007 Unexorcisable Ghost

  Grey Sands was exactly what it sounded like—a barren desert stretching as far as the eye could see, covered in sand the color of ash. The sky above was dull and hazy, and there wasn’t a single tree, bde of grass, or sign of life anywhere. It was the kind of pce where hope came to die… which, honestly, made it perfect for my current situation.

  Skully had led me here without much fanfare. He didn’t say a word as we traveled, and I didn’t ask any questions. What was there to say, anyway? I had asked him to kill me, and he had agreed. Simple as that.

  Now, we stood at opposite ends of a wide, empty stretch of sand. Skully had positioned himself a good distance away, probably to avoid getting any of my ectopsmic goo on him if this went sideways. He raised one bony hand and shouted across the expanse.

  “Are you ready, ghost?!”

  I gave him a big, exaggerated double thumbs-up and yelled back, “Ready as I’ll ever be!”

  To his credit, Skully didn’t waste time with any sentimental speeches or second thoughts. He just nodded and got right to work. What a guy.

  Magic circles began forming around him, glowing in eerie shades of blue, green, and purple. Runes and ancient symbols rotated zily in the air, surrounding him like orbiting pnets. I couldn’t help but be impressed. I’d seen Skully use magic before, but never like this. This was on a whole other level.

  Apparently, Skully hadn’t been able to use his big spells back at his base because he didn’t want to risk destroying all his stuff. Fair enough. Now, though, he had no such restrictions, and he was really cutting loose. I could practically feel the power crackling in the air.

  I waited patiently while Skully built up his magic. It took a while—about five minutes or so. At first, I figured he was just being careful, but as time went on, I started to get the feeling that he was drawing this out on purpose. Like he was savoring it.

  Sure enough, when the sky finally started to darken, I noticed something… off about Skully’s posture. He wasn’t just serious or focused—he was excited. His blue fmes were burning brighter than usual, and there was a certain gleam in his eye sockets that made me think he was really looking forward to this.

  When he finally spoke, his voice boomed across the desert like thunder.

  “MORTAL GHOST, PREPARE YOURSELF! FOR YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS THE TRUE POWER OF A LICH KING!”

  I squinted at him. “Uh… okay?”

  He raised both arms dramatically, and the magic circles around him fred with light. “BEHOLD! THE SPELL THAT SHALL END YOU! THE ULTIMATE DESTRUCTIVE FORCE! THE VERY WRATH OF THE HEAVENS MADE MANIFEST!”

  “Skully, are you monologuing?”

  “METEOR!” he bellowed, completely ignoring me.

  And then, with a flourish that could only be described as unnecessarily theatrical, he pointed one bony finger toward the sky.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then I felt it—a distant rumble, low and deep, like the growl of some ancient beast awakening from a long slumber. The ground trembled beneath me, and I gnced upward just in time to see the clouds part, revealing a massive, fming rock hurtling toward the earth.

  “Oh,” I said, blinking. “That’s… actually a meteor.”

  And it was coming right for me.

  “Hahahaha!” Skully cackled, practically vibrating with glee. “It’s been so long since I’ve used this spell! Oh, I almost forgot how fun it is! Goodbye, ghost! May your second death be swift and—”

  Before he could finish, the meteor crashed into the ground with a deafening roar, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and sand. The shockwave knocked me off my feet and sent me tumbling across the desert like a ragdoll. For a few seconds, I couldn’t see or hear anything except the ringing in my ears and the blinding haze of debris.

  When the dust finally started to settle, I floated up from where I’d nded and brushed myself off. My clothes were covered in sand, but other than that, I was perfectly fine. Not a scratch on me.

  “Whew,” I said, cracking my neck. “That was intense.”

  I turned to see Skully standing frozen in pce, his jaw literally hanging open. His eye fmes flickered wildly as he stared at me, clearly struggling to process what had just happened.

  “You’re… still here,” he said, his voice a mixture of disbelief and annoyance.

  “Yep,” I said cheerfully. “Guess that didn’t work, huh?”

  “But… but I hit you with Meteor! No one survives Meteor!” He threw his hands in the air. “It’s a spell specifically designed to obliterate everything in its path!”

  “Well, I guess I’m the exception,” I said with a shrug.

  Skully groaned and rubbed his bony temples. “I knew I should’ve gone with Eternal Abyss.”

  After the whole meteor incident, Skully stood there for a solid minute, silently staring at me like I was the most infuriating puzzle he’d ever encountered. Which, to be fair, I probably was.

  I floated a few feet off the ground, brushing off the st bit of dust clinging to my translucent hoodie. “So,” I said, breaking the awkward silence, “what’s next?”

  Skully let out a groan so loud it could’ve cracked stone. “What’s next?” he repeated, rubbing his skull like he had a migraine. “What’s next is that I start questioning everything I know about the fabric of existence! There’s nothing mortal about you, is there? You’re a walking contradiction!”

  “Technically, I’m a floating contradiction,” I corrected with a grin.

  He gred at me, his blue eye fmes flickering dangerously. “Don’t test me, ghost.”

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. Jeez. Someone’s cranky.”

  Skully grumbled under his breath and started pacing, muttering to himself about “ws of magic” and “cosmic anomalies.” Then, with a sudden burst of determination, he spun around to face me.

  “Fine,” he said. “If a meteor can’t exorcise you, we’ll just have to try everything.”

  And that’s exactly what we did.

  “Eternal Abyss!”

  Skully raised his hands, and the ground beneath me cracked open, revealing a swirling vortex of darkness. Tendrils of shadow reached up, grasping at my legs, pulling me downward into the inky void. I felt a chill seep into my very essence, like my soul was being unraveled thread by thread.

  It was… uncomfortable, sure. But did it exorcise me? Nope. After about a minute of being sucked into the abyss, I floated right back out, yawning like I’d just woken up from a nap.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Kind of underwhelming, honestly.”

  Skully’s jaw dropped. “UNDERWHELMING?! That spell is supposed to obliterate souls! It’s one of the most powerful banishment spells in existence!”

  “Well, maybe my soul is built different,” I said, shrugging.

  He muttered something about “stupid invincible ghosts” and stomped off to prepare his next spell.

  “Hellfire Purgatory!!”

  This one was a real doozy. Skully summoned a ring of fire around me—bck fmes that roared and crackled with the intensity of a thousand suns. The heat was so intense that the sand beneath me turned to gss, and the air shimmered with waves of distortion.

  For a moment, I thought, Okay, this one might actually do something. But nope. The fmes passed right through me like I wasn’t even there. When the spell finally ended, I was left floating in the middle of a charred crater, completely unharmed.

  “Well, that was toasty,” I said, grinning at Skully. “Got anything spicier?”

  He threw his hands up in frustration. “Why won’t you just DIE?!”

  “Been there, done that,” I said with a wink.

  “Death Knell.”

  This one was supposed to stop my heart. You know, if I still had one.

  Skully chanted some ancient incantation, and a low, ominous tolling sound echoed across the desert. I felt a strange pressure in my chest, like an invisible hand was trying to squeeze the life out of me. But since I was already dead, it just felt like… well, nothing.

  When the spell ended, I gave Skully a thumbs-up. “Still here.”

  He let out a scream of pure frustration and started pulling at his own ribcage.

  “Exploding Fireball! EXPLODING FIREBALL!! EXPLODING!!! FIREBALL!!!”

  This one was exactly what it sounded like. A giant fireball, roughly the size of a small boulder, hurtling toward me at breakneck speed. It exploded on impact, creating a massive shockwave that sent sand flying in every direction.

  Skully really went all in on this one. He spammed fireball after fireball at me like he was pying some magic-based RPG and had infinite mana to burn. One after another, they came hurtling toward me—each one bigger and hotter than the st—exploding on impact and creating a series of shockwaves that sent sand flying in every direction.

  The desert soon resembled a war zone, with craters dotting the ndscape and smoke rising in ominous bck tendrils. And yet, there I was, still floating in the same spot, casually brushing off bits of ash that didn’t even stick to me properly.

  When he finally stopped, panting despite the fact that he had no lungs, I waved at him through the smoke. “You done?”

  Skully let out a strangled growl and telekinetically hurled what looked like a chunk of molten gss at me. It passed right through my head. Cssic Skully.

  When the dust cleared, I was still floating in the same spot, completely unscathed.

  “Nice fireworks,” I said. “Got any more?”

  “Lightning Pilr!”

  A massive bolt of lightning struck me from above, crackling with enough energy to power an entire city. I felt a brief tingle—like static electricity—but that was it.

  Skully just stared at me, looking like he was on the verge of a breakdown.

  “Dragon Rend!”

  This one was supposed to summon a spectral dragon to rip my soul apart. I was actually kind of excited about this one. I mean, how often do you get to see a dragon, even a ghostly one?

  The dragon roared, swooped down, and… passed right through me without doing a thing.

  Skully facepalmed. “I give up,” he muttered.

  At one point, Skully got desperate and tried turning me into an undead. He figured that if I was technically undead, he might be able to kill me again and force me to move on.

  So, he performed some creepy ritual involving blood, bones, and a lot of chanting. When it was done, I looked down at myself and realized… nothing had changed.

  “Yeah, I don’t think it worked,” I said.

  Skully sighed. “Of course it didn’t.”

  In a st-ditch effort, Skully summoned another meteor—this one even bigger than the st. It crashed down with enough force to level a mountain, creating a massive crater in the desert.

  And yet… I was still there. Still floating. Still very much a ghost.

  By the end of the day, Skully was a wreck. He looked like he was about two seconds away from ripping his own skull off and chucking it into the horizon.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, his voice hollow and defeated. “I threw everything I had at you. Spells that could destroy armies, y waste to entire kingdoms… and you just… shrugged them off.”

  I floated over to him and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Hey, don’t feel bad. You tried your best.”

  He sighed and slumped down onto the sand, looking utterly dejected. “You’re impossible, Non.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”