The starry night sky was as beautiful as always, the myriads of enormous trees that made up the forest danced together as the creepy wind of the night caressed their entirety. Whether they were complaining or rejoicing, only the ones they share an affinity with know.
The beasts residing in the forests hunted in the night, It was eerily silent and the rustling of leaves only made the atmosphere grimmer for the weaker, the beautiful stars not helping to reduce gloominess in any least with their dim lights.
A stargazer sat at its nest, its feather which made it appear as if it was garbed in a mantle of diverse colors shook ever so slightly as it gazed at the starry sky, spitting sweet melody out of its sharp, hooked beak.
But as it gazed and sang, a figure suddenly flashed past its view, even its monster eyes couldn't keep up with the speed. But as it thought all was over, an overwhelmingly pressurized gust came down on it, and also the other monstrosities below the trees of the forest.
The stargazer scurried out of the area and planned to migrate immediately, for as long as that monstrous entity who was like a blur, even to her exceptionally sharp eyes, then she won't have the chance to gaze at the sky in peace.
She wasn't coming back to this city again, ever!
The same could be said for the terrestrial monsters, they hurried to seek shelter, some even dying from the pressure, while the one behind it all was oblivious.
Conan followed the path with a tremendous amount of speed. Not too soon, he reached the end of the paved path, with nothing but a thick cluster of trees ahead.
He slowed down and descended into the forest, his serpentine eyes scanned everything and anything. Seeing in colors, he looked to see heat signatures.
From the end of the paved path, there was a small clearing, and surrounding the clearance were thick arrays of trees.
He looked left and right simultaneously, checking traces of the path commonly used for transport by the Creeds.
He went to a nearby tree on the left and saw a claw mark on one of its roots. At first, he thought the claw mark was a real claw mark, but soon after, he realized that it was a way for the Goose Creeds to mark their transport routes so as not to get lost.
The marks were inconspicuous that most would ignore them.
Conan looked at the mark with intense scrutiny, looking to find any other hidden meanings. Never was he going to underestimate the intellect of even mortals.
He learned the lesson to never underestimate, the hard way.
After moments of intense scrutiny, Conan decided to go right. The reason was first, the one who clawed the tree had five fingers, that is to say, a human.
Of course, there are monsters with five fingers, but the forest was too small to hold such beings, who could rampage the whole Kramdery and cause massive carnage, single-handedly.
So it was man-made.
"Wait a minute... Do monsters also serve gods now? Like the god of monsters?"Conan wondered. If there was such a god, then monsters might not be that easy to hunt anymore, the god will give them intelligence.
He hoped that wasn't the case because he relished monster meat and milk, which especially came from the Mammalian ones.
He ventured to the right, coming across trees of different kinds with markings, pointing to different directions which he followed earnestly.
He took turns, following the directions pointed at by the marks, he went deeper into the forest, shrouded in an eerie atmosphere.
The withered leaves crunched under his weight as he walked over them, the night turned darker and the atmosphere got eerily silent, and soon he was led to another opening by the claw markings.
But unlike the first one, this one was smaller and it was barricaded all around by large patches of leaves. He tossed away the patches of leaves and subtly noticed that those leaves seemed suspicious.
They had strange markings all over and looked man-made, oozing out mysterious energy— completely foreign to his celestial senses.
He entered the opening and saw those leaves surrounding it like a wall, but he didn't sense the strange energy anymore.
There were patches of leaves that seem to serve as a door, he opened it hoping to see something good but he got startled by what he saw.
He saw a handful of red streaks, flashing around an expanse of the forests, the fierceness at which they flashed about even created gusts of wind.
What was more unsettling was that these things seemed sentient from their screams "No! Let me go! Please!"A streak came towards him and he finally got to see what it looked like when he raised his hand in defense but the thing screamed and backed off slowly, screaming, pleading, and cursing as it did.
The thing was of specter form. Weeping and wailing, its terrified and unwilling expression ingrained itself deeply in Conan's mind as he looked.
And most importantly, it had the voice of a woman, it's face had no features, except for the terrifying white eyes, and ghastly wide mouth.
They had the upper form of their original selves—while they were still alive that is— while, their lower form was formless and mist-like.
Conan looked at his hand and saw that the leaf was still there, on his hand, glowing in mystical green. He then realized that the Specter had run because the thing in his hand was a repellant.
"...Witchcraft?"Conan muttered in disbelief. His eyes looked in wonder as the abundance of terrifying specters streaked around.
It was known, long ago, even before many spirit arts came into existence, that witchcraft had been eradicated and witches extinct for reasons unknown till present.
But maybe, just maybe, he was overthinking and it wasn't witchcraft. He tossed the leaf away and looked at the weeping ghosts.
"The weeping specters..."Conan muttered yet again in disbelief "..What cruelty is this?"
The weepers weren't born, they were created by their killers. They are animated spirits, created from the wish of a person who had gone through an agonizing and unfair, torturous death. Their spirit separates from their bodies and becomes a weeping specter, while their soul moves on to the Soul Forge.
These particular Weepers seemed to have gone through even more than painful and agonizing deaths, they seem like they were tortured to death. This fact could be proven true by the wisps of darkness—negative emotions—that flowed out from the reds of their phantom bodies.
They expressed nothing but pure horror and unwillingness as they dashed towards him, crying and pleading to be let go, but their action screamed otherwise.
Conan narrowed his eyes and pondered cognitively on what this strange anomaly was and what could have caused it. He then realized, the array at which the weepers were moving seemed organized, like they were programmed to do so.
The Weepers hurdled together and outstretched their hands to get him, but it was all slow in Conan's mind.
Conan frowned at this, the Weepers were naturally beings who looked for a chance to be attacked before they attack back, and separate the sport from their attacker's body and turn them into one of their kind, but that's not the case here, these were no normal weepers.
He then realized, that what if these weepers were the ones guarding this place, which was like the crosswalk to where he was going, and only the disciples of the god of satyrs could enter without any problem?
"If that's so, why am I still in an assassin outfit?"He changed his style of clothing immediately. The outfit he wore turned to a slimy substance and distorted before turning into a battle robe with an armor vest, articulated spaulders, and a loin belt worn over it— all night black— with his face masked.
There was no point in dressing like an assassin, because if these weepers were being manipulated to guard, then the ones manipulating them would have been alerted already.
The Weepers flashed and revolved around him, they seem like a blur, but his serpentine eyes saw their movements vividly.
Occasionally, some will flash towards him to attack his blind spot. It's not they could hurt him physically, the Weepers inflict damage directly to the soul and spirit, and only attacks made up of pure spiritual energy could kill them, hence they were troublesome to kill, even for the most powerful mortal cultivators, but not for him.
He took out the longbow from his back and pulled the string making the patterns on the bow shimmer as he channeled spiritual energy into it. Blue spiritual energy taking the shape of an arrow materialized in between his fingers and the string as he pulled and aimed.
The bow was a relic, it filtered the attributes of his spiritual energy and purified it. although efficient, it is not as efficient as having a pure spirit.
"You should rest now, pitiful spirits," Conan bade farewell before he released the arrow...
Killing the weeping specters was just him sending invitations to the ones he wanted to meet...