Ghosts of the White Family

"Did you get it?" Salomon looked up and asked. He and the panting Master Wong were hiding in a secluded alley in Salem Town. Ignoring the foul stench of garbage and vomit covering the alley, he anxiously questioned Master Wong.

"This... this is my first time stealing something." Master Wong kept patting his chest, as if trying to calm the heart that was practically pounding out of his throat. This was still far too thrilling for him. But when he took a deep breath, the stench in the alley made him gag again.

"Actually, what we did was closer to robbery." Salomon blinked innocently and reached out to pat Master Wong on the back. "I hope no cameras caught you, or there might be a few cops waiting for you the next time you go out. Given the racial issue, they might open fire after giving you a brief warning, so I suggest we prepare some protective spells before heading out next time. What? Me? Don't worry, I had my face covered the whole time. Oh, I regret picking this place. It smells awful."

Nearby, the crowd that had gradually recovered their vision after the blinding flash continued to clamor, while Ricky White began shouting. Even though he had been unable to see at the time, the sensation of his ring being pulled off his finger had been unmistakable. He had felt a chubby hand seize his wrist without warning, force his palm open, and then his ring had vanished. It was a White Family heirloom. Ever since he had put it on, he had never suffered any misfortune. Whether sharpening pencils as a child or shaving as an adult, he had never gotten so much as a scratch.

And now, there was a bluish-purple mark on Ricky White's wrist. It might have been the most serious injury he had ever suffered in his life.

A senator taking off his pants in public and a senator being robbed on the street carried very different weight. The former could be treated as a joke—everyone enjoyed a political scandal—but the latter was a matter of a politician's safety. The situation escalated rapidly. Salem police immediately detained everyone at the scene, including the journalists who had no idea what was happening and were still protesting for freedom of the press. The police forcefully pinned those clueless idiots to the ground.

Salomon and Master Wong had escaped disaster by leaving earlier, but if they continued wandering around Salem, it was only a matter of time before they were found.

"Here." Master Wong finally caught his breath. He opened his palm and said in a muffled voice, "It's right here."

It was a platinum ring with an enormous pink gemstone. The gem's setting had a lattice-like pattern, with two smaller round pink gemstones set at either end of the oval pink gem. Between the settings of the oval gem and the round gems were another four even smaller pink gemstones. The gems were a deeper shade of pink. With his limited knowledge of gemstone appraisal, Salomon recognized them as pink diamonds. The weight of the gems on this ring alone far exceeded the category of "expensive." Perhaps even the gems on the British Queen ******'s Pink Diamond Flower Brooch were not as large as those on this ring.

"Okay, I think we can leave now. Put it in my pocket." Salomon nodded. Although he knew how to use portal magic, absurdly enough, they had not come here by portal. They had taken a long-distance bus instead. It was a necessary compromise, because before acquiring a large amount of Vishanti's magical power, he could not cast many spells from the Vishanti line.

Master Wong poked his head out of the alley, preparing to take Salomon away from this awful place. He could no longer stand breathing only through his mouth. He felt that if he stayed any longer, he would vomit up every last bit of the sandwich he had eaten earlier. But when he waved behind him, signaling Salomon to follow, he received no response.

He felt a cold, sinister presence crawl up his spine. Goosebumps spread across his skin, and he could not help shivering. The feeling was all too familiar. He had experienced it before when he and Salomon had obtained the ring, back at the British Museum.

"I knew it wouldn't be this easy," he muttered. Then he heard a tremendous crash behind him and was hurled forward by an irresistible force. When he scrambled up from the street and pulled the fallen leaves off his face, he saw that the already narrow alley had widened considerably. The stone bricks at its entrance looked as though they had been smashed apart by something. And it was still happening. Salomon held his head and darted around the alley, while shattered bricks flew at him from beside him, from above, from everywhere, striking his body viciously. He could not stop moving and could only keep dodging, because some formless thing in the air was venting its fury, trying to smash everything around it.

Including Salomon.

Passersby cried out in alarm, and the police diverted part of their attention here as well. Ignoring the onlookers and the police who were acting as if facing a great enemy, Master Wong shouted anxiously, "Get out here! Salomon, get out here!"

"No!" Salomon glanced around himself. Skeletal ghosts in old-fashioned clothing, wreathed in pink magical energy, were slamming their bodies into him. He could only ignore the sharp broken bricks on the ground, roll aside, and evade the attack.

"Heretic! Thief! Sorcerer!" There was no expression visible on the ghosts' decayed faces as they shouted in voices ordinary people could not hear, "Return that which you stole from our family!"

"Fuck!" Salomon raised his middle finger amid the chaos and fiercely retaliated against the ghosts—mentally, at least. He had no time to chant a spell. The ghosts were no pushovers either. Taking advantage of his distraction, they slammed an entire brick into his back.

With bricks and stones still raining down around him, Master Wong charged in. He tucked the prone Salomon under one arm and ran out of the alley.

"Are they still there?" With his legs aching, he ran while asking Salomon.

"If... if you put me down... I can... take... them out!" Salomon's reply was filled with agony. Every word he spoke made Master Wong's arm squeeze brutally around his abdomen, leaving him completely unable to breathe normally.

"Easy, easy, put me down!"

"No! Not here!" Master Wong said between breaths. "We can't expose magic..."

"I... I thought... Kamar-Taj... wasn't... the Ministry of Magic..."

However, these ghosts were no ordinary ghosts. Unlike the malformed, twisted, selfless specters in the British Museum, these spirits resided within the ring. They relied on the power within it to remain in the world, guarding every generation of the White Family. They were far stronger than ordinary ghosts. As they pursued Master Wong and Salomon, they not only smashed the windows of many roadside shops and tore apart the asphalt, but even overturned several cars, as if an invisible monster were rampaging through the streets. Crashing sounds rang out everywhere.

But no matter what, a ghost's weaknesses never changed. Even the most powerful ghosts were vulnerable to fire and lightning, and physical attacks created by magic could also damage their bodies.

"This is the place." Master Wong ran to a sparsely populated area, a narrow gap between two abandoned buildings. He had come to such a place entirely at Salomon's request. Salomon had been in so much pain that he had repeated himself in broken fragments many times before Master Wong understood. Master Wong could no longer worry about keeping magic hidden. He could only choose the most secluded place possible.

Once they reached their destination, he decisively threw Salomon down and leaned against the wall to catch his breath. His lungs felt as though they were about to burst into flames, and the ringing in his ears and nausea nearly left him unable to breathe.

"Smack—" Salomon hit the ground hard. Master Wong's earlier maneuvers had nearly shaken his brain into mush. But he had no time to complain. He hurriedly got to his feet, staggered a few times, ignored the pain in his back and abdomen, and did not even have time to brush the dust from his clothes before concentrating and beginning to chant.

For the first time, Salomon felt that Kamar-Taj's close-combat classes were useful, because they had taught him to grow accustomed to pain and not let injuries interrupt his spells. Casting while fighting was something every Kamar-Taj sorcerer could do.

There was one spell Salomon particularly loved. It released the most primal magical energy, and due to the spell's unique nature, unless the target used magic to block it, this tracking spell would inevitably strike its target. If a sorcerer faced a non-spellcasting enemy but did not know the target's weakness, this spell would be the first choice.

That was right. It was—

"Magic Missile!"

P.S.: Please invest! If you invest, there'll be extra chapters QAQ

Good night.