These were generally the type of people who say things like ‘Even if I were to be reduced to 2 eyeballs, I will stare you to death’- and genuinely mean it. And as could be expected, they were not normal at all; even before they died and became the aberrations that they were. There had always been something wrong about them, something that wasn’t quite right up in their heads. But do not confuse that for something evil. The desire for revenge in on itself wasn’t necessarily born out of malicious intent, oftentimes it was only a means of self-preservation that prevented one from falling into degeneracy.
Some people need to know that they weren’t weak; that if they were pushed enough they could turn into wrathful beasts that weren’t to be trifled with, that if it came down to it they were just as fierce as anyone else and were not helpless prey. But then there were the people who decided to take revenge on a person who they perceived to be weak, standing up to them. That… was more in line with the concept of ‘evil’, the sin of pride to be exact.
Nevertheless, when this desire for revenge was pushed to unbelievable extremes even after death, a Resentful Spirit could be born. No, it was almost certain it would be born. The only time that they couldn’t be conceived was if there was no ambient Magical Energy to facilitate it; that’s why the idea of a ‘ghost’ existing in a Low Tier World was a joke.
In truth, in most situations a Resentful Spirit wasn’t that much of a worry. Their constitutions were innately imperfect and as a result their lifespans were extremely short. This was because although they had a new ‘body’, it was terribly malformed and impure, which caused it to constantly lose its ‘vitality’.
This new body of theirs was a Spirit Body, something that was composed of unique energy called Spirit Essence, a type of Soul Energy that was to a Soul what flesh and blood was to a biological body, hence a portion of the name ‘Resentful Spirit’, but not only were most Resentful Spirits spawned with a very sparse amount of it (because of the fact that most Souls didn’t need any other vessel than the physical entity they were residing in, and thus didn’t have a Spirit Essence in the first place), but they also had other harmful essences mixed into their Spirit Bodies that caused them small malfunctions.
One of these malfunctions was periodic memory loss; over the duration of their short ‘life’ time they would experience bouts of complete memory loss, and would even lose a portion of it permanently before the rest came back. Eventually, they would lose all memories and wouldn’t be too different from the moping Souls in the Reincarnation Cycle. Quite a sad fate. But that was not nearly the end of their problems.
The most pressing one was that although the conversion of a flesh and blood body to a Resentful Spirit’s Spirit Body was a special phenomenon that formed some of the required Spirit Essence, it was not nearly enough. It was too thin and lacking in quality, and don’t forget the other harmful essences mixed within it that slowly damaged it over time.
In conclusion, a newborn Resentful Spirit was like a very, very, VERY malnourished person who had been afflicted with diseases and poison. If nothing happened, the longest they would live was a week, but it was common for them to die within a day.
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However, didn’t they say that the heavens always left at least one door open for everybody? Who knows, but that was certainly the case for Resentful Spirits.
Although they could not be touched or be seen by the living or even the undead (because of their lack of substance that was barely higher than the lowest level energy), that did not mean that they could not be touched or seen by each other. When a Resentful Ghost met another of its kind or any other being with a Spirit Body (collectively called Spiritual Beings), they were driven by an instinctive desire to assimilate the other and make themselves more ‘whole’.
Yes, Resentful Ghosts had an ability similar to the Mutant Undead to devour and assimilate other Spiritual Beings. And this not only gained them more Spirit Essence which made them quite a bit stronger, but contrary to expectations, the process actually expunged some of the harmful essences within the ‘body’, granting them more ‘health’ and a longer ‘lifespan’ alongside a reduction of the problems innate to a Resentful Spirit’s Spirit Body.
If enough Resentful Spirits gathered together, or a Resentful Spirit that was lucky enough to keep finding other weaker kin met a certain milestone, then eventually, what was known as a Ghost would be born. A true Ghost.
And that’s when things became problematic.
Ghosts were an evolved form of a Resentful Spirit (and a few other Spiritual beings), and they had perfectly pure Spirit Bodies that were absent of any imperfections. And in this state, they could control the density of their bodies. The degree at which they could do so was correlated to their strength, so most of them could only become transparent at best… but they could be touched. And they could touch others.
And although they were finally ‘whole’ and no longer needed to syphon Spirit Essence from others, that did not mean that they would stop. They, like any other being with self-awareness, desire more, more and more. More strength, more intelligence and more evolutions.
And now, they could prey on the living who had complete Souls that they could devour. Although it wasn’t the Soul itself that they wanted, when devoured, all of its energy would be converted into Spirit Energy; which was far more beneficial than the Spirit Energy of a Resentful Spirit.
With the ability to control when they were seeable and tangible, if they were careful enough and preyed on those that were weaker than them, they would rarely ever face any kind of resistance.
And in the Eridius World where specialist professions like Ghost Hunters or Spirit Warriors had yet to even be thought about talk less of practised, these Ghosts would eventually grow to be extremely powerful.
Currently, there were 5 Ghosts that had achieved their second evolution and had become something known as Ghost Lords.
2 were in the Sea, another 2 were in the North Continent, and the last was in the South Continent; That Ghost had long become a Creature in Green under the banner of Envy and had a larger edge than others of its kind, but not even he was the strongest Ghost in Eridius.
That title went to the one and only Ghost King on the planet; Bararak from the North.