All the windows in the ruined auditorium had been haphazardly nailed shut with wooden boards. The curved ceiling should once have borne vividly colored murals, but dampness had corroded them, leaving them in strange and terrifying abstract forms.
The stench of damp rot rushed at them. The fog inside the auditorium was not as dense as it was outside, so Shade and the cat could see a tall undead creature at the far end of the hall, standing before a wall painted with the Bronte Family tree. Hearing the door open, it turned to look at them.
The moment it moved, grim green ghost fire lit every rusted kerosene lamp on the auditorium walls. The soul's grim green spectral body made it clear that she was an insane evil spirit.
The evil spirit looked like a somewhat plump middle-aged woman, nearly three meters tall. She held a candlestick shaped like a human skull in her right hand and wore a tattered black dress.
Perhaps because her mission was to guard this place, she attacked the moment she turned and saw Shade.
She raised the candlestick before her wide mouth and blew sharply. Grim green Soul Flame surged toward the auditorium entrance like a sea of fire.
"This is Soul Flame. Don't touch it directly!"
The gray-black cat on his chest immediately warned him.
"Understood. Ha~ Moonlight Slash!"
Shade clapped his hands together, one above the other, then pulled them apart sharply. A brilliant arc of silver light split the sea of fire and slashed toward the undead at the far end of the auditorium.
But the undead vanished into the flames, then reappeared in another corner of the sea of fire that covered a third of the auditorium. She raised her candlestick and blew again, and surging grim green flames