Immortal Paladin 068 Little Ghost

068 Little Ghost

“I just want my sister back,” said the boy.

His voice was small, barely above a whisper, but it carried weight. A child’s wish, so simple yet impossible.

I let his words settle between us before responding. “Your sister… she didn’t—?”

“She’s still alive,” he interrupted. “But they took her.”

I frowned. “Who’s ‘they’?”

The boy’s form flickered, and his little hands clenched into trembling fists. “The people in black masks.”

Black masks. That could an a lot of things in this world. Cults, bandits, sects, assassins. Maybe even Abyssal Clans.

I rubbed my chin. “When did this happen?”

“Long ago.” His voice was distant, and his cloudy eyes seed to see sothing I couldn’t. “I rember the fire. The screaming. My sister crying. Then nothing.”

I glanced at the charred remains of the house behind him. That fire must have been the one that killed him.

My first instinct was to offer so kind of reassurance, but what could I even say? ‘I’ll bring her back?’ I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t know when this happened.

“…Do you know where they took her?”

The boy hesitated. His translucent fingers curled into his tattered robes. “Deep. Below.”

I frowned. That didn’t sound good. “Below where?”

He shook his head. “I don’t rember.”

Of course. Because why would this be easy?

I exhaled and studied him for a mont. He barely reached my knee, his ghostly form flickering slightly as if he might fade at any mont. The gaping wound on his neck was a stark contrast to his otherwise innocent, childlike face.

“Alright,” I said finally. “Let’s start with this—what’s your na?”

"Hei…" the boy started, voice soft and distant, like he was pulling his na from the depths of a fading mory. "Hei Mao."

Hei? As in the Black Clan?

I studied him more carefully. His clothes were old, tattered, and barely held together. They weren’t fine robes, nor did they carry the usual insignia of the Black Clan. Still, the possibility lingered in my mind.

Then again, he spoke a different dialect. Maybe his surna was just a coincidence.

I let the thought pass and introduced myself. "Da Wei," I said with a small nod.

It wasn’t my real na, but it was close enough. The transposed version was pretty convenient. More than that, it served as an extra layer of protection—one of the things I had picked up in my readings. So spells and rituals needed a person’s true na to take effect. I wasn’t about to make things easier for any stray cultivator looking to curse in my sleep.

"Hei Mao, huh?" I continued, offering a smile. "That’s a cool na."

"It isn’t really that cool… At most, it’s cute," Hei Mao muttered, crouching down.

With deliberate motions, he picked up a stick and began writing on the dirt.

I watched as the strokes took form. The first character was Hei—Black. The second was Mao—Cat. Black Cat.

Huh. Fitting.

But what really caught my attention wasn’t his na. It was the fact that he could pick up the stick at all. Most ghosts couldn’t interact with the physical world so easily. The fact that he could ant he was either particularly strong… or particularly stubborn.

"I don’t know," I said, tilting my head. "I find cats pretty cool. Though, they can be kinda psychopathic sotis."

Hei Mao looked at like I had just spoken absolute nonsense.

I crouched beside him and, using my finger, wrote my own na in the dirt. Da Wei. I thought about it and then gave a aning to the na people had been mispronouncing to . The first character, Da, ant Great. The second, Wei, ant Guard. Great Guard.

Hei Mao squinted at the writing, then at . "Now you’re just showing off."

"Does your sister have a na?" I asked.

Hei Mao hesitated, his small ghostly form still as he stared at the dirt. "...I don’t rember," he admitted. "We’re twins, though… and she should rember my na. If you find her, tell her that I miss her."

I nodded. "Why don’t you co with ?"

Hei Mao shook his head. "I can’t. I’m bound to this place. If I go any farther, I’ll beco weaker."

I took on a more serious tone. "I can protect you."

He beca quiet.

"If you want," I continued, "you can co with , and we can look for your sister together."

Hei Mao looked up at , his translucent eyes filled with sothing unreadable. Then, he shook his head again.

"I can’t," he said. "I have to mourn for them."

He lifted a small, ghostly hand and pointed inside the charred building.

I followed his gesture and peered into the ruins.

Inside, among the blackened remains of what had once been a ho, lay the scorched bodies of a family of three—a mother, a father, and a child.

Hei Mao shared with how he had been in this patch of land for a long ti.

Long enough that the charred ruins of the house weren’t the first ho to stand here. But this family—the one whose remains now lay blackened and brittle—was the first to ever truly set roots. He watched them build their lives, their routines, their little traditions. The way the father humd before speaking, how the mother always wiped the table twice, how the child—his na already slipping from Hei Mao’s mory—liked to chase after butterflies before dinner.

He had watched them, and over ti, he had grown accustod to their company. Even if they never saw him, he had been there, a silent observer, an unseen neighbor.

I listened quietly, letting him speak at his own pace. There was sothing sad in the way he clung to them, as if keeping their mory alive was the only thing holding him together.

Still, I couldn’t help but point out the obvious. "Hei Mao, if they were like you, if they were still here, wouldn’t they have appeared by now?" I gestured toward the burned wreckage. "The dead don’t just move on like that, right? If they had regrets, if they had things left undone, wouldn’t they still be lingering?"

Hei Mao’s small fingers curled into fists. He looked toward the ruins, his face unreadable. “They should be here,” he murmured. “They should be here with .”

I crossed my arms. “But they’re not.”

He bit his lip. “I know.”

"Then why are you still mourning them?"

Hei Mao’s expression twisted, caught between anger and grief. "Because if I don’t, who will?"

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "You really think they’d want you stuck here like this?"

Silence.

Hei Mao stared at the ruins, his small fra stiff. His lips parted like he wanted to say sothing, but no words ca out.

I studied Hei Mao carefully. The way his little ghostly fingers trembled, how his lips pressed together in sothing too stubborn to be just grief. There was more to this than just mourning.

“What are you so scared about?” I finally asked.

Hei Mao flinched. His gaze snapped to , wide-eyed, like I had yanked so hidden truth out of him. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he gripped the hem of his tattered clothes, a reflexive motion that only made him look more like the lost child he was.

I exhaled through my nose. “You’re not just mourning them. You’re hoping—wishing—that they made it to the next life after this, right?”

He nodded slowly as if hesitant.

I tilted my head toward the burnt ruins. “For all I know, they already have. I an, I don’t see them around. Do you?”

Hei Mao’s lips parted, but no words ca. His eyes flickered to the charred remains inside the house, then back to .

I sighed. “But that’s not what you really wanted, is it?”

His little hands clenched tighter.

“You didn’t want them to move on,” I said, watching his expression closely. “You wanted them to stay.”

Hei Mao sucked in a breath, an empty, ghostly sound. His shoulders shook as if I had spoken the one truth he had been trying to avoid.

For a long mont, he was silent. Then, in the smallest voice, he admitted, “…Yes.”

If I compared Lost Legends Online’s ghosts to the ghosts of this world, they had at least one thing in common: they were illogical creatures that often contradicted themselves.

Why mourn the dead when you were dead yourself?

Why cry for those who had moved on when you yourself were stuck?

And yet, another similarity between the ghosts of both worlds was how they lied—not just to others, but to themselves.

I could feel the lies. My Divine Sense flickered every ti Hei Mao spoke half-truths. The way his voice wavered, the way he hesitated, it was all too telling. Not to ntion, the powerful miasma that surrounded the ruined house didn’t belong to the burnt corpses inside—it all ca from him.

I sighed.

If a ghost was confronted with the truth, they would usually lash out. That was standard knowledge. Most of the ti, they’d snap, go feral, or outright attack in denial. It was basically the equivalent of an existential crisis, but with more screaming and spectral claws.

But Hei Mao didn’t.

That was what set him apart.

Or maybe it was because of .

I rembered an old joke back in LLO—how my friends used to tease about my ability to solve problems with talk-no-jutsu, even though my speech stat wasn’t all that high. Apparently, it worked just as well in this world.

I knelt down to his level and asked one more ti, “What are you so scared about?”

Hei Mao’s lips trembled.

And then—black tears poured from his hollow eyes, ectoplasm dripping like ink down his pale cheeks. A choked sob escaped his throat as he suddenly lunged forward and hugged , tiny arms gripping tightly around my waist.

“I… I am scared of being alone…” he whispered. His voice cracked with the weight of the words he had buried for so long.

I felt his cold, spectral form press against , but there was warmth in the way he held on, like he was desperate not to disappear.

I exhaled softly and patted his back.

“I’m here,” I told him. “You’re not alone.”

I inhaled deeply and reached within myself, calling forth the power of Divine Possession with Epheral Touch.

The mont I activated it, my soul trembled.

"To seize the body is to seize the self. To walk another’s path is to know their truth. For a mont, the soul is unbound, freed from the chains of its own flesh, given wings to fly into another. But beware—the self is fragile. To linger too long is to forget the shape of one’s own soul. To possess is to risk being possessed in turn."

The flavor text echoed in my mind like a warning bell.

I braced myself. This wasn’t like LLO, where I could just use Divine Possession on an ally and call it a day. This was real. And I was about to possess a ghost.

It was unbelievable, but for a second ti… I managed to evolve a skill.

I reached out and grasped Hei Mao’s essence.

For a fleeting mont, the world twisted. The sensation was foreign, weightless, like my body had lost its form, my mind stretched thin across an eternity of mories. I wasn’t just watching Hei Mao’s past—I was living it.

The laughter of a mother, the calloused hands of a father. The warmth of a ho built from love, now reduced to ash.

And then—pain. A burning, searing pain at his throat. A scream that never ca. The feeling of slipping, falling, drowning in the abyss of death but never truly reaching the bottom.

I understood.

Hei Mao’s grief. His anger. His loneliness.

And yet, despite all that suffering, despite the way the world had abandoned him, he stayed. Because he had a family once. Because he didn’t want to let them go.

I returned to my body with a shuddering breath. The air around us felt lighter. The oppressive miasma had thinned, and Hei Mao… he was different now. His presence had softened. The lingering resentnt that made his ghostly form twisted and jagged had faded.

Hei Mao looked at with wide, watery eyes.

“…Can you help send them away?”

His voice was small and fragile.

He turned toward the charred ruins of the house and pointed. “They deserve better.”

I t his gaze and nodded.

I raised my hand and called forth holy power. The warmth of divinity surged through my veins as I cast—

Turn Undead.

Golden light flooded the burnt remains. The energy seeped into the broken foundation, purging the lingering hatred, unraveling the threads of regret that bound this place to sorrow.

Slowly, the air shimred.

And then—they appeared.

A mirage of a family, standing together, bathed in soft, ethereal light.

The father and mother smiled gently, their forms whole and untouched by death. Between them stood a girl, identical to Hei Mao, except feminine—his sister.

The girl bead. “I missed you too, brother!”

Hei Mao’s breath hitched. His small hands clenched at his sides.

The truth had been in front of him all along. This wasn’t just so family he had watched over.

It was his family.

Because of his resentnt, because of his innate talent, he had cultivated and persisted even after death. His will had been too strong, his refusal to move on too powerful. He had forgotten who he was.

Hei Mao sobbed.

But unlike before, his tears were no longer black and inky.

They were clear. Pure.

“I… I am sorry…” His voice cracked. “And I love you all… Mom… Dad… Sis… I… Thank you…”

His family smiled. And as the light grew brighter, they opened their arms, welcoming him ho.