The interior of the room was beautiful.

A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, and unlike the rest of the cathedral, this place was painted with color. White pillars rose like monumental statues of strength, hope, love, and faith, and there were two floors, each founded upon smooth red carpet. The room looked like an indoor chamber where a king would stand high up where the Wraith was and wave to a crowd of his loyal followers, filled with royal air and dignity.

But the bloodbath that was about to ensue was anything but royal.

The battle began as the fully-armored knights charged forward, swords raised and shields mounted. They did not make any war cries, but the clanking sound of their armor was more than enough to show their ferocity.

However, if all they had were swords and shields, they still had a long way to go before they could fight back against Angelicas.

Glaciers of old — hear my call and become my weapon,” Qi Ling chanted under her breath, a light grey-blue color enveloping her figure and frosty air surrounding her body. Her mana had recovered quite a bit by now, so she wouldn’t just be a burden.

“Freeze mine enemies and cage them within a prison of ice — Winter’s Wrath!”

She rose her scepter into the air, letting the beautiful blue jewel within shine brightly. In in an instant, a field of ice shot out from beneath her feet, freezing the charging knights one by one. Their white armors and weapons were encased in layers of blue ice, rendered completely unable to move or do a thing.

Then, as everyone watched in awe, Qi Ling slammed the scepter back down into the ground before her, hard enough to make cracks appear in the floor. The frozen soldiers all shattered, their hundreds of armor pieces and weapons clattering to the floor simultaneously.

“Wow…” Iris breathed, clearly impressed.

“Nice one, Frostbite,” Acaya praised, a smirk on his face.

“I didn’t expect the Phantom Slayers to be so strong…” Obo muttered. “I-I mean, the Theocracy is obviously still stronger, but uh…”

“Could you pull that off?” Shadow challenged, the first time he spoke since the groups were formed.

“Uh… no?”

“Then shut it.”

“G-Geez…”

Qi Ling, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned with the compliments she was receiving at all. Not from any of these people, anyway. On the contrary, the one person she DID want to hear a word of praise from… was as stoic as ever.

She glanced at Finn hopefully, but looked away in disappointment after seeing his silence. Then, she internally yelled at herself for expecting anything from him, and also at being disappointed because he didn’t praise her. He was stuck in her head, and she hated it.

But then, suddenly, the armor pieces and weapons on the floor began to tremble. The Wraith, Yokru, appeared to be chanting something, skeletal arms raised high in the air.

“W-What’s going on…?” Iyesha asked in a panic.

“… So that’s their secret,” Finn muttered.

The Ghost Hunters all raised their guards again as the fallen soldiers’ armor all pieced back together, and their weapons returned to their hands. Then, readying their swords, they prepared for another charge.

“T-They revived?!” Obo shrieked in shock.

But there was no time to cry in surprise as the knights charged forward once more. Qi Ling didn’t have enough time to pull off that move again, so it was up to each person for themselves.

Finn attempted to use the Soul Extraction skill he obtained from the Dungeon on the charging knights, but it didn’t work. That confirmed his theory that they weren’t actually Ghosts — just a bunch of armor, put together to create a soldier.

After hearing what happened, he also had a good idea of what they needed to do. However, the knights were somewhat in the way. If he could use his tentacles here, things would be a lot easier, but he couldn’t without needing to kill his own allies as well.

As the knights got closer, Finn supercharged himself with the Stormbringer Angelica.

“Ivy. Get off.”

Iris, hearing this, knew what he was up to and quickly flew up out of the way while focusing on the Wraith instead. Finn, on the other hand, smashed the floor with his two fists, sending out a powerful shockwave of electric energy that electrocuted any knights who got too close and blew away the rest. Surprisingly enough, however, the electricity was unable to destroy the metal, and the knights were merely pieced back together again.

The others appeared to be having trouble as well. Acaya and Obo, who could create and control sand freely with their Pharaoh Angelicas, would blast the knights back again and again, but they would simply charge once more, not feeling pain nor death. Similarly, cutting their vitals didn’t work either, as they had no vitals. They had no proper body beneath that armor, rendering Toth’s invisibility hit-n-run fighting style useless.

“We have to kill that Wraith!” Iyesha called out, launching several water bombs towards the knights charging at her and blasting her away.

Iris, receiving this message, aimed her sniper in the air and shot a devastating high-caliber bullet towards Yokru, the Wraith, but it went straight through it.

“Wha-?!” Iris’s eyes widened in surprise as Yokru’s faceless head turned to her, and raised its hands up.

Instantly, multiple purple orbs shot out of its skeletal palms, threatening to disintegrate Iris on an atomic level.

Since Iris wasn’t into that, she quickly flew out of the way, letting the projectiles blast into one of the pillars. The structure was instantly blasted straight through, and everyone down below ducked out of the way. Several soldiers were crushed underneath the pillar, and even if they were revived, they were essentially stuck down there.

But Iris’s eyes were not glued to what was happening down below. Instead, Yokru’s attack had revealed a set of machinery on the second floor of the room, something no one even noticed since there were no stairs leading up there and it was just a spectator’s floor with a hollow middle.

However, the destruction of the pillar allowed Iris to see what was truly there.

And it was their answer to beating this unexplained phenomenon.