It was just the next day. Less than a day in fact. But the twins were gone. The strange twins who could see him, Adam and Alice, were no longer in their house.
Jack floated through their empty house. He felt a hollow feeling. Something akin to disappointment, maybe? It settled in his spectral gut. The two were the only ones, other than Linna, that could communicate with him without fear.
Thinking back, the three of them were all kids. Strange. Jack wondered whether in this world he was cursed. To only be able to communicate with kids?
Jack kept exploring. He found their message on the garden bench. The place where he met them. It was pinned down by a piece of jagged rock.
Jack used his [Poltergeist's Telekinesis] to snatch the note.
"Too captel. Hikliff in danje. Myusyem. Nait."
'Charming,' Jack sarcastically thought. He deciphered the twins' crude spelling. It didn't take long. It was probably: "To capital. Highcliff in danger. Museum. Night."
'The went to the capital? To Lonestone City, huh? Good for them, getting out from the danger here. But what the hell was going on in Highcliff?' Jack couldn't help wondering.
Jack knew that the museum here must be Elrush Museum of Art. That place had always seemed to scream danger at him, ever since he got here. He didn't even dare to get too close to that place.
The pristine Renaissance architecture was housing… something bad. Jack couldn't put his finger on it. But the air there felt thick, wrong. Dangerous.
However, Jack was curious. He wanted to know the danger. He wanted to know how the thing within the museum could affect Highcliff Town.
He finally compromised. He would observe, but he opted for caution. No charging in. He would scout the perimeter. And see what was brewing. From afar.
He did right not to get close. And to be careful.
No sooner than he'd approached within the distance of two blocks, Jack felt a familiar itch crawling up his ethereal spine. The Power of Faith. He counted at least eight presences with this aura. All were radiating from places around the museum.
Half of them made his stomach churn. He had encountered these presence. They were definitely Fallen Acolytes. Most likely cultists form the Cult of Purity. After all, those bastards were responsible for the troubles in this town: the death of Linna and the rat infestation in the sewers.
Faith presence from the other half felt… different. They were stern, unforgiving. Very similar to the vibes emitting from the Cathedral of Justice. They were definitely divine acolytes, transcendent individuals from an orthodox faith.
Cultists and priests hanging around a museum? This truly had 'impending doom' written all over it.
Jack settled down, observing from a distance.
Night one... nothing.
Night two... still nothing. But the faith presences were multiplying. Something big was definitely about to happen.
Night three... all hell broke loose...
Twenty-odd figures, reeking of corrupted faith, stormed the museum's main entrance. They were like a festering wound in the spirit world. Jack could practically taste the fanaticism. One of them radiated much stronger power compared to the others.
Almost immediately, a counter-force erupted. More than twenty divine acolytes, clad in the pale blue cloaks of the Church of Justice, burst from the shadows. Their weapons raised. They too, charged into the building.
The museum became a warzone.
Explosions rocked the building. Fluctuating energy waves slammed against Jack. Even from his distance. The suffocating, mysterious energy he'd felt within the museum intensified. It became almost unbearable. The fight was escalating, fast.
Jack watched, paralyzed. He was out of his depth. This felt like a clash between… well, something way bigger than him.
Then, it happened.
An explosive sound that dwarfed everything before it reverberated through Highcliff. The air cracked.
A blinding white light, powerful yet reeked with curse vibe, slammed down from the sky. It speared the museum's roof and obliterated it. The old stone and metal clockwork frame was gone in a searing instant.
But something fought back. A blue light, equally intense and tinged with rigid faith, blazed from within the museum. It clashed against the white light's suffocating dominance.
The resulting clash was catastrophic. Buildings crumbled. The museum, and everything around it, was reduced to rubble.
Buildings further away were heavily damaged. Their renaissance artistry turned into cracked brick and twisted metal. Screams filled the air as survivors scrambled from the chaos. Fleeing the epicenter of devastation.
Above the shattered museum, two figures floated. One was a girl, a teenager by the look. She shimmered with a nauseating white glow. Jack recognized the corrupted energy of the Cult of Purity. But in her case, it was amplified to an insane degree.
Facing her was a six-winged angel. She was radiating pale blue light. Her eyes burned with righteous fury. This wasn't a mortal fight. It was a celestial smackdown.
Jack found himself shaking. He was too far away. But he could still feel the aura of these two burning his ethereal form. He was ready to bolt. To get as far away from Highcliff as possible.
This was an angel-level clash. He was a goddamn ghost with some nightmare powers. He wasn't equipped to handle this. Not even his draugr incarnation was equipped for this.
But curiosity, as always, trumped his common sense. It was the thing that killed him and made him reborn as this ghost form. And now, it tugged his non-existent heart once more.
He didn't want to interfere. He knew this battle was out of his league here. But, he wanted to know how this would end. It was very risky though, even from afar. Jack hesitated. He should run. He needed to run. But…
He stayed in his place.
The fight ensued afterward was brutal. It was a dance of unimaginable power.
The floating teenage girl, gathered the disgusting energy of corruption. And then, she unleashed blasts of white light that seemed to cauterize the very air.
The angel, the figure that seemed to represent cold justice, countered with bolts of blue energy. The bolts felt somehow like a physical manifestation of divine law.
Buildings crumbled. Streets buckled. The screams of the fleeing townsfolk were drowned out by the thunderous clashes above.
Jack watched as the angel's wings deflected a particularly potent blast of white light. Sending shards of cursed energy scattering across the town. One of those shards nearly struck Jack... completely destroying the stone clock-tower behind him.
'Holy crap!' Jack swore in his mind. His invisible ghostly form was shimmering with a mixture of fear and awe.
Suddenly, the floating girl let out a piercing shriek. It was a sound that resonated deep within Jack's soul. It stirred up long-forgotten nightmares. It was similar to his own nightmare power. Amplified to a crazy degree.
Jack clutched his head. He was struggling to maintain his focus. That was definitely not a normal shriek. It was more like a… targeted psychic attack?
He realized with a jolt. That girl wasn't just fighting the angel. She was broadcasting raw, unfiltered terror to the whole town. And he was caught in the crossfire. He forcibly suppressed the rising panic.
Jack regained his focus despite the still unstopped shrieking sound. He saw the angel wasn't going down without a fight. It raised a hand, and a shimmering force-shield materialized around him.
It wasn't a static bubble. It pulsed and swayed. It was adapting to the storm of cursed energy. The girl's shriek hadn't stopped. It was still a psychic drill aimed directly at the angel's sanity. But the angel seemed immune. Or at least, resistant.
The six-winged angel retaliated with feather arrows. Feathers, pale blue and impossibly sharp, were detached from the angel's wings and shot like heat-seeking missiles.
They weren't just feathers. Each one glowed with the bluish light aura of divine blessing. They zipped through the air. Carving trails of displaced air. And aimed with pinpoint accuracy at the floating girl's head, chest, and limbs.
The teenage-looking girl responded with a rapid-fire barrage of white-curse shots. Little orbs of condensed energy popped into existence and hurtled towards the angel.
Some collided with the feather-missiles, creating miniature explosions. Others splashed harmlessly against the angel's force-shield. The untouched feather missiles hit their targets but did not harm the girl at all.
Then, the angel summoned it. A sword. Not just any sword, but a colossal blade of glowing metal. It was easily ten times the angel's size. It manifested in a shower of sparks, humming with power.
The angel gripped the hilt with both hands, the force-shield flickering momentarily with the strain. It raised the huge sword up, and swung the sword downward. In an arcing cleave meant to bisect the girl.
But, the air crackled. The girl teleported. One moment she was there, locked as a target of the gigantic sword. The next, she was a few distance to the side, unharmed.
The girl didn't let up. White mist, thick and choking, billowed from her. Obscuring her form. It acted like a shield, deflecting the angel's next swing.
The mist sizzled and dissipated where the blade struck. She reappeared further away. And unleashed another rapid-fire volley of white-curse shots. This time, they came faster, more numerous. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of them.
They slammed against the angel's shield. Forcing it to buckle and strain further. The angel was still clutching the gigantic sword. She was forced to use the blade to deflect the incoming shots.
The battle was a whirlwind of light and energy. It was a chaotic ballet of destruction playing out above the terrified town.
Jack could only watch. He was a ghostly observer. In a nightmare he desperately wanted to wake up from.
The angel was losing. The girl with disgusting aura of the Goddess of Purity was winning.
The angel was tough and powerful. But the floating girl was relentlessly overwhelming her. Her attacks were like a swarm of locusts against a lone oak.
The pale blue energy emanating from the angel flickered and waned. The girl's nauseating white glow grew stronger and brighter instead.
With a final, earth-shattering blast, the floating girl slammed the angel into the ground. The angel's wings shattered. Her light extinguished. Leaving behind only a smoking crater.
An unnatural hush fell over the town. It was broken only by the crackling of flames. And the distant cries of the wounded.
The floating girl hovered above the crater. Her white glow was intensifying. Then, in a voice that dripped with saccharine sweetness, she spoke, her words echoing across the devastated town.
"Purity… is back!"
Jack felt a chill run down his nonexistent spine. Did the sinister Cult of Purity truly win? What would happen to this town? More tragic sacrifices like Linna and her mother?