The duo, Joy and Farrel, along with the cursed sword filled with dozens of spirits were on their way towards a certain location.
It deviated a little from their original destination, but after hearing the origin of the forest where he was currently in, The Forest of Death, Farrel knew that he needed to make a little stop.
A place where he could possibly gain more than just a cursed sword to protect his body.
Something to enhance his powers by leaps and bounds.
And right now, he was preparing a little offering to smoothen the process.
*NGHIIIK!!!*
A loud screech resounded throughout the forest.
The forest was a full-blown horror movie set at night and such sounds coming out of nowhere would make the vibes even more eerie.
However, it was currently daytime and that kind of screeching only told the people there was a beast somewhere in the forest.
And that poor beast wasn't the one that was hunting its prey.
"Watch out!"
Farrel sapped the strength out of his cursed sword, empowering his body, and jumped a few meters to the side easily.
"Thanks for the warning, Joy, but I got this."
Having dodged the boar's charge, Farrel got the chance that he needed to start chanting.
"Thy spirits of the dead, announce your presence to the living, show them your world and how you ruled over it."
Farrel completed the chant in just a second, his mouth practically mumbling the words in an ancient language from his world.
Waiting for the boar to turn its body to look in his direction, Farrel then raised his sword up high.
With the spirits inside it already heard and followed his chant, the second the boar looked in the sword's direction, the spirits of the dozens of bandits manifested themselves in broad daylight.
Showing their overlapping heads yet the same pair of red glowing eyes staring down at the boar.
These bandits, albeit not as strong as their leaders due to their lack of circles or any kind of ability, were still more than enough to deal with a single boar.
And when the dozens of them saw the lowly creature dared to try and charge towards them, anger began to rise from their souls as their negative energy was poured into their eyes.
The boar who only had his eyes on Farrel and only had thoughts of skewering him to his tusk suddenly froze in place.
The dozens of bandits' souls exerted their anger on the impudent boar, making the latter forget everything as fear gripped its being.
Seeing the spell work just fine, Farrel cut the palm of his hands with the steel sword.
When red blood started flowing out of the wound, Farrel quickly chanted again while running toward the frozen boar.
"Thy spirits of the dead, bless this water with the darkness of your world and take away the living's light."
Farrel was only a couple of meters away from the boar when he finished chanting, but the boar who had been startled from fear had finally regained control of its own body.
However, different from before when it wanted to stab Farrel to death, it now wanted to run away as fast as it could from the face of fatal danger that it just felt.
Unfortunately for it, Farrel was one step ahead of it.
Before the boar regained full control and it could only shake its body slightly, Farrel splattered the blood on his hands right onto the boar's face.
With the blood being filled with Farrel's spell, the boar instantly felt what the spell had done to it.
The second the blood touched its face, the boar's world suddenly turned to darkness as it completely lost its sense of sight.
It could still feel its legs, hence why it started running immediately.
But running blindly inside a dense forest filled with trees every few meters wasn't the best thing to do.
Without waiting for long, the boar ran straight onto a tree trunk, stabbing its tusk inside it and getting its whole body stuck.
It heard a voice, but it didn't know what it meant.
"Whoa… even though it looks like an ordinary boar its strength is something else."
The boar then heard footsteps coming from the side and it tried to wiggle away from the tree, but the tusk stabbed too deep and it couldn't pry it away that easily.
"There's no way an ordinary boar could make a hole this deep onto this kind of tree trunk."
As if knowing something bad would happen next, the boar's instinct screamed danger and the boar felt his body once again filled with dread.
Fortunately this time, it didn't freeze in fear and it once again tried to break away as hard as it could.
Unfortunately, though, it just didn't make it in time.
"Well, this has been a fun exercise. Thanks for being my first prey, I will make sure to use as many parts as possible and throw away as little as possible."
The second after the boar heard the incomprehensible voice, it suddenly lost all of its senses.
Not only its sight, its hearing, its smell, even the feel of its own feet had disappeared. It now could only feel its body floating in emptiness, still with nothing to see but complete darkness.
—----------
"Eating meat is the best!"
Farrel raised the thick thigh of the boar he had just killed before.
He had made a very simple campfire using the tools he grabbed from the bandits' hideout and he was currently waiting for the thick thigh to be cooked properly.
Although he didn't bring any spices with him since it would only fill his baggage, Farrel was more than happy to finally eat meat again after some time of being a full-on vegetarian.
And Farrel wasn't the only one who was anticipating the meat to be cooked.
Floating beside him was a ghost boy, about a head shorter than Farrel. But due to his feet not touching the ground, he was currently taller than Farrel.
And because his ethereal body couldn't be affected by ordinary objects in the world, his face was practically right inside the fire, staring at the juicy boar meat Farrel was cooking.
"Farrel, it's already cooked! Let's eat it!" Joy said for the dozenth time.
"Patience Joy, patience. Patience is key with anything related to meat. Especially when we could only rely on nature for its flavor. We shouldn't ruin this beautiful piece of meat just because our stomach demanded it!"
After another 5 minutes of full torture for the two entities, Farrel finally put away the meat from the fire.
"Let's eat!!!" Joy shouted once more, this time preparing himself to half possess Farrel.
"Wait!" Farrel shouted back.
"Come on! What else do you want me to do!?"
"We need to let the meat rest first so the flavors would not escape the meat when we bite into it."
"Grrrrr…" Audible growling was heard from his side, but Farrel ignored it and waited patiently for the meat to cook.
After 5 more minutes of even more cruel torture, Farrel finally shouted,
"Let's eat, Joy!"
"YES! FINALLY!"
Without waiting for Farrel's guide, Joy had let himself inside Farrel's body, half possessing him and enabling him to feel what Farrel felt.
Farrel just let the ghost boy do what he wanted to do as he started bringing the boar meat closer to his mouth.
He knew how impatient Joy was to finally achieve one of his dreams to eat meat for the first time ever. One that wasn't scraps or leftovers from thrown-out bones.
He even physically felt it when his hands suddenly moved faster than he had wanted to.
But he still let Joy do what he wanted and the meat finally entered Farrel's mouth.
He started biting a piece of the boar's meat and chewing it.
No sound came from the two entities as they enjoyed the boar's meat. One had not been eating meat for quite some time while the other had been craving it ever since forever.
And after only a quarter of the huge thigh meat was left and Farrel's stomach was about to burst from eating so much meat, Farrel had to forcefully stop Joy from moving his hands and mouth and put the boar thigh down.
Joy was about to protest and wanted to grab the meat again, but when he finally felt Farrel's stomach was almost literally on the verge of rupturing, at last, he decided to stop.
"Thank you, Farrel." He said before releasing himself from Farrel's body.
Joy then floated beside Farrel with a happy smile.
His mind and ethereal mouth still recalling the savory taste of the meat, his eyes seemingly looking into empty space as he imagined the thigh meat that was dripping with juice.
"I finally know how real meat tastes…"
Joy stared at the wall of trees in front of him, his eyes blank.
A realization came to his mind.
"Becoming a ghost is the best thing that has ever happened in my whole life.."
Hearing what the ghost boy absentmindedly said, Farrel just looked at him and smiled without saying anything.
But his mind had made a silent promise.
'I'll let you eat more and more tastier meat in the future.'