In the small town of Bonn, Lilith and Sarah — both unable and afraid to sleep — stood at the window, gazing out at the empty, silent street.
"Brother, I've heard that ever since the Dark Ages, people have gone missing from Bonn at irregular intervals. Could it have something to do with the labyrinth lock?" Lilith asked curiously. From what she'd gathered, the disappearances were spaced out — the longest gap between incidents was over a hundred years, while the shortest saw several consecutive years of vanishings, all of which had draped the town in an eerie haze. The Church had sent priests to investigate, but they'd found nothing, and could only suspect that wild beasts or monsters from the mountains had been sneaking down to snatch people.
Sarah shook his head with a bitter smile. "I don't know either. We don't even know what kind of labyrinth lock it is, so how can we judge? But I think there's probably some connection. Look at that empty house over there — it used to belong to one of the few educated gentlemen in Bonn. But his seven-year-old daughter disappeared on the evening of April tenth, ten years ago and was never found again. So he and his wife chose to leave this place that brought them nothing but grief, and moved to a country in the east." He pointed at a house along the street.
"April tenth… that's quite a coincidence," Lilith replied thoughtfully.
…………
The little girl — who looked as though she had stepped straight out of a black-and-white photograph — broke into a radiant smile, threw her arms wide, and lunged toward Lucian with the innocent, unbridled enthusiasm of a daughter greeting her father at the door. Yet her floating body and her vacant, emotionless eyes sent a chill down Lucian's spine. There was no way he was letting her throw herself into his arms.
He recited a spell, halting and tongue-twisting in delivery. Neither he nor anyone else present could hear it, but the Arcane Magic took effect all the same.
The air around the little girl began to churn, forming invisible cords that bound her in place.
Apprentice-level Arcane Magic — Spirit Binding!
Lucian was now certain she was a wraith-type spiritual entity.
The radiant smile vanished instantly, replaced by a small face twisted with venom and savagery. She tilted her head up, opened her mouth, and let out a soundless scream.
A "Silence Barrier" materialized as a transparent shield before Lucian, and faint, barely visible ripples set it shuddering violently.
After completing the Spirit Binding spell, Lucian had immediately begun preparing this magic. It came from his knowledge of how wraith-type creatures attacked — knowledge was a mage's true power!
But the moment the Silence Barrier appeared, those seemingly slow-moving ripples shattered it completely!
The wraith's scream, only partially neutralized, struck Lucian head-on.
The world spun. His ears rang with dizziness, nausea clawed at his throat. Lucian's feet felt as though they were sinking into cotton — he couldn't keep his balance at all. Even his internal organs seemed to resonate with the assault, and countless negative emotions surged up at once: terror, dread, resentment. They nearly dragged him past the edge of consciousness.
The exposed skin on Lucian's body bloomed with a faint "moonlight" glow, growing hazy and wavering before gradually stabilizing.
The timely Moonlight Transformation saved Lucian from ruptured organs, madness, and even death. But Moonlight Transformation could not weaken the Wraith's Scream — it merely bolstered the defenses of his fragile internal organs and brain. As a result, Lucian still took a serious hit.
"A wraith with the strength of a proper Knight!" From that single attack, Lucian had gauged the "little girl's" power and classification. He pushed off with his right foot, dissolving into a faint afterimage of light to circle to the other side of the terrifying wraith. Then, soundless incantations spilled from his lips, and a Flash of Brilliance erupted.
Even the weakest wraiths feared most elemental damage and were immune to many spells — only light (positive energy), fire, sound waves, and the like could truly harm them.
But the light orb, which should have been brilliantly bright, turned pale in this strange labyrinth-world and then took on a faint gray haze, producing no sense of illumination whatsoever.
The little girl let out her "Wraith's Scream," drifted half a turn on the spot, then lunged at Lucian, utterly ignoring the "Light" cantrip.
Lucian was still in the casting cooldown phase and could only dissolve into a grayish-white afterimage to dodge. His sword, Vigilance, swept backward in a slash aimed at the girl.
The longsword passed through the "little girl's" body without any resistance, yet dealt no damage to "her" whatsoever — even though it was an enchanted blade, even though its striking power was equivalent to that of a full-fledged ordinary Knight.
Having failed to harm the wraith in the slightest, the girl showed not a trace of anger at the sword or Lucian's attack. The twisted expression on her face smoothed out, and the smile returned.
Then her body turned transparent and vanished from where she had been. A few seconds later, she reappeared directly in front of Lucian, still with her arms outstretched.
Lucian's agility and balance were both quite good, and he still had reserves of energy. He pushed off with one foot, instantly changing direction, and began preparing "Homanz's Cough."
A faint trace of white dust converged, and the girl once again materialized before Lucian. At that very moment, the "soundless, silent detonation" rang out — a cloud of dust billowed up from the street, and the girl's body shuddered and rippled with the shockwave.
Expressions of grievance and resentment surfaced simultaneously on the little girl's face, then coalesced entirely into venomous hatred. She threw her head back in a silent scream, then without pause lunged at Lucian once more.
After casting "Homanz's Cough," Lucian immediately changed direction, successfully evading the most vicious frontal assault of the "Wraith's Scream," and quickly began to moonlight-shift.
But even so, Lucian was still caught within the wide-area range of the "Wraith's Scream" attack. Once again his legs went weak and his head spun, his half-moonlit body rippling like the surface of water, causing him to stall in place for a brief moment.
It was that brief moment. The "little girl" pounced onto Lucian.
His consciousness began to blur. He abstractly felt his body temperature, stamina, strength, and life force all draining away at a rapid pace.