——Phantoms in the Night——
Once Clara was fast asleep, I slipped out of bed. My fingers had just brushed the doorknob when footsteps sounded in the hallway, followed by the voices of two young women.
"I'm exhausted... Who knew a backwater town like this had such incredible views?"
"Totally worth it! This footage is going to blow up."
"Right? City folks are obsessed with landscapes they can't have. We get to experience it for them, then share it—kind of a virtuous deed, isn't it?"
"Just two more shots, and we can go home for Christmas."
Christmas?
My hand stilled. It was already past New Year's.
Unless...
Their footsteps hadn't yet faded when I turned the knob and opened the door.
In the dim corridor light, two girls in heavy hiking gear turned simultaneously. They looked barely out of their teens, cheeks still flushed from the outdoors.
They nodded politely, as if we were just another pair of travelers. I returned the gesture and watched them unlock the room next door, their figures swallowed by the darkness.
I moved swiftly down the hall and started downstairs. Past midnight, the entire inn was tomb-silent. As I reached the second-floor landing, hushed voices drifted up from below—the innkeeper and his simple-minded son.
The son was whining. "I want meat... I want that older sister's meat from today. City folk always taste better... I was drooling just looking at her."
"You think I don't? But we just caught a little one today. Tender and soft isn't good too? Finish this one, wait for the next. The ones today... I have a bad feeling."
A little one?
The couple frantically searching for their daughter at dusk flashed in my mind. Their missing child was likely this "little one."
"No! No! I want the good stuff! Mountain girl meat is tough... Those two sisters last time were so tender, that's the good kind!"
The innkeeper, worn down, relented. "Fine, fine. Just wait here."
"Meat time! Meat time!"
Hearing this, I understood completely.
Those two tourists were already dead—had been since before Christmas. What wandered the halls now were only echoes of them, trapped in the final night of their lives. What wandered here now were mere echoes, replaying their final obsessions.
---
——Monster's Lament——
This father and son were not human. They were monsters who fed on people.
How long they had lurked here, how many they had killed, I didn't know.
Such evils could not be allowed to remain.
I drew the Heavenly Cross and the Lumin & Umbra Sigil from within my coat. They were not ghosts, but monsters—unnatural creatures. Still, they belonged to the same shadowed spectrum, and these sacred tools were their bane.
The innkeeper's heavy tread came up the stairs, intent on his grim work, only to startle violently upon seeing me at the landing.
His eyes bulged, but he swiftly pasted on an ingratiating smile. "Esteemed guest, still awake so late? Is there a problem with your room?"
I said nothing, merely raising the cross slowly.
His expression shifted minutely, feigning confusion. "What is this...?"
"Still pretending?" I cut him off, my voice cold as I descended step by step. With a flick of my wrist, the Heavenly Cross shot into the air, hovering in the center of the lobby before erupting in a blinding golden radiance—transforming the shabby, decaying hall into something resembling a sanctified chapel in an instant.
I stared into his now-warping pupils and commanded, "Abomination, reveal your true form!"
He stumbled back several paces, panic breaking through his facade. "G-Guest, I truly don't understand..."
"Don't understand? Then die. Death will bring understanding." There was no point wasting words on man-eating demons.
Before the echo faded, I channeled my energy, and the Lumin & Umbra Sigil shot from my hand like a streak of light.
The innkeeper finally broke. His face twisted, and he spun, bellowing to his son,
"Run! Now!"
The words barely left his mouth as he dropped to all fours, scrambling for the door with inhuman speed. As he moved, his body contorted, expanded, transforming in moments into a massive, black-haired boar with protruding tusks.
His foolish son followed suit, shifting into a slightly smaller boar, both charging for escape.
But the Lumin & Umbra Sigil was faster.
The streak of light overtook them, unfolding an invisible barrier before the door. The two boars collided with it as if struck by a physical force; the younger one shrieked in agony, tumbling to the floor.
Trapped, the beasts rolled and knelt, kowtowing like humans. "Master, spare us! Have mercy!"
"Mercy?" I said. "You hunt and devour humans, your sins are countless. You dare beg for mercy?"
"I... I..." the older boar stammered. I had no patience for it. A gesture of my finger, and the hovering cross blazed brighter.
"Don't kill us! We beg you!"
"If I spare you, how do I answer to your victims?"
"Then kill me! Kill me alone!" The older boar shoved the younger behind him, baring his tusks with a growl. "It was all me! My son is innocent!"
For a moment, I paused.
Even a monster... this instinct to protect its young was no different from any other living thing.
Yet it was no reason for absolution.
"You have consumed human flesh. You chose to sever yourselves from the natural order. How can you be permitted to exist?"
"Consumed human flesh...?" Its voice rose, ragged with hatred.
"What of it?! Is it only fit for humans to eat us, and not for us to eat humans?! Is that your human logic? I do not accept this—!"
Its roar was piercing. I held my hand, letting the cross hang in the air.
It raised its twisted head, crimson eyes blazing.
"We were born under the same sky as you.
We know the law of the wild—the strong prey on the weak—
so we yielded, again and again, fleeing into the deepest forests, the most remote mountains...And yet you were never satisfied."
Its fangs quivered with fury.
"You call yourselves the lords of all life.
You closed in, inch by inch.
You slaughtered my kin—
then butchered them... and devoured them."
Its tone dropped, steeped in desolation.
"So I swore... if I ever gained human form, I would consume humans. I would devour every last one of you!"
It howled, its face contorting into a visage from hell.
I listened in silence.
It was not entirely wrong. Humanity possesses greed, arrogance, a presumption of dominion over all beings.
But its chosen targets for vengeance were innocent travelers, helpless children. This was no longer retribution; it was slaughter.
"Have you not seen that humans now protect wild creatures? The sins of the past remain, but you have chosen a path far more brutal in return," I said slowly. "Acknowledging your cultivation was not easily won, I will destroy your monstrous form today. But I will allow your spirit to enter the cycle of rebirth."
"Rebirth... Ha... Rebirth—!" Its laugh was a wretched shriek. I hesitated no longer.
My finger swept down.
The Heavenly Cross descended like a blade of light, piercing through them.
Two dull thuds, and only the corpses of two wild boars remained on the floor, all traces of malignant energy gone.
I took a deep breath and approached.
The fight had ended far more easily than I'd expected. I had to admit, the sacred tools brought back from the Mount Kailash held power far beyond my expectations.
I crouched to examine the bodies—and a chill ran through me.
These two boars were massive, yes, but their features told a different story. One was barely past its juvenile stage; the other, at most, a young adult. Creatures like this had no business wielding the kind of power we'd just witnessed. They were nowhere near the age of true ancient beasts.
By all logic, for a creature to shed its animal form and take on a human one, it had to survive a long series of brutal trials—ordeals that came decades apart, sometimes a century at a time. Even in the old eras, when the world was rich with spiritual energy, the transformation demanded centuries of cultivation.
And now?
In an age where the currents of power had thinned to a trickle, these creatures had somehow crossed that threshold in mere decades.
That wasn't growth.
That was acceleration.
Something was forcing their evolution.
And whatever was behind it... it wasn't part of this world's natural order.