Jack, in his invisible specter form, felt a primal unease. His non-existence was a shield, perhaps. But this entity felt like a force designed to nullify anything.
He had to come closer though.
He drifted closer. Slowly. Each centimeter was an act of calculated defiance against an unknown law. The radius of five to seven meters was a death zone.
He remembered the fallen priests. Their faith-fueled aura was snuffed out like a candle in a vacuum. No struggle. No scream. Just an abrupt cessation of being. He didn't want to be the next victim.
His incorporeal form slid past the threshold.
He felt it. A jolt. Not of pain. But of profound emptiness. It reverberated through his spectral core. It was a sensation of being less than zero. An unnerving echo of cosmic nothingness. Complete silence.
He held his spectral breath. Pushing through the sensation with sheer will. His [Eyes of Judgement] flared. Trying to capture the fundamental truth of the anomaly.
A panel blossomed in his ethereal perception. Stark and cold.
[Entity: Deep Silence]
[Type: Law Grade Entity]
[Power Scale: Absolute]
[Karma: -]
[Origin: Born from the Void Dimension, the existence entered this world due to an incidental dimensional crack.]
[Nature: It extinguishes any sound and stops the source that creates the sound with its existence. Therefore, humans and animals die when they are in contact with it. Their heartbeat just stops without any sign.]
[Traits: Eternal Existence, Absolute Silence Domain, Dusk Freedom]
[Background History:...]
Jack processed the information with a grim focus. The cold dread solidifying into intellectual understanding.
Law Grade Entity. A new term for him. It was not a demon. Not a spirit. Not even a god. This was a force of nature. A living, moving law.
Its power scale was... Absolute. Another term he had never seen. Signifying power beyond conventional classification. A fundamental constant. No karma. Because it wasn't good or evil. It simply was natural phenomenon.
The origin was chilling. A breach from the Void Dimension. An accidental tear had allowed a piece of primordial nothingness to bleed into reality.
Its nature was even more terrifying in its simplicity. Extinguishes any sound and stops the source that creates the sound. It explained everything. The sudden deaths. The lack of wounds. The silent collapse.
A heartbeat was a sound. The sound of life. Muffled. Constant. Its cessation was death. Humans, animals, even the burning aura of divinely empowered priests... All were sources of a 'sound' in a cosmic sense. Its presence simply hushed them forever.
Then, the history. It was a long note. Jack read it as quickly as possible. And quickly left the Deep Silence's domain.
As a specter, he was pretty similar to plants. Absolute silence won't kill him. As long as it wasn't long enough. But it was definitely uncomfortable.
Once he was back to the world of sound, Jack tried to recall the information. The entity was... once sealed in a mystic metal box under a tree. It was done by the couple who founded Songstress Village. Nerea the Empyrean Songstress and Hearth the Array Wright.
Jack's mental database whirred. Empyrean Songstress? Array Wright? These were two new terms. Transcendent classes he had never encountered or heard. Not in any tome or legend he had read.
These terms hinted at a forgotten era of power. Founders capable of wrestling with a Law Grade Entity. Their power must have been immense.
The final crucial piece clicked into place as he recalled the next information. The seal was broken by an unnatural lightning strike.
The broken seal and the lightning strike accidentally gave the entity a deviant trait... [Dusk Freedom]. A state where it could only exist in the open world for a couple of hours after the sun set every day.
An accidental lightning strike. The tree. Farmer Drumbell's backyard. It all made perfect sense. Nick and Harold didn't sense any transcendent energy. That was because this thing was not a transcendent being at all.
The villagers had unknowingly lived atop a cosmic prison for generations. The lightning had not only shattered the ancient ward. But twisted the entity's very essence. Granting it a temporary freedom in this 'open world'.
This explained why it only appeared at sunset and disappeared. It wasn't retreating. It was simply... gone from this reality until the next dusk.
Jack kept observing the Deep Silence. He needed to confirm the information about its temporal limitation. He watched. An invisible, intangible observer... as the twilight deepened further.
Then... The sky had turned completely dark. The stars and the twin moons started to appear the night sky. It was then that the indistinct edges of the Deep Silence began to waver more violently.
It wasn't moving away. No. It was dissolving. Like an ink stain fading into water. Its formless presence grew fainter. Its borders blurring into nothingness. Just within seconds, it vanished completely.
The Deep Silence was gone. For now. The information was confirmed. It was bound by a temporal leash.
His primary objective now was to confirm the location of the broken seal. He didn't waste a second.
He quickly shot across the village. A silent, invisible flash of spectral energy. Making a direct line for Farmer Drumbell's backyard. The gnarled, lightning-scarred tree stood like a dark sentinel against the night sky.
He phased directly into its ancient trunk. The wood was warped and burnt. But deeper within, underneath the ground, he could feel it. His [Eyes of Judgement] perceived a faint, lingering energy signature. On a metal box.
A complex metal box inscribed with faded runes. Not exactly damaged. Some runes were just... distorted. And these runes were... quite different from what he had learned in Mystic Study and Steamrune Engineering.
This was it. The seal. The remnants of the prison created by the power of an Empyrean Songstress and an Array Wright. The lightning strike hadn't just hit a tree. It had affected the cosmic prison. Unleashing the Deep Silence.
He didn't linger. The full scope of the disaster was clear. This was no ordinary haunting. This required an entirely different approach.
Re-sealing a Law Grade Entity was a monumental task. Especially when its original captors were long dead and their methods were lost to time.
Jack phased back towards the Stave's house. A plan already forming in his mind. He would deliver the truth. However unsettling it was. And then, they would need to strategize.
He didn't bother using the door. He simply flowed through the front wall of the house. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer marking his passage.
Inside, the living room was tense. Reina sat calmly. Watching the tablet displaying the dynamic view from her Silver Hawk.
Alenna, Nick, and Harold were huddled together. Anxious whispers filling the air. Mr. Keener sat beside his niece and nephew. Locke and Rose. His face was a mask of worry.
The 'Jack Night' illusion Reina had created was pacing the room. A picture of concerned introspection.
As Jack solidified into his Jack Mystery form, a gasp tore through the room. It was unsettling indeed to see a cloaked, masked specter appeared from nowhere.
Alenna yelped. Clutching her chest. Nick and Harold scrambled back. Nearly overturning a chair. Mr. Keener's jaw dropped. And the children, Locke and Rose, stared wide-eyed.
Reina, however, merely offered a small, knowing smile.
The Jack Night illusion greeted the specter. "You're here? How is it?" Then, it turned to the others and explained. "Don't worry everyone. This is Jack Mystery. The specialist I've contacted to help us with our particular problem."
"Got your message. And I've checked it." Jack Mystery replied.
The performance was convincing. A seamless collaboration between Jack and Reina.
Jack's masked gaze swept over the anxious faces. "It should be above your pay grade, Night. You were facing something utterly terrifying here."
The illusion of Jack Night raised his eyebrows. "You've got information?"
Jack glide towards the Jack Night illusion. He spoke directly to his illusion-based clone. A performance. For the real audience here to listen.
"You know my eyes can attune to the nature of the Truth." Jack replied. "I've seen that entity you've been calling 'Twilight Death'. Moving randomly outside."
"What is it?"
"A Law Grade Entity. It's much troublesome compared to an evil spirit, a malevolent curse, or a demon." Jack Mystery began. His tone was blunt and devoid of dramatic flair, simply stating facts.
"It is an entity born from the Void Dimension. A place of pure nothingness. A realm beyond our understanding, where the fundamental laws of existence are... different." He continued.
Harold pushed his glasses up his nose. "The Void Dimension? Sir, with all due respect, that's theoretical. A hypothetical concept for cosmic physicists."
"Theoretical, perhaps, in your textbooks." Jack Mystery countered smoothly. His masked gaze briefly flicking to Harold. "I knew what I saw. Or at least, my power made me understand it."
"Tell us about it." Jack Night illusion clone said. "From whatever you've learned."
Jack Mystery sighed. "As I've told you, this thing is a Law Grade Entity. Its power, within its domain is absolute. It is not powered by malice or intent. But by its very nature."
Alenna, despite her fear, managed to stammer. "Nature? What... what is its nature?"
Jack Mystery looked at her calmly. "Silence. Absolute silence. Its nature is to extinguish sound. And by extension, anything that creates sound."
He continued. "A heart beating, lungs breathing, blood flowing within veins—these are all sounds, however minute. When a living being enters its domain, the Deep Silence, as it's called, simply... stops those sounds. Their hearts cease to beat. Their lungs cease to draw breath. Death comes without wound. Without struggle. Without a whisper."
A horrified silence descended upon the room. Heavier than any physical quiet. The revelation was far worse than any ghost story.
"Deep Silence? Like the old legend? This... This sounds… impossible." Mr. Keener whispered. Pale as a sheet.
"Impossible things are merely those we haven't yet comprehended." Jack Mystery responded. "The entity was once sealed. Two weeks ago, an 'unnatural lightning strike' damaged that seal."
He paused. Letting the implication sink in. "The seal was located beneath the ancient tree in the backyard of a farmer's house. I've just confirmed it. There was a tree struck by lightning there."
Nick sucked in a sharp breath. "We've checked the place. There was no transcendent energy there."
"Because it was technically not a transcendent being." Jack Mystery said. "And the seal isn't in the tree. It's buried under the tree. Cast by the founders of this village. Nerea the Empyrean Songstress and Hearth the Array Wright. Both powerful transcendent individuals, possessing classes that have been lost to time."
He continued. "The lightning strike not only broke the seal but accidentally imprinted a new 'limiting' trait onto the Deep Silence. Something called 'Dusk Freedom'. It can now only manifest in this dimension for a few hours during and after sunset. That's why it appears and disappears on a schedule."
Rose, the young girl, looked up at Jack Mystery. With wide, tearful eyes. "So, when the sun goes down, it comes out to kill people? Like with daddy and mommy?"
"It doesn't 'kill' in the traditional sense, Girl." Jack Mystery said. His voice was softening imperceptibly for a moment. "It is like the rain. If you are outside when it is raining, you get wet. If you are outside when the the Deep Silence is outside, you..."
Jack Mystery didn't continue and immediately changed the topic. "Anyway... As I've said, it feels no malice, no hunger. It's a force, a law. Like gravity, but for sound and life."
He looked around the room. Making eye contact with everyone. "However, the outcome is the same. Death. Complete and instantaneous."
The Jack Night illusion stepped forward. "So, what can we do, Jack Mystery? How do you fight a fundamental law?"