Ethereal Souls Novels & Stories

I let her drift through the halls like a ghost, haunting the house but never belonging to it. I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself it didn’t matter. I told myself she was nothing.

Her gaze flickered to my shoulder, then back to my face, searching, as if she could pull me back from the brink through sheer will. "What else can we do?" Ava walked a slow circle around us, her black boots silent on the marble. Her gaze raked over the opulent penthouse, finally settling on the shimmering barrier of our wedding bed. "He gave us a location. A 'celestial graveyard.' Sounds like a delightful vacation spot. Anyone got a map to the astral plane's less-than-five-star resorts?" "I can track it," Misha declared, her jaw set. "The Echo of Creation. Donn said it's foundational resonance. I can feel echoes. I can find it."

I thought, "Dear God, if you're still willing to listen even if I have no white ribbon to make my wish, but on the account that I'd prayed to you and lit up the candle so sincerely many times in the past, please grant this final wish of mine. "I wish that I, Winter Brooke, will no longer have anything to do with him, Finnegan Churchill, for the rest of our lives, or even the next life if there is one."

As I did I heard a loud splatter. “Is this wateeeeeer!” I asked Chewi. “Well it is a liquid,” he replied. Turns out the world was like a marble with a liquid substance within. Ether was a freaking water world. And Etherians were aquatic ghosts….. Just kidding. Etherians were aquatic creatures that possessed a Ghost-like appearance. This was their peak form of evolution in their world.

“Give me time. She can’t know what we are or why we want that book. But I promise you, I’ll make sure it ends up in our hands.” Ethan studied him in silence, then nodded, though his eyes showed little trust. “You have until the next full moon. If you don’t recover it, you know what will happen,” Ethan said before turning and disappearing into the shadows of the forest, leaving Alex standing in the dim light, the weight of the decision pressing heavily on his shoulders. Alex remained still in the forest, staring at the place where his companions had vanished. Ethan’s order was clear, but despite the pressure from his leader and his responsibility to the pack, his mind focused on only one thin

He nodded slowly, then laid the tile down next to the others. I looked at it. My unease grew, because it looked like a bullfrog crossed with a man. Oddly enough, it looked like . . . The creature from the Black Lagoon. “The ‘Other’ is Chiao, the Water Demon. According to legend he capsized boats, devoured men, and ravished women. He was . . . different from the Sacred Four.” I cleared my suddenly dry and tight throat. “How?” Mr. Trung tipped his head. “The Four exact a price for attempting to reach the Gateway, but they are sacred, honorable, bearing your essence away to be judged accordingly. Chiao is an Abomination. It consumes your very essence, making you part of it for all eternity.”

The air was still cold, the temperature having dropped significantly due to the Echo Wraith. The Echo Wraith is a haunting presence within the Cavern of Eternal Echoes, a place known for its labyrinthine complexity and the disturbing resonance of every sound. It glides silently through the caverns, leaving behind a trail of maddening echoes. These echoes are warped, amplified distortions that play on the deepest insecurities and fears of those who hear them. They take on the voices of the damned, whispering hidden regrets and unconfessed sins, often blending them with a cacophony of falsehoods to disorient and unsettle their victims.

He replied, "Iron Spirit Realm." Iron Spirit Realm was the stage that stabilized an Ethereal Constitution after it had been successfully molded. Before that, the process of shaping it was called the Ethereal Molding stage. These terms had been covered in a book Billy had given him, but strangely, the Phaeron Codex—a supposedly unrivaled soul cultivation manual—never mentioned them. "Oh yeah, forgot you reached that level," Billy muttered. "Then you can use a technique called Soul Manifestation. It lets you see if someone's soul has been tampered with—clear as day. You don't need me to tell you how to fix it, right?"

“Let him fight! Let him fight! Let him fight!” Kelvin stood up and looked around until his eyes met mine. Then he knelt in front of the chapel as the rain began to pour again. I looked up to the sky and saw the clouds parting for the blood moon to emerge. And the chatting became louder. “Let him fight! Let him fight! Let him fight!” Kelvin slit his wrists with the spirit sword and allowed the blood to drip on the stairs of the chapel. And we all heard a rumbling sound apart from the sound of thunder as Darka emerged from beneath the chapel. “Let him fight! Let him fight! Let him fight!”

"Yes! The Twice-Born blood! I can feel it! The Well is opening!" She cut deeper, and more blood flowed. She held my hand over a bowl, letting it collect. "Stop!" Ethan's voice was breaking. "Please! Take me instead! Kill me! Just let her go!" "Quiet!" Stephanie screamed. She began chanting again, faster now. "Sanguine vitae, portus mae, Deleth mortis, opens tae, Power eternal, comes to me, Well of Souls, I summon thee!" The ground beneath us started to shake. Cracks appeared in the earth, glowing with that same purple light.