Leon shared his findings, the knowledge interesting but not enough. He looked over the corpse again and thought about their strengths and weaknesses. Instead of attacking the group, it immediately pounced on Redgy to try and take over his body.

That indicated a very meagre level of intelligence.

[Depthstalker Phantom (Common)]

Phantasmal beings. Closer to mindless animals, they haunt the dark corners of many worlds and kill any unsuspecting prey that fails to outrun them.

It wasn’t enough. There was no real information of substance, leaving him without a single idea of what to do. Leon stared at them as he pondered on what had happened earlier. He watched their nerves light up, their bodies twitching and undulating with every tiny movement. He caught the light shimmering as it refracted through their gelatinous forms.

Finally, he noticed something he might be able to use.

As one of the phantoms merged into the wall, the dim light in the tunnel refracted through the creature strangely. Whatever was happening, it made Leon realise that this change of state may be the key to destroying them.

[Depthstalker Phantom (Common)]

Closer to mindless animals, they haunt the depths of the earth and linger in the shadows of the forest, assuming control of any unsuspecting prey they come across. Capable of shifting out of the real world due to their phantasmal lineage.

In their shifted state, they remain immune to physical contact and can only be injured by Qi. Shifting is, however, an ability that cannot be used while attempting to dominate another living creature.

That was it. Whenever they attacked someone, they became vulnerable to physical matter. When the Depthstalker Phantom attacked Redgy, its tentacles were vulnerable while its brain was shifted, protecting its delicate cerebrum from Dominic trying to turn it into pulp with the stock of his rifle.

Eric wanted to test a few more things, but they were forced to run back to the train when the phantoms became incensed. After scanning them the last time, they began to buzz and wave their tentacles around like crazy, their speed of movement picking up from a lazy drift to a slow glide.

That scared the crap out of everyone, especially since the phantoms were so much harder to kill.

The humanoid demons could at least be killed.

Once they made it back to the train, the riflemen began to enact their plan. Four of them kneeled side by side while Eric stood beside the door, all of them facing Leon as he prepared his strongest Qi Eruption yet.

He would only have one shot at this. Although he had less than half of his Qi, he would shove as much into this technique as he could. Leon started off by using the skill without doing anything special. Only when the technique was formed did he start trying to compress it to the smallest size possible. Once that was done, he compressed his Qi on the fly and shoved more of it into his palm.

This was the difficult part.

Compressing Qi within his channels and shoving it into a technique he was already holding was pushing him to the very edge. If he hadn’t enhanced his nerves, the technique would be impossible to keep stable. He made a mistake every second. If not for his instincts and heightened speed of thought, the skill would’ve collapsed already.

Cycling felt like there were weights strapped to his lungs. His chest began to ache and his breathing became shallow, not to mention the throbbing in his channels. He wouldn’t be able to use Qi for days after this, and that calculation included the life essence he would receive from killing more than half of the demons.

The pressure built with each passing second, bringing Leon closer and closer to failure. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead, and yet he still needed the technique to be stronger. It had to be as small and explosive as possible, but he also didn’t want to blow his entire hand off.

Leon’s desire for the skill evolved into an image within his mind.

He needed it to fly out of his arm; to shoot out and explode to the most damage possible. That was much easier than expected. The skill began to change without him even having to do anything, the desired shape taking form with each passing second. Then again, he’d seen something very similar the last ten days so it was no surprise he was familiar with it.

Refocusing, Leon put all his effort back into imagining his arm as a gun and his Qi as the bullet.

The disk somehow lost its shape and became a ball. No matter what Leon did, it wouldn’t change back to a disk. Whether it was his mind not being strong enough to exert control over such heavily compressed Qi or the disk shape not being feasible now, he didn’t know.

He hoped to figure that out if he survived.

After pushing half of his Qi into the ball, Leon felt it turn perfectly spherical. It snapped into shape and began to move out of his control. The ball slid out of his hand, almost as if it was being ejected out by his spirit. Panic almost made him lose control of the technique until Leon opened his eyes and found a pale golden ball in his hand.

But instead of being within his grip, it was floating above his palm.

[Congratulations! You have evolved your Qi Eruption (Uncommon) skill into Qi Bullet (Rare).]

Leon grinned, ignoring the notifications that flowed in. The skill hadn’t failed like he expected. Seeing his success, Leon felt a sense of elation cut through his growing dread. And despite the sane part of his mind begging him not to try anything too stupid, the crazy part still won. Leon pushed his entire Qi supply into his hand, and despite feeling unsure about the final result, he still imagined his Qi merging with the ball.

It spilled out of his hand and filled the air with a translucent mist. The Qi was like a luminous nebula drawn into a star, consumed by the growing surface. Because he was pushing regular Qi into the compressed orb, its golden lustre faded as it diluted, quickly expanding to the size of a fist. Compared to the thumb-sized orb of gold it once was, this translucent clump of mist was an embarrassment.

A stable, functional embarrassment that would be perfect for the next step since it hadn’t destabilised and blown up in his face.

Leon screamed as every muscle in his body flexed out of habit. He pushed harder than he ever had before, crushing the orb with the full weight of his mind. It quickly shrunk until it became half of its original size, turning into a solid marble. Leon wanted to push harder, but as he felt his will press against the solid rock made of Qi, he realised that was impossible.

Not only was his momentum exhausted, but blood also leaked from his eyes and nose, dripping onto the already blood-stained floor of the train car.

“Now!” Leon shouted, barely catching himself as he stumbled.

Eric snapped out of his daze and swung the door open. The demons, which had been scratching at the solid metal door, fell over as it flew into them. There was a moment of calm while the horde locked onto Eric. It was moving too fast for them to notice, gliding straight into the middle of them before it erupted.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Leon collapsed and Eric held onto the door for stability as the train car rocked from side to side. The Qi Bullet went off like a thousand pounds of high explosive. Some of the girls cried out as they fell over, but most were able to stay standing by holding onto the handles attached to the roof.

Once the dust cleared, Leon found only bits of corpses. About twenty or thirty demons were still alive, but they were scattered and stunned on the floor. Hell, the explosion had been so powerful that every wall of the tunnel was covered in cracks, pebbles even trailing down from the roof like boulders in the silence that followed.

The pebbles fell onto the train tracks like bolts of thunder, the noise echoing down the empty tunnel.

Leon turned back to revel in the shocked expressions of the group, but when he found Eric, he gasped as a phantom drifted through the wall right behind him. Everyone made to run, but it was too late. It dived onto the older man and began to force its tendrils into his nose, eyes, and mouth.

Leon reached for his Qi to save the older man, but his mind reeled at the idea. He almost fainted then and there. Collapsing onto his hands and knees, he barely managed to stay awake through sheer willpower alone. He could only see legs running past him as he stared at the bloody floor of the train, his vision turning hazy.

They were leaving him behind, just like he expected.

Just like deserved.

Everyone ran past him and jumped down onto the tracks… But as he closed his eyes and waited for death, hands grabbed his left and right arms, hauling him up onto his feet. Leon turned to find his friends. Olivia and Mila were as pale as the phantoms, their faces scrunched into wide-eyed looks of terror.

They obviously wanted to run for their lives, but despite their instinctual desire to flee, they had stopped to save him. Leon didn't understand. He couldn't, his exhausted mind failing to comprehend the logic. He would only weigh them down, their lives forfeit if they continued trying to haul him like this, his feet dragging as he failed to muster the strength to walk properly.

It was only right that they left him behind. Not only was he such a great burden that he failed to protect them in their time of need, but his weakness was going to directly result in their deaths. If they just let go then they would have a real chance at living. Leon tried to shout at them to leave, but nothing came out besides a strangled gasp, his lungs aching so much that he could barely breathe.

They were going to die and it was all his fault.

Leon almost wept until he felt someone push up against his back, a pair of bandaged arms reaching underneath his shoulders to lift him up. Why? He couldn't understand why Marcus hadn't left a burden like him behind.

Jumping down onto the tracks, Leon glanced over his shoulder as hundreds of phantoms began the slow process of phasing into the carriage. Some were pushing through behind Eric while most were coming in from the walls, roof, and floor. Olivia slammed the door shut behind them, but it would only delay the inevitable.

As they entered the train car, the phantoms flew through the air like a bullet until they ran into the steel door.

They weren’t going to make it. In less than a hundred metres, the phantoms would catch up to them once they made it out of the train. They were all going to die. Leon scrambled for solutions when a wave of life essence washed over him from the demons he'd killed. Although it didn’t heal him completely, his body filled with strength, the throbbing in his channels faded to a dull ache in the back of his mind, and more than half of his Qi supply recovered.

Then he remembered the notification. As the Depthstalkers phased through the walls of the train, they slowed to a crawl. The phantoms weren’t immune to physical objects. They may not be physical entities themselves, but that didn’t mean they weren’t affected by the real world.

An idea sprung to mind, but unlike before, it wasn’t of how to run away.

The dread welling up inside Leon turned into something else; something new. There was no way to win in this scenario. He was going to lose, and everyone would see him do it. Leon would normally be feeling all kinds of stress and anxiety at the thought of exposing himself like that.

Now, an accepting smile touched his lips.

Leon took a deep breath and shook himself free of his friends as they carried him down the tunnel. He turned around to check on the phantoms. They were melting a hole in the back of the train car so that they could all get through at once. Several tentacles were poking through already, the door half-melted as they lashed it apart as if their appendages were whips.

Marcus tried to push him while the girls shouted gibberish at him, but Leon ignored their frantic voices and shook himself free of their grasp again.

His friends didn’t care about him being a burden. It took him way too long to realise, but they simply didn’t think about him like that at all. He was their friend, and just like he would never abandon them, neither would they leave him behind willingly. Proven time and time again, he now understood that they would rather die than live knowing they left their friend behind.

“Go!” Leon shouted, pushing the girls away. Olivia’s eyes widened as she noticed how fast the phantoms were coming. It seemed she understood what he intended. Marcus did too, his eyes filling with tears. But as Mila screamed at Leon to stop being an idiot and run, Marcus bit back his tears and grabbed her, throwing the petite girl over his shoulder before fleeing for his life.

He smiled at his friends as they fled, but he eventually turned around to face the consequences of his own failures.

Leon’s Qi had regenerated by more than half. It wouldn’t last more than one technique, but he was lucky in that he only needed one. Leon gathered his Qi into a glowing golden orb, Qi Bullet forming even easier than before. Sadly, it was a notch weaker than the previous one, but he had neither the Qi nor the mental strength to create something like that.

Luckily, he didn’t need to.

A lone phantom squeezed through a tiny hole in the back of the train and pounced on Leon. Tendrils wormed their way into his eyes and ears and mouth, each one cold enough to make him shiver. They felt like knives slicing through his insides, but the worst part was how they undulated inside him, shrinking and expanding as they pushed deeper into his flesh.

Leon’s mind went blank from the pain. He wrestled the phantom and used the Qi Bullet in his right hand as a club, turning its brain into a clump of glowing pink mush with a growl. The tendrils fell out of his face as he stood up, but Leon kept his eyes locked on the phantoms. The hole in the train widened until their tendrils melted the entire door off its hinges.

A hundred of them came out at the same time, moving like an endless tide of death. They immediately spotted Leon. A ripple went through their bodies as they noticed him, all of them extending their tendrils in hopes of being the first to take over his body.

The second before any could reach him, the glowing orb left his hand. It flew over the middle of the horde, but instead of detonating in mid-air, it crashed into the roof above their heads. The earth began to rumble, massive boulders coming loose as the already damaged roof began to collapse

Leon smiled at the phantoms, their bodies unphased as they reached out to grab him; unphased and able to interact with physical matter. Even if they survived getting crushed, phasing through a thousand pounds of rock would take a long time.

Hopefully enough for his friends to survive.