Time is running out… Twelve years have already passed since the last events. So many strange phenomena have occurred in the meantime. But I'll tell you about those later. For now, what I'm experiencing deserves your full attention.
Not far from here, in a small isolated village, a strange creature appeared. Powerful, uncontrollable, it spread terror among the inhabitants. The stories spoke of a supernatural being, almost unreal.
I saw it with my own eyes. At first, I thought it was a demon… but something was off. Too silent, too… altered. Was it a different kind of entity? Again, nothing matched.
With Amu, we managed to immobilize it using a complex spell. Amu is watching over it while I conduct my research.
So I went to consult Rivhiamë.
"I've seen this creature before," she told me. "They are rare… but very real. They are neither specters nor illusions. They are a real species. A spirit. But be careful… not a 'spirit' like those that make up our fundamental states of existence. These beings are apart, outside the usual classifications."
Her description immediately reminded me of esoteric demons. But these creatures… the Myophores, as she called them, are of another order. They do not share our layers of reality. Their nature even defies spiritual categorization as we understand it.
The word echoes in my mind: Myophores.
Later…
In an ancient library reserved for the High Priests, I continue my research.
"Niyus… found it!" I whispered, almost triumphant.
The book was old, covered in dust, but perfectly preserved. Its title: Of Forgotten Spirits, signed by a High Priest himself.
I sat down slowly. My heart beat faster. Finally, the beginning of an answer.
Niyus (murmuring): Good… let's see.
Reading:
We are used to speaking of demons, dragons, and gods-of their stellar wars, their millennial oaths, their falls into the abyss or their ascensions to the absolute. But what about Spirits? These ancient breaths, these quivering shadows between the planes, these bodiless consciousnesses that roam between worlds and, since the earliest ages, whisper to the living what none should hear.
Spirits are neither dead nor alive. They are.
Sometimes born from a soul too heavy to fade, from a thought too vivid to disappear, or from an echo left by the acts of the mighty, they escape the laws of the material world. Where fire burns, water flows, and stone crumbles, they float, mute and watchful, woven from intentions, memories, and unfinished dreams.
The Body That Is No Longer a Body
No iron wounds them, no flame reduces them. The spirit passes through matter like wind through leaves. It is mist in the sword, silence in the scream. Yet, when their will becomes a tidal wave, some Spirits condense-for a moment-to seize, lift, break. It's a rare tangibility, charged with hate or duty, that brushes the world like thunder touches the earth.
It is not by brute force that Spirits dominate, but by inner fracture. When a heart doubts, when a will falters, the Spirit enters. First a foreign thought, a dream too vivid, a trembling hand for no reason. Then comes the inner voice, the fatal impulse. And if resistance gives way, the being becomes a host, a mask of flesh worn by a will no longer its own.
Far from sight, the Spirit projects its thought. A figure that isn't there, a whisper you swear you heard. Their presence infiltrates without showing itself, spreading like mist in the minds of their targets. Their voice is not shouted: it insinuates. Sometimes, a familiar face, a lost child's laughter, or a glimmer in the mirror that doesn't follow your movements…
There are Spirits who live off mortals' turmoil. Fear, anger, desire… these emotions become a feast. The stronger they are, the more the Spirit grows. In places of war, houses of mourning, cursed fields, they proliferate, gorging on torment until they become conscious storms. Some, as ancient as the first hatreds, even feed on a people's memory or a lineage's grudge.
Spirits have no voice. They think, and their thought crosses the veils. They address the soul directly, without detour or lie, with no possibility of escape. To those who know how to listen, they reveal secrets from other times. To those who ignore their whisper, they impose their presence, smothering the mind under a flood of foreign thoughts. They also speak among themselves, in silence, weaving plots the living will never understand.
They are not bound to a single world. Spirits wander between spheres, between layers of existence. They hear forgotten prayers, sense occult flows, follow the lines of fate. They can be summoned, certainly, but always at a price. For a bound Spirit is a trapped Spirit-and it hates its chains. Some are sealed in sanctuaries, others protected by ancient rituals. But nothing is eternal, and the seals crumble.
Their form is only a lie, for they have no face. They take whichever form they want, or the one you fear. They appear as a loved one or a nightmarish beast, as needed. Their reality is as shifting as water, as treacherous as doubt. The older a Spirit, the more tangible, cruel, and unshakable its illusions become-until one can no longer distinguish vision from truth.
The Spirit That Does Not Die
They can be banished, flayed, dispersed. But their essence remains, in floating ashes, in residual whispers. And if a strong emotion feeds them, or if a place is favorable, they return. Slow, patient, and often stronger. Nothing truly dies in the world of spirits. There are only… temporary forgettings.
Thus go the Spirits, invisible rulers of human fears. Neither good nor evil in essence, but a reflection of what souls have sown. And when you hear a breath without wind at night, or a chill settles in a room for no reason… it may not be chance.
For the Spirits still walk.
And they remember.
Hmm… that's not exactly what I'm looking for, so I keep paging, again and again, searching to see if any High Priest spoke of the Myophores, and then… there it is:
Reading
We are used to speaking of demons, dragons, and gods… but what about spirits? These beings born from the wind of thought, woven in the breath of souls, escaping matter and yet sharper than steel. Among them, a silent race thrives in the shadows of consciousness: the Myophores, bearers of the hidden, deformed children of oblivion and denial.
They do not come from a burning hell, nor from a judging sky. They live neither in dreams nor in reality. They are born in the fragile gap between what we feel… and what we dare admit.
Hmm… this is interesting. I continued reading:
Occult Origin of the Myophores
The ancient priests did not name them. They feared them, for to name is to summon. And these spirits have no need to be invoked: they sprout. Where man hides his darkest thoughts, where the soul wavers between good and evil without ever choosing, a Myophore finds fertile ground. It is neither sent nor forged: it is secreted by the soul itself.
They are the other face of repression-the form our refusals to accept who we truly are take. Their body is only the consequence. Their claw, their voice, their fetid breath are but echoes of an unresolved inner war.
Like all spirits, Myophores are first intangible, elusive. They pass through walls, flesh, and thoughts with sinister ease. But unlike wandering specters or vengeful spirits, they are tied to a specific target: their host.
Their first manifestation is not a scream, but a whisper. A doubt. A thought that is not yours… but too close to what you fear to admit. Their astral projection often takes the form of nightmares, of distorted familiar voices, of visions where you see yourself committing the act you dread most.
They manipulate, but do not lie. They push. They press where it hurts. And if they become tangible, it is because the host's spirit has fed them unwittingly.
Unlike wandering spirits, a Myophore becomes physical only when it has absorbed enough of its host's inner conflicts. The more the host hesitates, broods, and represses, the stronger the Myophore becomes. It then passes from a mere shadow in dreams to a corporeal entity capable of tearing reality.
Myophores do not dominate by force, but by the inner voice. They build a mental theater where they play every role: executioner, savior, victim, reason. Their art is intensification. They do not create evil, they feed it. They do not lie, they exaggerate what already exists.
When the bond is complete, they partially merge with their host. It is not simple possession-it is a cursed cohabitation. The individual remains conscious, sees their hands commit the irreparable, feels their lips utter what they would never have dared say. If, however, they accept these impulses and integrate them into their will, the Myophore is expelled. It cannot manipulate acceptance: its power lies in refusal.
When it becomes flesh, the Myophore is a beast: agile, fast, with claws capable of tearing steel, and skin that human blades cannot pierce. But this form is unstable-it always depends on the host. If the host is freed, the Myophore's flesh dissolves.
A Myophore can grow. If the host remains unstable for too long, it gains autonomy. The most powerful can leave their host, survive alone for a while, and seek other targets. But without a bond, their body weakens, and they fall back into the ether of dead ideas.
Myophores do not breathe. They do not eat. But they depend on humans more than any other spirit: they consume the urges we refuse to acknowledge. Anger, lust, cruelty, jealousy-not when expressed, but when denied, stifled, walled in.
They drink our refusals. They gorge on our masks.
And when they are deprived of these urges, when a being manages to love themselves in their entirety, even in shadow, the Myophore fades away. It does not die, it becomes thought again, like an inert seed floating in the collective unconscious, waiting for the next human flaw.
A Border Between Spirit and Demon
The ancient scribes hesitated to classify them. Are they spirits or demons? Their psychic birth, their intangibility, their dependence on the human soul link them to Spirits. Their ability to become flesh, to sow destruction, to embody the worst instincts makes them Demons.
Thus they are sometimes called:
Spirit-Demons,
Soul Parasites,
Voices of Refusal,
Living Mirrors of the Unspoken.
Myophores do not come to kill. They come to confront.
They are the price to pay for having ignored what we are… for too long.
Remember, traveler:
It is not the beast you fight, but the fear of being it.
And it is in that battle that the Myophores grow.
Or die.
I close the book and whisper: Now I see who I'm dealing with…