Death's Voice

Ghouls had no intellect.

All the memories, personality, and emotions that had once belonged to their hosts were gone. All that remained was the most basic predatory instinct.

They fed on life force as well, were far stronger than ordinary people, and had an extremely high resistance to physical damage.

Cutting off an arm wouldn't stop one from moving, and piercing its heart wouldn't make it stop.

On the Occult Side's danger scale, Ghouls were classified at the very bottom.

But Richard remembered clearly the note in Appendix C:

"Remember, the bottom rank is only a relative comparison among Practitioners. To ordinary people, even the lowest-ranked Evil Being is an unavoidable calamity."

The souls of those killed by Evil Beings couldn't enter the normal cycle of the Spirit Realm.

Aether Contamination left at the site of death anchored the souls in place, preventing them from leaving.

Appendix C had a specific term for this: Vox Mortis.

Vox Mortis, the voice of the dead.

Unlike Wandering Souls, which possessed a strong sense of self, Vox Mortis had none.

Vox Mortis was like a video that kept replaying. The fear, pain, and anger at the moment of death were etched into the Aether Field, creating a persistent source of interference.

They had no consciousness and couldn't communicate, but they affected the minds of the living.

If Warren had been telling the truth, then Ghoul remains and several instances of Vox Mortis had been sealed beneath the foundations.

That meant the ground beneath the sports field was a small-scale supernatural Contamination zone.

"What do you think, man?" Warren leaned over and bumped his shoulder against Richard's.

"Newspapers are usually not very accurate," Richard said. "Some details might be off, but the central event should be true. The statement your cousin found is more reliable."

"You believe in ghosts?" Mason cut in.

"I believe there are things that are hard to explain."

Warren laughed twice, stuffed the photocopies back into his pocket, and got up to pour some tea.

Gray glanced at Richard from beside him.

Throughout the story, everyone present had reacted with fear, curiosity, or indifference.

Richard alone had sat quietly, thinking.

After school that day, Richard went home, shut his bedroom door, and began brainstorming.

The most important question now was: what had stirred them up?

The seal had held for more than forty years. If nothing external had intervened, the Vox Mortis inside should have been fading.

They had no source of energy. They could only grow weaker and weaker until they disappeared completely.

He looked at the Copper Pendant on his desk and suddenly thought of the God-Descending Disk Warren had brought in.

Before Richard had drained it, Warren had carried it around in a cloth bag for half the day, walking across campus.

The bag had no ability to block Aether. It was just ordinary rough cloth.

If the God-Descending Disk had leaked even the tiniest amount of Aether along the way, it would have been food for the Vox Mortis.

To the Vox Mortis, sealed away for decades and in a constant state of hunger, even the slightest Aether leak would have been enough to provoke a reaction.

After being "fed" for a brief moment, they had grown active again.

He had drained the God-Descending Disk, preventing a greater leak.

But before he absorbed it, the tiny amount that had seeped out along the way might already have been enough.

It was also possible that this had nothing to do with any of that, and he was simply overthinking it.

The seal itself had a limited lifespan. Perhaps it had reached the point where it was due to weaken, and the two events had merely coincided.

He didn't have enough information to judge, so he could only set the matter aside for now.

There was something else that had been weighing on his mind, but he hadn't had a chance to test it.

So far, the available points on the panel had come from only three things: the Copper Pendant, the God-Descending Disk, and the Sphinx Oil Lamp from Clement Antiques.

The three items had something in common.

They were all old artifacts, and each contained remnants of supernatural power.

But there was one thing he still couldn't figure out: could he absorb any Aether remnants, or did he have to absorb them through an artifact?

If it was the former, then he should be able to gain points from the Aether dispersed in the air around him.

If it was the latter, then his cheat had a clear limitation:

He had to find and touch an artifact containing supernatural remnants to gain points.

The answer would directly determine his strategy for earning points in the future.

Unfortunately, he had no way to test it right now. He would have to find somewhere with a noticeably higher Aether concentration than usual and try it.

For example... the basement.

He shook his head and pushed the thought into a corner of his mind.

After history class the next day, Mr. Hutton called out to Richard, who was about to leave.

"Williams, stay a moment."

The footsteps and chatter in the hallway gradually faded away.

Mr. Hutton waited until the last student disappeared around the corner, then stood and closed the classroom door.

He returned to the lectern, leaned against its edge, and sat on it. The unlit pipe in his hand slowly turned between his fingers.

"There's been talk around school lately about the basement being haunted. You've heard about it."

It wasn't a question.

"I have."

"Do you believe the story your friend Warren told, about what happened fifty years ago?"

"Half of it."

"Which half?"

"I believe there's something sealed beneath the school."

Richard considered his wording, then decided to stop holding back.

"Ghouls and Vox Mortis were sealed in the old foundations beneath the sports field. That would explain the recent disturbances in the basement. But the details in Warren's story, like the wording in the newspaper, are usually exaggerated."

Mr. Hutton's eyebrow twitched. He had noticed that Richard hadn't used words like "ghost" or "monster."

Richard's fluent use of terms like Ghoul, Vox Mortis, and seal showed that he was genuinely interested in Occultism and had been studying it seriously.

He moved the pipe from one hand to the other and slowly turned it around.

"Williams, there really is a seal beneath this school's foundations."

"What's sealed inside roughly matches Warren's story: Ghoul remains and several anchored instances of Vox Mortis.

"The Textile Mill shut down for good because of what happened. The land lay abandoned for more than a decade, until Greenwood expanded and incorporated the original site."

"The seal was set by professionals forty-three years ago. It's made of inscribed silver and wax infused with holy water. It's very sturdy."

"But it isn't permanent."

Richard understood what he meant. "It needs to be reinforced regularly."

Mr. Hutton nodded.

"That's right. Someone needs to inspect and reinforce the seal every so often.

"The inscriptions on the silver fade over time, and the holy-water wax slowly degrades in the damp underground environment.

"Without regular maintenance, the seal's effectiveness declines year by year."

He pulled a pocket watch from his pocket, glanced at it, then closed it.

"I reinforce it every year, around the start of winter.

"This year is a little unusual. The Vox Mortis inside the seal have been more active than in previous years. You've probably figured that out from the incidents."

"I'm planning to take care of it this Friday night."

The old man put away his pipe, as casually as if he'd said he was going to fix a water pipe on Friday night.

"Would you like to come take a look?"