"Patience, kiddo. That, boy, is called a Lying Spirit. They are quite dangerous at full power. That little friend of yours has made an interesting enemy."

Hearing this, Alaric remained calm. He instantly remembered the little recorded information he had read about these kinds of spirits. It wasn’t much, just enough to know about their existence.

According to scholars of old, they are spirits closely associated with corruption, taint, and dirt, often called unclean spirits. These spirits are the lowest tier of evil spirits. They are foot soldiers to other, more powerful evil spirits.

These bottom-tier foot soldiers are divided into three types. The first are called demon spirits, the second, lying spirits, and the third, familiar spirits.

Each has a unique nature that sets it apart from the others. The one they are currently against is a lying spirit, albeit one with certain limitations on reality.

These spirits are said to be very rare and to have no influence on the reality around them. It was stated that if an individual doesn’t acknowledge their existence, they cannot influence you. In simple terms, the less you know about them, the lower the influence they have on you.

Many believe that wasn’t always the case with these creatures. They believed, after intensive study and observation of these creatures, that there existed a point in history where these spirits could exert influence in reality, whether you acknowledge them or not. In recent times, as the energy of heaven and earth thinned, these spirits grew more powerful; their once-limited strength increasing over time.

"I don’t know how much you know about these spirits, but as their name implies, they are the most intelligent of the foot soldiers. Some might argue that they are also the most powerful. Their objective is to lie, intercept, or corrupt existing knowledge or truths. This knowledge or truth is broad, from simple whispers between teammates to illusory realities. This ability scales according to their influence in reality. They have one passive domain-type ability that compels anyone around them to tell the truth, as you have witnessed with your partner over there. They are famous for causing internal disputes within factions and fights amongst the closest of friends, brothers, family members, leading to either side or both dying without even knowing what was happening." The black snake freely gave him information.

’This means I have to keep in mind that everything that I am seeing right now is a lie. This sudden distance between Eva and me is a lie, imperfect as it may be.’

It first caused Eva to say a truth that might have ticked me off, then tried to influence me to reply with another truth, maybe one that would offend her. Sadly for it, it had no effect on me, but it also led to a favorable outcome for it. We acknowledged its existence by our previous alertness to an unknown enemy; now it has a certain influence over our perception. This is truly a dangerous enemy against ignorant cultivators.

He had to admit he knew nothing about their abilities, as it was not stated in any of the records provided by the library, or it could just be that Tian removed them to have him gain experience. But what he never accounted for was Alaric’s new invisible companion. One he absolutely has no trust in.

If an unclean spirit’s influence over your reality is directly proportional to your acknowledgment of their existence, why wouldn’t he stop the black snake from telling him more about this mysterious enemy?

The answer was simple. The more you know about them, the more harm they can cause you, but the reverse is also true. The more you acknowledge their existence, the more you can interact with their immaterial body and cause them harm.

The enemy that has always been present, but invisible, was slowly becoming visible in his perception.

The air in front of him distorted, slowly revealing one of the greatest lying species in existence.

Its immaterial body became entirely visible to his perception as the snake ended its lecture about these spirits. A grotesque creature appeared before him. He saw a skin sickly pale, with a misty outline, crimson orbs floated where its eyes should be. It had black horns pointing skyward, Bat-like wings attached under its arms, connected to its torso, and long, black nails that looked like danger. Its expression was twisted in a malicious smile, as though it had caught its prey. It was about 7 feet tall with a slim build.

Without hesitation, Alaric shut his eyes. Right now, they were more of a distraction than anything else. This thing could deceive his senses, but they couldn’t deceive his special perception. Immediately after closing his eyes, the overlapping reality corrected itself in his perception. The Lying spirit was still there, and Eva was still a few meters away from him instead of the kilometers of distance. She was still confused, thinking that they were separated, her perception of reality still twisted.

He reached out, holding her hands, causing her face to show signs of confusion. "Relax, Eva, and close your eyes and use your perception to see."

Hearing his gentle voice, she did as she was told. She felt reality settle, and she finally perceived the truth that was reality. She still couldn’t see where the enemy was, but she wasn’t confused anymore.

Alaric quickly brought her up to speed about their situation, and she felt that entity finally settled into her reality. It became part of her reality. This was the thing that had followed her from childhood. It was the reason she couldn’t step outside the barrier till now, and the first hurdle of her journey. She knew that without her master’s benevolence, she would have been long dead at the hands of this thing. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got as her essence within her compressed and boiled.

"I will kill it myself." She openly stated before stepping forward, towards this enemy. Alaric, knowing how she felt, stayed back, unwilling to interfere. From the information he gathered earlier from that fraudulent snake, these spirits, while dangerous, were pathetically weak. A simple slash from Eva could kill it, as she can now perceive it clearly.

The spirit that was once smiling at its victory turned and ran, tried to fly away. This cowardly behavior was inherent. It knew it couldn’t win in a direct confrontation, so it has trained its speed to exceed that of other unclean spirits.

This action immediately sent alarms flying in the heads of Eva and Alaric. They couldn’t exactly tell why, but their instincts flared up at that moment, telling them not to allow it to escape.

"Boy, it’s best not to allow it to escape. Try to capture it if you can." The snake said in its lazy voice.

Thankfully, Eva was already close. She covered a hundred meters in an instant, swinging her pitch-black wooden sword, reinforced with basic essence control, vertically.

The lying spirit, which was about to take off, felt itself lose balance. Its elongated wing attached left arm was cut cleanly by the pitch-black blade.

Gritting her teeth, Eva lounged without giving it time to balance, using her technique that had improved since her breakthrough. She swung her blade at its torso, slicing it in half, but that wasn’t all. Invisible blades split it into a hundred pieces. Those hundred were further split into equal parts, then repeated several times, until it became several thousand pieces.

She sighed softly, and her shoulders relaxed; the weight she had been carrying for years was finally off her shoulders.

Suddenly, the air twisted violently as reality seemed to reconfigure itself to accommodate it. The spirit that was sliced into several pieces appeared whole again, as though what had happened moments before was a fever dream.

"Tsk tsk, didn’t you hear what I said before? I said capture it, not kill it. If it were so easy to kill those things, they would have long gone extinct. They keep coming back no matter what you do."

Alaric ignored it.

He just observed the battle and began his structural analysis of the creature before him.

’This is what spiritual particles look like. It is quite different from the energy in our surroundings and is impossible for physical matter to interact with, but it seems to hold an advantage over physical matter, as being made of it allows it to influence the material world. This gap can be slightly bridged with origin essence, but it is still limited.’ He saw the creature try to swipe at Eva, but its arms just passed through her without harming her. ’It seems to be limited. As the elder snake said earlier, their influence in reality is being restricted. Is it the heavenly Dao that restricts that influence or something else?"

He shook his head. He didn’t know the answer to that.

’Whatever it is, it seems to be losing right now, as these spirits are gaining a foothold on reality. Could this be related to our mission as blessed? So much to think about.’