#ghost king

Nico likes listening to music while training, I just know it (he told me) 🖤🎧

While such a position does exist, Phantom doesn't hold that station. His position is much greater. He's the Realms' Protector, he serves the Realms herself. He has his own set of rules and laws he must follow, sorn by him to the Realms Herself, and those laws and rules are the only ones he must follow. He doesn't have to heed the King, nor the Ancients, or even the Observants, much to their dismay, Phantom follows the Realms and her alone. He will act to keep her laws, and the Realms safe, and hes one of the few that could dethrone the King should they prove themselves a tyrant or an otherwise poor ruler.

Its been nearly 200 Millennium since a Protector has been chosen, its such a rare title to be bestowed, that Phantom is respected very highly.

But, that is a source of its own problems.

There is many a denizen that think that, because Phantom was picked by the Realms herself, that he should be the King instead.

Those that support the King, however, see the need for a Potector as treasonous. The King won their rightful place, they should be respected, and the Phantom needing to be Protector, to have the right to strip that title, is blasphemous.

The only reason a civil war hasn't broken out is because Phantom's Faction knows Phantom can't act without good reason, and the King's Faction won't act without the King's order. Everything is at a tense, political standstill, and everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Clockwork decides the most efficient way for Danny to defeat Pariah Dark… is to have Pariah raise him.

no warning. no context. no explanation.

just toddler Danny, bundled up, dropped at the gates of Pariah’s fortress centuries before canon with a single note:

'' He’s o̶u̶r̶ your baby. – CW.''

and Pariah is standing there like.

'' When did I fuck with the embodiment of time itself?''

'' WHEN did this happen! ''

meanwhile Danny is just blinking up at him with big glowing eyes and reaching up like “uppies.”

and now Pariah —ancient tyrant, nightmare of the Infinite Realms — is stuck pacing his throne room at 3am with a ghost toddler who refuses to sleep unless he’s holding onto his cape.

but here’s the thing.

Pariah is prideful. He is royal. He is not raising a weak heir.

so Danny is trained.

battle strategy taught at bedtime.

sword forms before he can properly read.

history of the Realms instead of fairy tales.

because if this is his child (apparently???) then he will be a prince. and he will be formidable.

and somewhere in the background

Clockwork is watching like :)

Art trade with @ep-10 :D

I drew their Amnesiac Ghost King and their Clockwork’s Apprentice!

It was so much fun! ♡

.

Meet Little Baby Ghoul! (Or “Lil’ Ghoul” for short.)

And Here’s Normal form.

Here’s vote names you choose are done 👈🏼

Look familiar…?👇🏼

So, Shen Yuan is just a silly ghost fire filled with pent-up rage, damn shitty novel, damn shitty author. Is he “alive” for something? Because of how much he hates PIDW and its fucked up ending. Get a lower-ranking ghost body because he's just... angry at Airplane. His new form is, ah, well, different and weird, but he can grow his hair to go unnoticed, and can steal some robes.

Get a small job eventually just because he was bored and although he don't need to eat, it would be nice to have extra money - and the tea house owner doesn't care if he's a human or a ghost as long as he's not creepy with the customers and serves their tables. It's a routine that gives him the quick financial support to get bad books, complain more - and maybe he's getting stronger because of it? Because of his anger at mediocre authors and repressed anger? Does it even make sense?

At some point, Tonglu opens. Shen Yuan has headaches and the desperate feeling that he must go, as if he summoned. He tells his boss he's going to be out for ghostly reasons - his boss is like, oh, you needed a vacation anyway. And Shen Yuan goes.

It's a massacre, of course. A mix between the Hunger Games and the Purge, but Shen Yuan has something they definitely don't: a lot of knowledge in shooting video games. And he doesn't have a gun, but hey, he can shoot resentful spiritual energy and it works like bullets or something - he soon discovers that the more ghosts he overcomes, he becomes stronger. He has more power to throw, more skills, a stronger body.

Go to the kiln. Have bloody fights. At some point he gets a sword and it takes him forever and nothing like a training sequence to use it properly. And finally, the kiln opens and Shen Yuan comes out looking... Well, stronger.

He returns to the teahouse to change and take a bath. The owner tells him that it's been thirteen years, what the hell, but lets him in and gives him hot water and clothes.

Shen Yuan's new body and new abilities are strange to him. He notices himself taller. Stronger. His hearing and smell have improved. His abilities seem to be more wordy, as if he could persuade people if he spoke to them in a specific tone, as if his words could bind them. Well, it's not a bad way to be dead.

Shen Yuan tries to continue working at the tea house, but the humans are clearly terrified by the powerful ghost king aura in their area, so there are hardly any customers. Shen Yuan just sighs and decides to leave. He has some savings anyway.

Ghosts run away from him. Humans either try to kill him or hide. Shen Yuan is fed up; no matter if it is in the mortal world or the ghost world, people are gossiping about him and how he has not taken a Territory, about how unorthodox he is, about how they are waiting for him to start his killing spree one day.

Shen Yuan learns to change his appearance from creepy ghost to normal human, hide his resentful energy, and camouflage himself in the human world. It's a long way from his old tea house, and so many years have passed that the kind owner has probably already died, so Shen Yuan gets another job at a bookstore. Nothing unusual. Just a boy who was once from a wealthy family and was disinherited when his older brother took over the family leadership because of their bad relationship. Now he must work to live.

People swallow that story like a good meal, some even feel sorry for him.

And Shen Yuan is having a decent afterlife. Boring, mostly, but with good days. He reads a lot, gets angry a lot, writes authors letters that reach their desks without them even realizing how the hell did this crazy guy find his addresses. Let's just say he's having an interesting life.

Then one day, he meets Luo Binghe.

He... He literally knows that he's Binghe. It couldn't be anyone else but Luo Binghe. He does his investigations, and apparently, Emperor Luo Binghe exists, he has been there all along. It's not like Shen Yuan knew it; the ghost realm and the human-demon realm are divided, and even if they have a common mortal ancestor, demons and ghosts don't usually meddle in their own things.

Not that Shen Yuan wants to be cannon fodder anyway; he keeps his distance in Binghe, works at that bookstore, gives friendly greetings to his customers, and keeps sending angry letters to authors.

And one day Shen Yuan receives a direct visit from Luo Binghe at his door. With a letter in his hand.

"This letter was on my Second Wife's desk," Luo Binghe says, with a fake smile. "No one but her can open or read it, so this Lord wonders after discovering the resentful energy signature on the paper, what missives does this Ghost King exchange with one of the Emperor's wives?"

Shen Yuan is not surprised that Luo Binghe knows who he is - ever so OP the Protagonist! However, it is more difficult to explain that his wife actually writes cut-sleeved novels that the fact that Shen Yuan was reading and criticizing them in the first place.

John has just told them that there is no way that summoning can work. At all! As he was asked why, because well, to summon him. you have to do 9.999.999.999 things, in a special order, if you fail 1 or forget 1 thing, you are back at the beginning.

And you only have 1 hour to finish all of ot.

The summoning is made in such a way that you fail. Since the last ones are pretty dark and cruel in a way, no one would do it.

Captain Marvel laughed, "Yeah, you can forget it. The later ones will make sure that you and everyone around you who knows the final rituals will die. That way you will be taken to the afterlife."

Billy remembers the conversation with Phantom when he complained about how Pariah Dark always complains that his summoning is so easy.

And well, since Zeus was Billy's patron, as Pariah's is Phantom, he knows how easy it is to summon Zeus. Well, for him.