AutumnXd
patreon
Chapter 45: Ghostfreak
🕑 Added 2025-06-11 10:51:39 +0000 UTCTime passed quickly, and Lily returned, holding a small fishbowl in her hand. Inside, a single, small goldfish was happily swimming in circles.
"Hey, Sis Lily, why did you bring a goldfish over?" Ethan asked with some confusion.
"Come on, test it. See if you can absorb its life force," Lily said, holding out the bowl.
"That's… that's not very nice, is it?" Ethan said hesitantly, looking at the oblivious little goldfish in the bowl, unable to bring himself to do it.
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Then should we go find a mutated creature for you to try and suck on instead?" she suggested dryly.
"No, no! No need for that!" Ethan shook his head repeatedly, thinking that if he really had to go find a wild mutated creature, that would be far too much trouble and danger just for a simple test. So, he resigned himself and decided to start with the goldfish in front of him.
Goldfish: Are you even polite?
Ethan circulated the psionic energy he had just recovered, converting it into his Wildvine form. Then he extended a single, slender vine and lightly grabbed the goldfish in the middle of the bowl. The goldfish seemed to sense the immediate danger and struggled desperately, its tiny body thrashing, trying to break free from the vine's restraint, but it was all in vain.
Ethan, as Wildvine, began to exert his absorption ability. He could truly feel a continuous, albeit tiny, stream of the goldfish's life force pouring into his body, but this absorption process was extremely difficult and inefficient. Then, after a few seconds, he released his hold, allowing the terrified goldfish to regain its freedom.
Lily couldn't wait to ask, "How was it? Was it effective at all?"
Ethan raised his head and answered, "Yeah, it can be absorbed, but I feel a strong, inherent resistance from its non-plant body. The absorption speed is very, very slow. For this small goldfish, I estimate I might need a full two minutes to completely drain its life force."
Two minutes was simply too long for them in a combat scenario. You have to know, when facing a giant, living tree, Ethan could completely absorb all of its life force in less than a minute. But now, an ordinary little goldfish actually required two full minutes to have its life force absorbed. This undoubtedly showed that if the target was not a plant, Ethan's efficiency in absorbing life force would be greatly, drastically, reduced.
Lily nodded thoughtfully. "Although there is such a limitation, this ability is already heaven-defying enough as it is. This means that when you fight in a forest or any environment with abundant plant life, you will have a continuous, almost endless supply of psionic energy to use."
Ethan grinned. "And once my rank is high enough and I have sufficient Aura reserves, I can instantly have a large group of powerful plant helpers, directly turning a one-on-one fight into a massive group brawl! Just thinking about it is exciting!"
Flick!
Ethan's forehead was suddenly, sharply, flicked. "What are you doing? Ouch!"
Lily gave him a stern look. "Maybe you'll be able to do that in the future, but right now you're still just a little pipsqueak at Rank One. You should still focus on your own training first."
"Got it, got it," he said, rubbing his forehead.
"Alright, it's getting late. Hurry on home and train. You shouldn't be far from reaching Level Nine now."
"I should be able to break through tonight with this last potion," Ethan said confidently.
"Very good," Lily smiled. "Then hurry up. I'm also very interested to see what your new alien form for that level will be."
"It's not just you; I'm looking forward to it too," Ethan replied. He now had no psionic energy left after all that training and testing.
Lily felt that watching Ethan walk so leisurely was too slow, so she simply grabbed him by the collar of his neck and, with a swoosh of wind, brought Ethan back home in an instant.
After arriving home, Ethan stumbled around on the spot for a while before he finally regained his balance. Lily looked at Ethan and said with a smile, "This isn't the first time I’ve done this. Still can't get used to it?"
Ethan answered with a pained, slightly green expression, "No matter how many times we do it, it's still a bit hard to get used to."
After steadying himself for a while, Ethan finally no longer had that dizzy, motion-sick feeling. Then, he drank the last vial of advanced psionic potion he had, randomly selected an alien hero to transform into for absorption, and began his final push in training. This time, as he channeled the energy, he could feel a clear, solid barrier in his Aura Channels. He knew that breaking through to Rank One, Level Nine was not going to be that easy. However, this was not a difficult problem for Ethan.
With the powerful aid of the advanced potion, a huge torrent of Aura rushed into his body, impacting that barrier like a raging flood. After two long hours of unremitting effort, that barrier was finally overwhelmed and shattered with a satisfying internal crack. At this point, Ethan had officially stepped into the rank of Level Nine.
Phew~~
Ethan let out a heavy sigh of relief, then eagerly checked the Omnitrix for his new alien form. He turned the dial a few times, and the silhouette of a new alien hero floated up on the faceplate. Ethan recognized it at a single glance, and his expression immediately turned a bit ugly. "It's… it's actually Ghostfreak!"
In the original cartoon, Ghostfreak had possessed his own independent consciousness and had even, at one point, possessed the protagonist's body. Ghostfreak, an Ectonurite from the dark planet Anur Phaetos, was even a DNA sample from that race's most powerful and tyrannical leader, Zs'Skayr, belonging to the most perfect, high-caste kind. It was a DNA sample that had accidentally entered the Omnitrix and was the only known sentient one within it.
Ghostfreak's entire body was basically grayish-white, with some jagged gray stripes on it. Its single, eerie purple eye could move freely along these stripes. Its form was like a cloud of smoke, very similar to the ghosts of old Earth mythology and the warden of a certain famous fictional afterlife. Its body could become intangible, allowing it to pass through any solid object, including people. It could also grab other people and make them intangible as well. To become truly invisible, it required a medium like ash or smoke. Most terrifyingly, it could possess any living creature and control their body. Its grayish-white skin was actually a second, protective outer layer, used to protect Ghostfreak from being killed by direct sunlight during the day, but this skin also limited most of its terrifying psychic abilities. At night, without the skin, its power would be greatly enhanced. But without that second skin, it would be killed by sunlight.
It possessed extremely sharp claws that could easily cut through copper coins and tear through steel. The mass of terrifying tentacles under its skin could be used to grab and restrain enemies. Its strength was immense, and it could also shoot a powerful purple laser from its chest. Ghostfreak's true form was twisted and terrifying; its head was even situated upside down on its body. To be honest, Ethan was a bit scared. Because in the cartoon, Ghostfreak was the one who had originally entered the Omnitrix. He had retained his own consciousness, and after recovering his strength, he had even become obsessed with leaving the Omnitrix and had almost successfully, permanently, controlled the protagonist. This could be said to be one of Ethan's most vivid childhood traumas from the show.
But after thinking about it, in the original story, it was because this specific race's consciousness was intrinsically linked to its DNA, so after the DNA was collected, Zs'Skayr's consciousness was trapped inside. It was different now. This was Ethan's own psionic ability, manifested by his own power. So, this situation… it probably shouldn't happen, right? Right?
With a troubled and apprehensive heart, Ethan pressed the watch face. With a flash of green light, a grayish-white, spectral ghost was left floating on the spot where he had been. Ethan looked at his new, ghostly body, focused his mind inward, and found that there was no phenomenon of his consciousness being controlled or contested. Only then, with a massive sigh of relief that he didn't actually have the lungs to produce, did he finally feel at ease.
