After almost a day of trekking through the forest and, thankfully, no golems, Meera stood before a gaping hole in the cliff wall. That's how anyone would put it. It looked like a semi-circular hole of darkness.

I wish I hadn't gotten rid of Night Vision.

She opened her Hoard Belt and sifted through the menu to see if it had something to light her way. She saw nothing but a ton of gold, jewels, coins, armor, and weapons. She would trade those for a torch—one from earth, not the ones of wood.

She had no choice, so she looked around the forest for dry wood and stuffed as many as her belt would allow, which was about thirty of them. She figured that should be enough for her to last long enough to find this Crystal of Darthin.

She lit one torch and had just raised her foot to step into the cave when a whooshing wind made her balance unsteady, and she almost fell. The flames fluttered and almost went out. They would have if Meera hadn't turned out around to shield the flame with her body.

"If you disrupt our rest, then we shall be forced to take your life," said a haunting, echoing voice.

"Please come free us from this eternal torment," said another, more feminine voice.

"There is nothing for you here but only death."

"Come join us, brave adventurer. We haven't had a visitor in so long."

Then silence. Meera waited for more cryptic words, but none came. Then came a wind blast that dropped her on her ass and put out her torch.

If I survive this, I'm going to kill that witch.

She lit the torch again and stepped into the cave. It felt like she had stepped into a black hole, which was not far from the truth. Her torch showed her a cave so vast that she could not even see its ceiling. She saw rocky walls, and that's about it. This was the exact stuff people did in movies that got them killed. Her heart thrummed in her chest, and all her instincts yelled at her to run away, but she stood her ground.

Look, Neel, this is what I must do to find you, and once I do, I'm going to give you hell for every single thing I've had to endure.

She activated Mirror's Perceptivity, and once she acclimatized to the dark, she headed in. As she moved, the only sound she heard was her footsteps. It was a little eery to only hear her footsteps and nothing else. She pulled off her chakram and readied herself for any surprise attack. It was not like she would see the attacks coming from much farther off, thanks to the darkness.

As she walked farther in, the air got stale, and a putrid smell permeated the cave, like the smell of rotten bodies. Meera snorted. The fact that I know the smell of rotting bodies is something else.

Then something moved to her left. She wouldn't have seen it if not for her high Perception and Perceptivity skill. She jumped aside at the last moment as a ball of darkness strolled on by. Meera frowned and tilted her head. It was slow enough that she didn't even need to jump. She could've just stepped aside.

But it was a distraction.

A dark, hazy form was coming for her from behind. Her instincts ran wild as what she could only describe as a ghost came running after her. She screamed and ran off down the cave without even looking back with her eyes, but she could still see the thing until it got out of range of the torchlight.

She huffed as she came to a stop, resting one hand on the rocky wall. Ghosts! Ghosts are real in this world. Oh, my god. What have I stepped into? No wonder the sorceress didn't want to deal with them herself.

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She heard an echoing laughter coming from all directions. This took her out of her internal crises and brought her to the present. She looked around and saw no one or thing coming for her. It was as if the ghosts or wraiths in this cave were laughing at her expense.

She almost had the urge to call them out and stop hiding in the shadows, but she was in no mood to face them, and she was not dumb enough to announce her position.

She drew a deep breath, steadied her breathing, and walked on. As she did, the laughter died down, and a chill wind flowed through the cave. Her torch fluttered, but it was not strong enough to blow it out. A chill went up her spine. Each moment was nerve-wracking as in this cave of darkness, the wraiths could see her, but she couldn't see them.

The wind stopped abruptly, and half a dozen shadowy figures descended on her. Meera gasped, raised her hand, and pelted them with Mirror Shard Barrage. The wraiths paused momentarily as the shards went through their smoky bodies.

Meera's breath quickened as the wraiths looked at each other and laughed. A haunting sound that would haunt Meera's nightmares if she lived long enough to have nightmares. Their bodies were covered in shadows, but what she did see left her nauseous. They had missing eyes, puss oozing from sores, while some had decaying skin, some of which had fallen from their bones. She quickly used Identify on one of them.

[Cursed Wraith – Level 68]

The others were all around a similar level. This was like facing many Golems at the same time. She wanted to cry that it was unfair, but then she had come here of her own volition.

The wraiths zipped to her, and she used Mirror Blast. An explosion of mirror shards and light rocked the cave. But at that moment, she saw that the cave ceiling must've been forty feet high, and things were watching her from above—things that were most likely more wraiths in different forms.

She had hoped that attack would do something against the wraiths but nothing. They had flinched at the light and the blast, but it did nothing to them. Now, Meera was in trouble. That was her strongest attack.

She had one last option before the wraiths made her one of them. She pulled off her chakram and launched it at the lead wraith's head. To her surprise and that of the wraiths, the weapon hit the ghost in the forehead and got stuck there.

The wraith howled in pain as the others watched their brother thrash about with a chakram stuck in its head, followed by the notification bell from her class ability.

Meera stared at her chakrams. Then she remembered the weapon's description. It was a mythical weapon which meant that it could hurt these things.

She recalled her chakram and a bright light leaked from the wraith's forehead from where her chakram had hit it. It was like a torchlight washing the cave with light. She let her torch drop and, in rapid succession, cut holes in each of the six wraiths. Light poured out of them, bright enough that she didn't need her torch of fire to see anymore.

The wraiths were not done, and neither was Meera. The best thing was now, they feared her. She could tell as none of them wanted to come close to her.

Then without warning Meera used Shadow Step and appeared behind them. They realized a moment too late. She slashed her chakram across the back of at least half of them. They cried out as more light spilled out of their wounds. The other three descended on her. She ducked and dodged their slashes, but one left a bloody scratch along her left arm.

She Stepped behind them again, put some distance between them, and started launching her chakrams and recalling them on the go. She was even surprised at her speed and skill. At one point, she thought she would miss catching her chakram and impale herself in the chest, but she never did. Meanwhile, the wraiths kept getting more holes in them, and they couldn't even get within two meters of her.

The first one fell or rather evaporated into thin air, and all his light vanished. Seeing this, the others paused, but Meera didn't. She 'killed' her next target by the time they recovered. They got wary of her. One of the wraiths vanished. She figured he had run off, so she focused on the rest.

But the one that had vanished appeared behind her, but unluckily for him, she could see behind her, but he didn't know. So, she let him come close. Then turned around at the last moment and unleashed a flurry of punches with her chakrams that killed it within moments.

She turned around in time to block the slash from a wraith with her chakram. The specter injured its hand on her sharp chakram. It screamed and thrashed about, and Meera decapitated it and surprised herself that such a thing was possible.

With only half their numbers remaining, the last three were not so confident anymore, but they had no option as Meera gave them no chance to run. She teleported behind them and cut them to shreds before they even had a chance to run. Meera threw her chakram at the last one, but it vanished. Just as she was about to recall her chakram, it hit the invisible wraith, followed by an echoing scream. Two more chakrams later, the wraith was no more.

Meera smiled. Now that was not so hard. I wonder what sort of skills these wraiths gave me.