Ariel and Joshua looked at each other as they read the headlines.
Captain Lewyin of Celestia has clearly stated he'll do whatever he can to defeat and capture Fantasia, Josh and Weber's home country.
Josh folded his arms, "it's bad, but there's nothing we can do," he said, clicking his tongue.
Ariel patted him on the shoulder, "I'm sorry it has to be this way."
They both sat in silence for minutes, until they both shuddered when they saw white eyes on the wall on top of the TV staring at them.
Then Weber walked in and the eyes closed immediately.
Ariel and Josh whipped their heads to each other, then turned to Weber.
"Did you see that?" Josh said, his skin pale.
"See what?" Weber said, boredom in his tone.
"Didn't you see those eyes on the wall just now?" Ariel asked, standing up, looking around the room.
Weber sighed, "come out there, you can't hide from me," Weber said, and the eyes reappeared, which made Josh and Ariel gasp.
Then they noticed Weber harden his expression, "I said stop hiding!" he yelled, and a tall black figure with a hood and white hollow eyes came out of the wall.
Weber sprang to his feet, while Ariel and Josh only shuddered and went backwards.
Weber gnashed his teeth and his hair turned white, his eyes burned bright white with his rage.
"W-weber, how did you know it's t-there?" Ariel asked, not taking her eyes off the apparition.
Weber gritted his teeth, "it thinks I'm foolish with how it's been following us and I wouldn't know," he said, then turned to Ariel and Josh, and for the first time, Joshua saw in those mystic eyes of Weber actual emotion and a fearsome spirit, not the usual detached and emotionless look.
"What's wrong?" Josh asked.
Weber clenched his fists, "this one is malevolent. It's not here for me as the Wraith Keeper to get its revenge. It's here for something else," Weber said, not taking his gaze off the apparition.
Weber dropped to the ground on one knee and slammed it with his hand, but there was no ground anymore.
Weber's eyes widened and they were all falling into darkness.
Then after some minutes, gravity slowed down and they arrived in an empty world that was gray and black.
"Is this the Abyss?" Josh asked, looking around, his body shuddering.
"You are looking at the Abyss," a voice said to him, and Josh's heart started pounding severely and he dropped to the floor, Ariel rushing to his side.
Weber gasped and looked around and thanks to his abilities, he saw the apparition was looking down at them a few feet into the air.
"I will destroy you! Wail of the Abyss!" Weber screamed loud and slammed his palm, the scream so loud it made Ariel shudder and the whole world started trembling.
Hundreds of ghosts rushed towards the Apparition, but the Apparition wasn't worried and just stood in place.
Hundreds of ghosts swarmed around it, then Weber noticed that the Apparition was actually absorbing the ghosts.
Weber's eyes widened at the realization, then summoned an even larger number of ghosts.
Then the apparition disappeared and reappeared behind Weber and whispered, "I said I'm the Abyss."
Weber's hair stood on end, then his eyes burned with fury when he remembered Josh and he turned to punch the Apparition, but it became intangible.
"That's not all! Grasp of the Unmourned!" Weber's hands were now coated in a smoky black aura and this time, the punch connected and the world shook again, sending the apparition miles away.
Ariel was watching the situation, so hooked she sometimes forgot to breathe, but this time, she noticed something odd about Weber.
He was using too much of the Wraith Keeper's power and he didn't look like he had lost his sanity.
Then the Abyss appeared in front of them, touched Weber's forehead and Weber's hair and eyes went back to their normal color.
Weber gasped and for the first time in a long time, he was scared of a ghost and he was ashen.
Then the Abyss touched his forehead again and his powers were restored, with his fear gone.
The Abyss stretched out its shadowy hand in Josh's direction and Josh was healed of the heart arrest.
Weber walked closer to the Abyss that was three heads taller than him, even though Weber was a six-footer.
"What do you want?" Weber said slowly through gritted teeth.
"For you to see yourself, Wraith Keeper," the Abyss replied.
"So, you're the Abyss or what?" Weber said, looking the entity over.
"Yes. And you must understand that every time you get closer to me spiritually, the more power you'll have," the Abyss stated.
Weber folded his hands and squinted at the entity, "which is why my power was on a different level in this place," Weber remarked.
The Abyss moved affirmatively while closing its eyes, then opened them and Weber could sense the otherworldly and mystic power the eyes alone gave off.
"But, the only way you can get closer to me is to earn being called a Wraith Keeper. That is, let ghosts know they can trust you and in return, they lend you power," the Abyss stated.
Ariel looked at Weber and clenched her fists as she remembered how he lost everything to the Abyss last time.
And how he'd approach things this time wasn't clear to her.
Weber took some steps back and thought for some moments, "how do I do that?"
The Abyss didn't reply and only blinked at him, "you are a Spectre and a human. You know how to form relationships with humans. So do the same for spectres," the Abyss replied.
Weber sighed, "alright, but I still have questions."
The Abyss floated higher into the air and waved its smoky black hand, "I do not have to answer them."
As it finished speaking, the gray and black world slowly and clearly vanished until they were back in Ariel's hideout.
"So annoying!" Weber yelled and his white hair and eyes went back to their normal color.
Josh woke up, "what the heck?" he said, scratching his head.
"You okay?" Weber asked, and Josh felt pain in his heart, cause he wasn't how he was in the Abyss's dimension where he looked a bit more alive.
He now looked like his usual dull self with very pale skin.
But this time, Weber gave him a smile, which eased up Josh's worry.
"I'm fine... I kinda just blacked out. What happened?" Josh asked.
Ariel smacked her lips, "the Abyss scared the life out of you—literally."
Josh gasped as he recalled the smoky black entity with white glowing eyes.
Weber patted Josh's shoulder, "he's gone, don't worry."
"Or he's inside you, waiting to cause trouble," Ariel remarked.
Weber sighed, "let's just sleep. We need to rest."
"You two go first, I'll keep watching outside," Ariel said and walked towards the exit, but Weber held her arm, his hand cold.
"I'll do it. There's something I need to do," Weber said and didn't wait for a reply and left.
Josh just looked at them from a distance, but he was too tired to say anything and just lay down on the sack he brought for sleeping on the floor.
Ariel just went to a corner that had a bed on the floor, but she didn't sleep, she just opened her laptop and went through pictures of Weber when he was more normal, and a tear rolled down her eye, then she wiped it and started looking through the news.
---
Weber was 30 meters away from the entrance to Ariel's hideout and he was on top of a tree.
The night was cold and dark, too silent it would have made Weber flinch if he didn't know any better.
"No fear of paranormal. That's the power of the Abyss," Weber said and his irises went from hazel to white, and he could see ghosts of animals at different sides.
Then he looked to his right and on a tree branch, the spirit of a squirrel was looking at him, its eye sockets empty and its body, a gray and faint white aura all over, like all the other ghosts he saw.
"You want something?" Weber asked, and the squirrel only ran off.
Weber shrugged, then remembered what the Abyss had told him earlier:
"The only way you can get closer to me is to earn being called a Wraith Keeper. That is, let ghosts know they can trust you and in return, they lend you power."
Weber kept thinking that line over and over, then he saw the spirit of a pack of wolves together, and he jumped off the tree branch and they stopped going forward when they saw him.
Weber went on one knee, "you are hunters of the wild. You did not die because of being hunted. So why are all of you like this?"
Then Weber's heart pulsed as he felt a sensation different from usual.
Thanks to his abilities, he could sense ghosts and mana essence.
But this time, he intuitively knew when the wolves died.
"I can now sense how long it's been since a being died?" Weber thought and concentrated on the wolves and he sensed they died just yesterday.
"What did this to you?" Weber asked.
The wolves only looked at him.
Then Weber looked at his hands, "I've only used Grasp of the Unmourned negatively for combat, but what if..." Weber caused his spectre aura to be sent to his hands and a black aura enveloped them.
Then he slowly stretched his hand and patted the pack leader on the head, "Grasp of the Unmourned."
The pack leader nodded affirmatively and the pack all turned their heads to the left and Weber looked at that distance and it led to a valley.
Then Weber looked at them, "did you fall off and die?"
But Weber didn't need to ask any longer. He could sense the sorrow from their aura.
"If you follow me, I'll make sure you never fall off again," Weber said.
But not in the tone of command or feigned confidence, but in certain conviction.
---
8 hours later
Josh woke up next to Weber going through the news next to Ariel.
"Arise, you sleeping forever or what?" Weber teased with a smile, Ariel chuckled.
"Well, some of us don't have mana to sustain longer than usual," he said, shooting Ariel a glare, "or ghosts inside of us that make normal needs not so important," Josh scoffed.
Weber raised up his hand in surrender, "alright, my bad. Get over here anyways."
Josh rolled his eyes and sat down next to Weber.
"Most of the night, me and Weber were looking at places of work that might be good for you people for the time being, just for laying low," Ariel said with a grin, which made Josh stiffen.
He'd seen her smile, but this one felt malevolent.
"What will be our work?" Josh inquired.
"There are people that are running a reality TV show about finding ghosts," Weber said with a smirk and his eyes shone white for a moment.
Josh stood up, "hell no!" he said.
Ariel chuckled, "calm down, you don't even know what you'll be doing."
"What will that be?" Josh asked.
"Let's just say, they need people to tag along in the crew," Weber said, rising to his feet, "they're losing viewership—fast. So they need more 'witnesses' to paranormal stuff."
Josh grimaced, "I don't like where this is going."
"Don't worry. We'll just be tagging along with them for some time," Weber said smirking.
"But after we're on board, their viewers WILL believe in ghosts."