Roughly two hours had crawled by, and Narvel had finally returned to his peak condition. The haze of exhaustion had lifted, and his body no longer felt like it was stitched together with threadbare fibers of willpower.
Not long ago, Voidscale had stirred from its drunken slumber, sprawled awkwardly on the cold stone floor like a creature that had fought the earth and lost. It yawned deeply, blinking up at the glowing ceiling of the carven with mild confusion as if trying to recall why it had been sleeping on a hard surface.
Then it remembered.
Its wide, expressive eyes narrowed and shifted toward Narvel with a look that was somewhere between suspicion and wounded pride. Just as it opened its jaws to begin a full-throated complaint, something caught its attention. A creamy, soft light began to shimmer over its claws, curling around them like lazy smoke.
Stunned, Voidscale turned its paw slowly, watching the ethereal glow with childlike awe. Intrigued, it immediately pressed its claws to the floor and tried dragging them across the stone. Sparks of faint energy flickered, but there was no explosive reaction or visible damage to the ground. Still, the glow remained, and Voidscale felt something—like a strengthening in its mind, a subtle expansion of its mental faculties.
"Perhaps it only works against those Specters," Narvel offered, speculative as he observed the creature's attempts. His tone carried more curiosity than concern.
The implication sent a thrill through Voidscale. If this new power was deadly to the Specters, it meant it was no longer powerless against them. The thought of actually being able to fight back—perhaps even feed on them—sparked an eager gleam in its eyes. It flexed its claws again, practically vibrating with anticipation.
Narvel reached into his shirt and retrieved the glowing map. The same light as before poured from it, stretching into the air like a guiding finger and pointing down a new direction.
They followed.
The path led them into a narrow corridor, and the air here was colder, heavier—as though the very stone had absorbed the grief and screams of what had once passed through it. The walls glimmered faintly, streaked with delicate veins of luminescent ore that twinkled like trapped starlight.
The pale glimmers cast uneven light, giving the illusion that the corridor was alive and breathing slowly.
It took them over thirty minutes of cautious travel before the passage widened into another vast chamber.
As they emerged from the darkness, their eyes adjusted to the sight of hundreds of statues arranged in an eerie formation, like soldiers frozen mid-charge or priests forever locked in silent prayers. The statues exuded a biting cold that clung to Narvel's skin like dew.
Each one wore a twisted expression—faces contorted in agony, fury, or grotesque joy. The air was so thick with dread that it made Narvel's heartbeat slow in reverence.
The shortest of these grim effigies stood at a daunting eight feet. The tallest towered beyond fifteen, nearly brushing the jagged ceiling high above. Floating lazily between them were clusters of gray mist—far more numerous than the ones in the first carven. Easily double, if not more. They drifted aimlessly at first, like dust motes caught in a beam of twilight.
But Narvel didn't shrink back. In fact, his lips curled upward slightly in something resembling a grin. These were no longer faceless horrors—now, they were opportunities.
To him, these Common Specters weren't enemies.
They were nourishment.
A faint shimmer of mutual hunger passed between master and pet. Voidscale mirrored Narvel's expression with an animalistic version of delight, his sharp teeth slightly bared. The ghostly light on his claws intensified in anticipation.
Narvel took a single step forward and raised Ebonveil, the blade responding with a silent hum. The weapon activated its passive boost the moment it sensed a threat, pouring a 10% increase into his strength and speed stats. He could feel it instantly—his body felt slightly tighter, more controlled, and lighter on his feet.
With the enhancement flowing through him, his stats now read:
Strength: 8.8
Speed: 13.2
Stamina: 19/19
Dexterity: 15
Intelligence: 17
Mental: 12
Wisdom: 13
Charisma: 8
Will: 30/30
His attunement to the Dark Element still eluded him, so there was no elemental bonus to be had yet. But even so, the raw power surging through him was satisfying.
The moment his presence registered with the Specters, the balls of grey mist jerked, twitching violently in mid-air. Within seconds, they began to distort and reform, twisting into their true forms—gaunt, elongated humanoids with hollow eyes and mouths opened in endless screams.
Their shrieks exploded into the air like a chorus of charging horses.
The cry made Narvel's insides lurch. The force behind their wails sent waves of nausea rippling through him, and for a brief moment, his throat tightened as blood threatened to rise. But unlike his first encounter, he didn't break.
He gritted his teeth and swallowed it back, forcing his body to obey.
A dark sense of pride filled him.
Roaring in return, Narvel stomped his foot hard into the ground, sending a small shockwave that carried dust forward. Then, without hesitation, he lunged forward, pointing Ebonveil like a spear at the nearest Specter.
Voidscale, unwilling to be left behind, let out his own battle cry. It was nearly lost in the noise as its cry was too weak, but it was there. The glow on its claw pulsed as it darted toward the weakest-looking Specter, choosing a target far from Narvel's path.
The chamber was filled with frenetic motion, a chaos of screams, flashes, and shadows. Amid the growing turbulence, something subtle stirred—a movement where there should've been none. The eyes of several statues lining the walls twitched ever so slightly, their stony gazes shifting just enough to track Narvel and Voidscale.
But the glances were brief, almost disinterested, like giants watching ants scurry beneath their notice. Once their brief assessment was complete, their eyes returned to their original, frozen positions—dismissive and unmoved.
It was as though the statues harbored an unspoken disdain for the combat unfolding around them, viewing the skirmish not as a battle but as a performance unworthy of their attention. Whatever lingering will dwell within their sculpted forms refused to interfere.
In truth, Narvel had nearly forgotten about them entirely. The rush of combat, the scream of Specters, and the pulsing weight of Ebonveil had overridden that unease.
Now, armed with experience from his last encounter, Narvel knew better than to let recklessness dictate his movements. If there was one thing to avoid above all else when facing the Specters—it was direct contact. Just brushing against them was enough to make his skin crawl and his willpower bleed away. Conservation was key. He needed to be economical with both stamina and will, or he wouldn't last long in this wave.
He also remembered how these creatures could phase through solid matter. Walls provided no safety from their pursuit. That alone rendered the idea of covering his back useless.
Rather than wasting energy trying to fortify something they could simply ignore, Narvel shifted his strategy entirely.
Previously, his focus had been almost solely on Ebonveil's curved blade—slashing, cleaving, carving through mist and form.
But here, in this chamber, he was quick to adapt. He began utilizing the hilt of his weapon more deliberately, realizing that the entire scythe pulsed with that strange energy that was harmful to these creatures.
It wasn't just the blade that harmed Specters; the weapon as a whole rejected their presence.
Using the hilt, Narvel could execute tight, sweeping rotations, striking out in all directions with blinding speed. A full 360-degree arc of movement, rapid and brutal, allowed him to parry incoming Specters or swat them away before they came too close. The momentum of these rotations flowed through his arms and into the weapon, every strike hitting a target or more.
As the scythe sliced through the air, many Specters were shredded, unraveling into curls of grey mist that twisted before being hungrily devoured by the weapon.
But not all were cleaved in two.
Some of the creatures were caught by the blunt end of the hilt, and the results were no less dramatic. They were flung into the air like discarded rags, weightless and pitiful. If these Specters had been capable of higher reasoning, something that is beyond their primal hunger—they might have been stunned to find themselves launched by a physical strike.
A physical strike that, by all logic, should've passed harmlessly through their ghostly forms.
And yet it didn't.
These were Common Specters, low on the spectral hierarchy. They did not bleed. They did not scream in pain. But that didn't mean they didn't suffer damage. Where the hilt struck, their forms warped and twisted, deforming in eerie ways—misshapen arms, warped torsos, faces skewed into unnatural snarls. Their incorporeal essence flickered with instability, revealing that while they may not feel pain as mortals do, as long as their forms could be hit, they could be damaged.