Murim Recurve

The Blinded Ghost remained in place after the eye it was using to see close shut. It hovered in place, retracting its arms as it just existed. The man hadn't fainted yet, still reeling from the effects of having lost his sight.

The abrupt plunge into darkness caused him primal fear. From time to time, the Blinded Ghost just extended its hands and tapped a couple of times on the bed, causing the man's heart to shudder in fear at the sound.

All the fear he felt coagulated in the air, turning into Fear Qi that the Blinded Ghost absorbed. It was like a tonic to it, slowly causing the nicks and gashes on its shadowy form to recover. Its mass also increased as its form became more condensed.

With every use of its abilities, it was expending Ghost Qi. If it continued in such a fashion, despite all the abilities it possessed, it would be vulnerable to its foes. After all, people resisted it. And, whenever it encountered a Harmoniser, it was wounded.

Only by absorbing Ghost Qi would it be able to recover from the injuries and heal itself back to full strength. And now, it had a steady supply of Ghost Qi, so it just rested by hovering in place. And, once it stopped seeing, the eyes it used before were shut. The pair of eyes were no longer bleeding out the shadowy fluid.

After all, even though it could use the eyes of others to see, there was a time limit. The higher the quality of the eyes, the greater the duration it would last before breaking apart. That's why it didn't just steal the eyes of any random person it came across.

The Blinded Ghost spent a lot of time hovering in the place, opening the eyes on its bottom once the trickle of Fear Qi stopped. It noticed how the man had fainted, no longer able to endure the feeling of fear.

Upon seeing how the man had reached the limit in his ability to feel fear, the Blinded Ghost moved towards the nearby wall, passing through it as it exited the house. It then slowly moved through the houses, coming across one sleeping person after another.

It then came across a house where the lights were still lit. It saw how the people inside were partying. They were a group of youngsters who had returned from war and were relaxing, feeling alive as they gorged on food to their limit, sang, and danced.

The moment the Blinded Ghost appeared, the faces of the soldiers paled in fear before they reacted, pulling out one weapon after another as they lunged on it. But, their attacks didn't damage it. Rather, they just passed through it, as if it didn't exist.

Nothing happened as the Blinded Ghost stopped after arriving at the centre of the room. The soldiers blinked, rubbing their eyes to see if they were hallucinating.

"Did we eat something weird?" One of them muttered, taking a glance at the food on the table. The Blinded Ghost hovered right above it, still as a statue.

Another soldier arrived before the Blinded Ghost, poking it to see his fingers passed right through it, "What is this? This looks cool but incredibly scary."

With its eyes shut and its hands retracted, the Blinded Ghost was no different from a shadowy sphere. So, it didn't elicit any feeling of fear from them.

"You are right." A soldier laughed, taking a bite of the food in his hand as he too arrived before the Blinded Ghost, peering close at it before leaning forward. He was brave, for he placed his head inside the Blinded Ghost.

"This is fun," He laughed, motioning for the others to repeat the same. His eyes were slightly trembling for reasons unknown, but neither he nor the others noticed it. The other soldier that seeped his finger into the Blinded Ghost too was acting the same.

Eventually, curiosity got the best of them as all the soldiers in the room converged around the Blinded Ghost, touching it at least once as they laughed about, commenting how all of them had probably eaten something strange that caused them to imagine the same thing.

As time passed, they were starting to lose interest in it. But what they hadn't realised was how the eyes of everyone was faintly trembling as it darted to and fro, as if they were in the starting stages of paranoia.

Suddenly, all the 41 pairs of eyes on the Blinded Ghost shot open as the temperature of the room abruptly cooled down. As all the soldiers were standing right next to it, they were hit at the same time. Moreover, even though they tried to react, intending to use their reflexes honed in numerous battles, they realised to their horror, their bodies were numb.

All of them lost balance simultaneously and fell to the ground, noticing their hands were stuck to the floor, same for their feet. They opened their mouths to scream and realised their voices failed to come out.

Slowly, ice formed on their bodies, completely immobilising them all. And, their hearts shuddered as a voice, chill-inducing, and bone-rattling, resounded from the Blinded Ghost, "All…eyes…me…want…"

A pair of hands shot out from it and entered the head of the first soldier, coming out with his eyeballs. There wasn't even any shudder from the victim, for he hadn't even realised his eyes had been stolen.

In his perspective, he suddenly lost his sight. But, upon realising he couldn't see, despite opening his eyelids, he couldn't feel anything inside. The realisation of his loss of sight slowly dawned on him as he was overwhelmed by fear, the fear of loss, the fear of unable to see anything anymore, and the feeling of darkness he witnessed.

All of them built up fear in him. Moreover, as the Blinded Ghost had done something to them, the fear he experienced was magnified. The soldier behaved as if he had lost everything, from his life's savings to his entire family. From sadness, it turned into maddened fear.

The same thing was repeated on all the other soldiers too as the number of eyes on the Blinded Ghost increased. A dense stream of Fear Qi was produced that it sucked into itself, converted it into Ghost Qi, and sent most of them into the pair of eyes on its front, the one it guarded the most.

Followed by a spike in Ghost Qi, the eyes shot open, the pupils within had lost their blue colour and had now become black.