Kael stood at the edge of the treeline, shrouded by shadow and silence. His sharp gray eyes were locked onto the creature ahead, unblinking. He did not act, not yet. Instead, he observed.
The grotesque Void creature gnawed lazily on the severed legs it had ripped from the man now lying in a pool of his own blood. The man's cries had long since faded into quiet sobs, a rasping breath of someone clinging to life by a thread. The monster had not killed him yet. No. It was savoring the horror.
Kael's fingers curled slightly.
He could end it now. One flick of his wrist. A single spell. One thought.
But he didn't.
His gaze didn't leave the scene, but inside, his mind was storming.
If I interfere…
He had promised himself peace. A quiet life. Happiness, even. That had been his goal. Not just a new life, but a better one. Free from the chains of his emotionless past. Free from violence. From pain. From the emptiness that had devoured him for so long.
And yet…
Could he just stand here?
Let a man be devoured before his eyes?
Even if that man was a bandit, a scoundrel, a nobody in the grand scheme, he was still a person.
Kael's jaw clenched.
In his old life, he had hurt people. Animals. Without empathy. Without remorse. Not out of cruelty, but from emptiness.
That was the sin he carried.
But here, now, he could feel. He could regret. He could choose.
He needed to build a life free from guilt. A life he could be proud of. A life that would not leave his heart burdened again with the weight of wrongdoings.
He exhaled slowly.
Then the answer is simple.
He couldn't let people die, not when he could stop it. Not if it wouldn't put his new life in jeopardy. He wouldn't seek violence, but he wouldn't run from it when innocence was at stake.
He would save. He would protect.
He just had to do it in a way that wouldn't bring attention.
Kael stepped forward and approached the nearest tree. His palm pressed gently against the bark. He closed his eyes, channeling his mana through the wood.
With a pulse of shadow and space, he shaped the tree's surface, coaxing fibers to shift and harden, weaving together into something smooth and pale.
A mask.
White. Featureless, save for a slight upturned curve where a mouth would be. A smile. Not too wide. Just… unsettling enough.
He held it in his hand, staring at the blank expression. Then he conjured an illusion around himself, nothing complex, just enough to hide his identity.
His dark outfit shimmered and changed.
Now he wore elegant slacks and a crisp white shirt beneath a dark gray vest. A black necktie, neatly tied. A charcoal ulster coat draped over his shoulders like noble armor. He conjured a long cane in one hand, and in the other, a polished black top hat, which he placed atop his raven-black hair.
Then, the mask.
He placed it upon his face.
The transformation was complete.
To the world, he would not be Kael.
He would be something else.
Something untraceable.
A phantom.
A ghost.
With a flex of magic, he vanished.
He reappeared above the monster in a blink of space-bending movement. His form descended slowly, hovering midair like an apparition as his cane tapped gently on empty air beneath him, as if it were solid ground.
The creature froze.
The air around it thickened as black tendrils erupted from the shadows and space above. Twisting and coiling like serpents, they lashed out and gripped the monster's limbs, anchoring it to the blood-soaked ground. It screeched, not in pain, but in confusion.
Kael floated gently down, his masked face angled toward the injured man.
The bandit stared up at him, wide-eyed, his body trembling uncontrollably.
Was this death?
Or… something else?
Kael tilted his head ever so slightly.
Then, with a calm voice muffled by the white mask, he spoke:
"Fret not, young man… for the Ghost has joined the hunt."
The man's breath caught in his throat. He blinked through tears and blood, looking up at the stranger hovering above like a god of death. And yet… there was no malice. Only power. Silent, graceful, overwhelming.
The creature below shrieked and thrashed, but the tendrils dug in deeper, holding fast.
Kael descended, one slow step at a time until he landed lightly on the ground. Dust swirled at his feet. He extended his cane toward the beast, and the tip shimmered with dark light.
With a flick, a pulse of space magic tore through the air. The creature's body convulsed as the void surrounding it was carved open like a gate. Pieces of its unnatural form distorted, ripping against the fabric of this world.
Still, it did not die easily.
Kael narrowed his eyes behind the mask. A second spell, laced with concentrated shadow, erupted from his other hand. It formed a massive claw made of coalesced dark energy that slammed down from above.
The claw pierced the creature's core.
The shriek that followed was unlike anything heard by mortal ears. A distortion of sound and feeling that sent a cold ripple through the air.
Then, silence.
The creature collapsed into itself, vanishing into a pit of dissolving black mist, leaving behind only a shattered ripple in reality and the coppery scent of blood.
Kael stood still.
The tendrils faded. The air calmed. The wind returned.
And the masked man turned slowly toward the injured bandit.
The man flinched, eyes full of panic.
But Kael merely bent down, placing a hand on the man's chest.
A soft glow of healing magic flowed through him, not enough to regenerate lost limbs, but enough to numb the pain and stop the bleeding.
"Live," Kael whispered.
"And perhaps… learn."
Then he stood.
The man could only watch as the figure before him tipped his top hat slightly, turned, and vanished in a swirl of shadows.
The wind picked up again. The air returned to normal.
The battle had lasted less than a minute.
But the ghost left a mark that would be remembered.
Somewhere in Irelya, whispers would soon rise.
Of a masked figure, elegant and cold, who appeared from the shadows.
To hunt monsters.
To deliver justice.
To atone.
Kael returned to the forest edge, the mask cradled in one hand now.
He removed the illusion around himself.
He was Kael again.
His chest rose and fell slowly.
He felt no guilt for what he had done.
Only a quiet, somber clarity.
He looked to the mask.
And whispered:
"I won't run from what I am anymore. But I'll never let it define me again."
Then he walked.
Toward the quiet life he still hoped to build.
Toward happiness.
Even if he had to wear a mask to reach it.