one last push, I had it locked away inside my dustbin. I checked on it, still on high alert, and it seemed to be slumbering safely again. Looking around, a diagnostic showed that only a few seconds had passed when it had felt like years to me. Was this what humans meant when they said they lost track of time?

I resumed my standard cleaning protocol for the area, re-engaging the subroutines for the Divine Sword, Sanitation Lamp, Spray Bottle, and everything else. Still, there was one thing that piqued my interest.

LEVEL 65 REACHED! CHOOSE A SKILL: SPIRITUAL CLEANSE, VOICE OF AUTHORITY, MICROFABRICATION

Normally I hadn't bothered to track when I leveled up. When I hit the next multiple of five, the system would show me the prompt to choose skills, and that was that. Though with so much time having passed since I had last leveled up, I had checked on my progress a couple times. The experience I gained from my followers had been trickling in, and I was slowly growing in power. As long as they kept the castle clean and trained themselves, I would steadily increase in power.

All that was to say that I wasn't surprised at the notification.

This was a more complicated choice than I would have thought. Normally I didn't have to agonize over the selection of the power-ups the system offered me. Either one was clearly better than all the others, or they were all bad. Here I had three compelling choices. Voice of Authority was interesting but not the highest on my list. I didn't feel the need for more authority. Beatrice handling all leadership-related duties was just fine with me. However, it did seem like it might give me a voice like the humans had. Being able to talk would be very useful. It was something I was valuing more and more nowadays. When I was previously offered another skill that might have given me speech, I had chosen Air Purifier over it. That had turned out quite disappointing. While it had become useful eventually, it couldn't compare with universal communication.

It seemed a waste to invest in now, though. I was getting more and more people who could understand me, and it was no longer pressing. That made picking the option feel like an inefficient allocation of resources. If I really needed to talk to people, Beatrice could take care of it. Or Felix. Or Tanu.

Microfabrication was tempting as well. I had really come to enjoy creating things. From the first broom that I made to the scarf I had given Beatrice, each one was wonderful to create. While I was sure that this skill would greatly increase my crafting ability, I again didn't really need it. Within me was a powerful void that I had control over. I was getting more dextrous all the time with it - heck, I could even make different metal alloys in there! If I trained my skill with Void Manipulation, I was sure that I could improve to the point where this skill would become superfluous.

This left only the first skill. My initial instinct was to pick it because the word Clean was in the name. While that was a satisfying reason on its own, I had broadened my thinking a lot recently. Become more enlightened as to the uses of things with more indirect cleaning benefits. No, the compelling part was the first word. Spiritual.

I had heard Beatrice talk a lot about spirituality when she told others about our first adventures. I had never heard of the word before that. But it was often mentioned in relation to a soul. I wasn't exactly sure what a soul was, but it was apparently important to keep it pure. This interested me as I was always interested in anything that involved cleanliness. Just because I didn't know what it was didn't mean that I couldn't eventually learn how to clean it. And learning how to clean new things was just what I needed at the moment.

This could be my next big leap forward. It could be on par with the discovery of bacteria and viruses or maybe even the grabby arm. New things to clean and a new power to help do it seemed fitting.

The other skill options might enhance the things I could already do. This offered me something new entirely. I couldn't pass this up.

Confirming my choice, a new sense was unveiled. My perception of the surrounding world shifted. This didn't come through my sensors or vision but through some other apparatus. All around me, within each of the undead, I could sense a small withered orb of black light. Was this their "spirit"?

My detection range wasn't far. No more than a dozen feet in any direction, currently. That meant I couldn't compare the orb with that of a normal human at the moment.

If this was their spirit or soul, and I could cleanse it, could I save them? What would that do, exactly? Could I keep them from being such terrible mess-makers? Or was that simply wishful thinking?

Even if I could fix their souls, I didn't think I could fix their bodies, at least not without bringing them into my void and constructing Crystal replacement parts for them. But that experiment was still in progress.

Reaching out with my new sense, I lifted a nearby zombie into the air and away from my spinning Divine Sword. Then I tried to remove the blackness from its soul.

It fought me every single millimeter. The blackened soul was tougher than the streaks of tar that had hardened on the castle wall. Still, I pried away the gunk. The resistance increased exponentially, and within a fraction of a second, it snapped. A tiny fleck of the blackened material flaked off of the spirit. However, the resistance didn't come without cost.

Even as I considered my attempt, I watched the soul crumble into dust, fading into some strange substance I could not track. I received a small rush of energy from the remaining bit of the zombie as it collapsed before me.

Well, that was a new way to fight enemies. Problematically, it took far too long to destroy one, and I didn't have the ability to split my focus on multiple souls yet. This effort also took a lot of battery to use - not as much as the void had, but I still had much more efficient methods of cleaning up this mess. In the future, maybe I would become strong enough to properly cleanse them, but for now, that wasn't an option.

Shrugging off the distraction, I picked up where I left off. My focus shifted entirely to the task at hand. The air swept my targets into groups for more efficient gathering, and soon I was humming along at a steady clip once more.

I hadn't had so much fun cleaning in a long while. Everything had become too easy, too effortless. It hadn't felt like work. To be fair, I had never found it tedious, but at least I felt like I was pushing myself in a productive way here. Just sitting in a room for a few minutes was not the same.

Sweeping up this large cluster of the undead in the most efficient manner….Now that required all my effort. If I was content to take care of this task in a less-than-optimal way, then it wouldn't have taken so much attention.

Still, the sooner it was taken care of, the better in my mind. Clearly, the humans had been having trouble with these mess makers, and I thought they would appreciate them being gone.

A few moments after I had hit my stride again, I sensed a few people on top of the wall watching me. I could make out that one of them was Beatrice. I would have waved to her if it hadn't thrown off my rhythm, but sadly I couldn't break my flow.

Then the young girl jumped off the wall. This caused my processor to freeze for a second in panic, but I soon recovered. She landed safely in a very cool-looking pose. I'd have to let her know how cool it was after this. A second later, the commander followed her down. His landing was no-nonsense, and the way he held himself radiated an air of confidence. Dang. Beatrice still had a few things to learn about looking intimidating. Maybe it would come with age.

The two of them stood in the way of a much larger incorporeal being. I kept my attention on them for a few moments until I saw Beatrice throw something at it and hurt the thing slightly. Oh good, they would be able to fight it. I would continue monitoring their engagement in the background to see if they needed help, but I returned my main focus to the task at hand and picked it up a notch.

—

Bee's heart dropped as the wraith passed into her holy aura without so much as flinching.

The thing was giving off a yellowish aura to her senses. Curious about how something so clearly unholy could withstand her power, she ran a more detailed Scan on it.

Name: Gerald. Level: 48. Race: wraith, undead. Highest Stat: Intelligence. Weakest Stat: Str.

It out-leveled her. That was concerning. That might explain why the Holy Aura wasn't nearly as effective on this guy. It had worked great on all those zombies and shades, but she really hadn't had a chance to test it on something around her own level. Anything over level 40 was scarce and specifically was fought by teams of adventures.

The wraith materialized a walking stick in its hand and moved to intercept Arthur's incoming swing.

The sword met the mystical ethereal walking stick, and they clashed in a very solid manner. It sent the wraith floating backward from the force of his blow, but it seemed relatively undamaged.

Bee and Arthur both ran at it from opposing sides. The wraith reached its free hand towards Arthur and clenched. The burly man gritted his teeth and froze up as though they were locked in a contest of will.

Luckily, that meant the wraith was distracted too. She took advantage of the opening Arthur's personal battle gave her. Lunging forward, she tried to pierce its side with her divinely made weapon. Surely it would have some effect.

At the last possible second, the wraith snapped out of his focused trance and redirected her thrust with the walking stick. It sliced past its ethereal body, missing it by inches. She stumbled forward at the lack of resistance, but it was a ploy.

As she moved past the wraith, she let go of her broom with one hand and slammed a palm strike into his center, activating her newest skill.

A Scouring Strike ripped out of her palm with a golden flash of holy light. The sensation was strangely abrasive and satisfying. It felt like she was scrubbing at the very soul of the wraith. It hissed in pain and retreated back out of her reach.

The being went incorporeal for a second, disappearing from view. They both looked around, wondering where it went, before she glimpsed the shadowy shape right behind Arthur. It materialized with a hand on his shoulder.

A sudden swelling of energy sent him to his knees, and the wraith started to chuckle.