He sat in silence.
Not because the apartment was quiet, but because the silence meant something now. It pressed against his skin like humidity before a storm. Every breath was measured. Every heartbeat echoed in his chest like it belonged to something older.
The spirit he'd bound—the fragmented pocong—was quiet. It curled somewhere behind his consciousness, weightless but present. It hadn't spoken. It didn't need to. Its presence was a cold coin resting beneath his ribs.
His tattoos had stopped twitching. The sigils across his arms and chest pulsed gently in time with his breath. Not glowing. Not idle. Alive.
> [NUSANTARA LEGACY PATH – TIER: BASIC]
Status: Functional
Bound Spirit: 1 (Tier 1 – Passive)
Tumbal Flow: Stable
System: Awaiting Field Calibration
"Field calibration," he murmured.
Fine.
He stood. His limbs still ached—not like soreness, but like the aftershocks of being rewritten. He felt taller in a way that had nothing to do with height. His soul had been stretched, and it hadn't fully settled.
He raised his right hand and let a thought drift forward.
> Reveal what clings to this place.
The system responded instantly. The tattoos shifted, forming a jagged outline along his palm. His vision blurred at the edges, and a soft spiritual shimmer layered over the room.
Ghost trails.
Dozens of them, faint and blue, marked the floor and walls—memories of footsteps, arguments, prayers. He saw a handprint on the window, a child's footprint on the ceiling. Normal. Harmless.
But not all of them.
In the corner, a smear of red. Not blood—energy. Something bitter. A wrong death.
He stepped back and let the sight fade.
That was enough.
He crossed the room and opened the window.
Wind rushed in. Cold. Sharp. Beneath it, the low thrum of a city waking up with the weight of secrets.
Then he saw it.
A flicker—fast, high above the skyline. A light like molten metal streaking between buildings, arcing unnaturally before vanishing.
He blinked.
Not lightning. Not magic. Something else.
He grabbed the old radio off the sill. It was dusty, maybe broken. Still, he twisted the dial.
Static.
Then a voice:
> "—early testing of new repulsor-based weapon systems reported at Stark R&D facilities in California—"
Stark.
He turned the dial again.
> "—sources claim Stark Industries is preparing a live demonstration for U.S. military contracts, with Tony Stark expected to attend—"
His stomach dropped.
He wasn't home.
He turned again.
> "—officials declined to comment on who sealed the site. Unmarked convoys reportedly removed equipment before inspectors arrived—"
> [SYSTEM ALERT: FOREIGN ENERGY SIGNATURES DETECTED]
Spiritual Lattice Adapting...
Location: Earth-199999
Temporal Stamp: 2006
Known Alias: Marvel Cinematic Universe (Pre-Event Phase)
Current Conditions: Supernatural Layer Dormant. Mystical Protection Scattered.
Threat Level: Growing
He didn't sit. Didn't speak.
He just stared out the window.
This wasn't his Earth. This wasn't even his plane.
But the spirits were still here.
Unbound. Forgotten. Hungry.
And for the first time since the ritual, he smiled.
Because whatever this world had coming…
It had no idea what was already here.
---
It started with a drip.
Not from a pipe. Not from a crack in the ceiling.
It came from the space above thought—where sound didn't belong. The drop landed beside his mattress with a soft, wet thud and began to spread across the wooden floor. Not water. Thicker. Slower. Black.
He stood over it, watching. The liquid moved—not outward, but inward. Forming a pattern. A reversed half-moon drawn in spirals. He didn't recognize the symbol from his own rites. It was something old. And listening.
> [SYSTEM ALERT: SPIRITUAL VIBRATION DETECTED]
Classification: Ripple Event – Class V
Location: Hell's Kitchen – Minor Threshold Breach
Source: YOU
He frowned.
> Cause: Host Arrival.
There it was.
Not a haunting. Not a curse.
A reaction.
---
He walked to the center of the apartment. The floor beneath his feet was warm. Not physically—energetically. Like standing on a leyline that hadn't existed the day before.
The system shifted in his mind, responding to his attention.
> [PASSIVE FIELD EXPANSION DETECTED]
Local spirit layer adapting to foreign system protocols.
Ancestral dead and bound echoes increasing activity in response to host resonance.
Expected effect radius: 4 city blocks (current).
Projected growth: exponential.
He let out a breath.
That explained the shifting lights. The strange footprints he'd seen during calibration. The way the walls of the apartment seemed to pulse when he wasn't looking.
He wasn't just a new element in this world.
He was a catalyst.
---
The hallway outside was darker than it had been. Not unlit—smothered. The overhead bulbs buzzed faintly, and the silence held shape. Not emptiness—presence.
He descended one floor.
Paint on the walls had curled. Old photos hung slightly askew, tilted toward the north like they were being pulled.
In front of apartment 1C, the air felt… stretched.
Heavy.
He didn't stop. Not yet.
At the base of the stairwell, he paused and closed his eyes.
> What's waking up?
The system answered.
> [SPIRITUAL PRESSURE SHIFT DETECTED]
Dead-quiet zones destabilizing.
Inert hauntings stirring.
Echo-class entities reforming from suppressed memory.
Warning: The boundary between seen and unseen is thinning.
A soft tink sounded near his feet.
He opened his eyes.
A ceramic prayer bell—cracked and ancient—lay on the floor. It hadn't been there before. It wasn't his.
And it rang again.
On its own.
---
Back in his apartment, the black spiral was gone.
In its place, a faint ash stain curled across the wood in the shape of a mouth—open, silent, screaming.
The spirit inside him stirred—not with fear, but interest. The bond flexed, drawing in local energy. He could feel the ghost feeding—not maliciously, but passively, like smoke drawn into lungs.
His arrival hadn't just awakened the spiritual layer.
It had reactivated it.
Spirits that had long slumbered beneath brick and noise were stirring. Memories buried in walls were resurfacing. Ritual scars that once healed were beginning to bleed faintly at the seams.
The city was remembering that it used to believe.
And that belief had a cost.
> [HOST PRESENCE DESIGNATED: ACTIVE CONDUIT]
You are no longer hidden. The spirits know you're here.
So do others.
He looked toward the window.
Across the skyline, lights flickered—not in the buildings, but in the air. Cold spots. Thin places. Where ghosts might pass, or be passed through.
And above it all, something deep beneath the city answered back.
A ripple had begun.
And ripples become waves.
---
Somewhere in the high stillness of the Himalayas, where the air hung too thin for breath and time moved like mist, a single copper bell rang.
There was no wind. No hand.
Only resonance.
Wong opened his eyes.
He had been kneeling inside a room built with no nails and no mortar—just stone, prayer, and silence. A meditation chamber. One that hadn't echoed in centuries.
Until now.
In front of him, a bowl of still water rippled. No touch. Just vibration. Patterns crawled across its surface—tight, spiraled, red and gold. The kind of motion that didn't come from weather or magic.
The kind that came from belief.
He stood without a word, robes shifting slightly around his feet, and turned to the archway behind him.
The Ancient One was already there.
Her hood was raised. The hem of her robe kissed the floor without sound. Her eyes never blinked, fixed on something far beyond the wall.
"You felt it?" Wong asked softly.
She nodded. "I did not feel him. I felt the world around him... flinch."
Wong stepped to her side and turned his eyes toward the mirror wall—enchanted glass that showed not reflection, but spiritual pressure.
There was the world, painted in pulses of color. The ley-lines of Earth, most of them dormant, some bright with familiar activity: Hong Kong, London, Kamar-Taj itself.
But now, somewhere beneath Manhattan, a new heat bloom appeared.
Not arcane. Not celestial.
But dense. Rooted. Rhythmic.
Like a chant without sound.
"He's not one of ours," Wong murmured. "Not sorcerer. Not pact-bound. Not artifact-armed. But something's answering him."
"No," the Ancient One said. "He's something older. The magic here has long forgotten his shape—but the spirits remember it. Even across worlds."
She stepped forward, placed one palm gently on the glass.
"They haven't spoken this language in centuries. But it still knows how to pray."
Wong narrowed his eyes. "Should we send someone?"
The Ancient One didn't respond at first. She studied the pattern—the way it curled, folded, expanded across Manhattan like ink soaking into fabric.
"It's not a threat," she said finally. "It's a pathway. Not opened by force… but by cost. He paid to be here."
"Still," Wong pressed, "he's stirring echoes. Spirits that haven't risen since the first age. Things we've never charted."
A pause.
Then a soft smile.
"That's what makes it interesting."
---
Thousands of miles away, in a forgotten field swallowed by jungle, the ruins of a Dutch fort lay buried beneath roots and time.
Rain soaked the earth.
No footsteps had touched this ground in decades. No prayers. No offerings. No living soul who remembered the names carved into its gate.
But under the weight of stone and silence, something breathed in.
A shrine, sunken half into the earth, cracked open along its base. Not from pressure. Not from decay.
From recognition.
Inside, a stone idol—rough, headless, etched with soot and chicken blood long faded—began to pulse faintly in its chest. The script along its neck shimmered just once.
Then, slowly, it opened its mouth.
Dust fell like teeth.
A word crawled out—half-formed, barely audible.
> "Pulang."
Home.
In the distance, thunder rolled. The wind changed direction.
And something ancient began to remember its own name.
---
Night bloomed like rot.
It didn't fall. It seeped—creeping into the corners of the apartment with the steady patience of something that had been waiting a very, very long time. The air was thick with stillness. Not peace. Not sleep.
Anticipation.
The lights had flickered once earlier, then held. But now they felt dimmed, not by electricity, but by atmosphere. As if the shadows were feeding on something the bulbs couldn't burn away.
The MC sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged, spine straight, eyes half-lidded. Not meditating.
Listening.
There were no offerings before him. No incense, no chant. His hands were empty. But the room felt full.
His body still ached. Not with exhaustion, but with weight. Like his soul was carrying something too large for its skin.
The sigils tattooed across his arms had flattened into dormancy, but every so often, one twitched beneath his skin like a dream trying to claw its way out. The spirit bound to him—the pocong—remained silent.
Unmoving.
Not out of rest.
Out of reverence.
Even it could feel what was coming.
---
He whispered a name.
Not to call something.
To remember something.
It wasn't a spell. It wasn't even language. Just an emotion held in syllables like a blood-warm knife.
And the world responded.
---
The window opened on its own.
There was no wind.
No sound.
Only smoke.
Thick. Slow. Gray as funeral cloth. It didn't drift in—it entered, like a sentient thing. Like an animal testing the air.
It wound across the floorboards in slow spirals, then rose—not into a figure, but a memory of a man. Not a ghost. Not an echo.
A pressure.
A scent.
Burnt tobacco. Old sweat. The sour tang of lime leaf crushed in bare hands. The whisper of cloth worn threadbare by years of sweat and spirit work.
Then came the voice.
Deep. Rough. A throat worn thin from chanting in backwater jungles. A voice spoken through the lungs of a thousand rituals.
> "Anakku..."
My child.
The MC did not flinch.
His lips trembled, but his soul bowed low.
> "Bapak?"
The smoke pulsed once in response. The lights in the room dimmed further, as if the presence drank the electricity straight from the wires.
It was not an illusion.
It was ancestral intrusion.
> "You tore the gate wider than it should have gone," the voice rasped. "Too wide. Too raw. But it worked."
The MC swallowed. "I thought I lost you."
> "You did."
The voice carried no comfort. Only fact. Cold and dry like the taste of funeral ash.
> "But I stayed. In the marks. In the debt. In the thing you offered that wasn't yours to give."
> "Your blood remembered me."
The smoke twisted tighter, condensing just enough to suggest a shape—a man in a sarong, bare feet blackened by burnt earth. No eyes. Just the weight of a stare from beyond the grave.
> "This world does not carry the right names," the voice said. "Its dead speak in whispers. Its gods are loud and careless. And yet… it remembers me. Through you."
The MC tried to speak—but the words withered on his tongue. His throat was dry. Not from fear. From depth. From the air itself turning sacred.
> "You are not alone here," the voice continued. "But you are the first."
> "The spirits will gather. The broken ones. The old. The forgotten. The ones who died with mouths full of silence. They will come to you not because they trust you…"
> "…but because they have no one else."
The smoke began to fray.
> "I cannot cross fully. Not yet. But this I give you—"
Something dropped to the floor.
A clink. Soft. Metallic.
The MC looked down.
A coin. Blackened. Deformed. Still hot. Its surface bore his family's mark—the same glyph carved into his father's old amulet. The one he was buried with.
But this one had a hairline fracture running down the middle. It hummed.
> [SYSTEM ARTIFACT ACQUIRED: "WASIAT KEMBANG ABADI"]
Type: Spiritual Token
Function: UNKNOWN
Origin: Legacy-bound residue / cross-dimensional echo
Status: INERT
NOTE: Unlockable only through ancestral rite or blood-bonded tether.
The smoke began to retreat, slowly collapsing inward.
> "You are now a place," the voice said as it faded. "Not a man. A place. A path. An answer."
> "And when the world starts asking questions..."
The last of the smoke reached the window.
> "…you will give them fear."
The window slammed shut.
The lights flared once—just once—then steadied.
He looked down at the coin in his hand.
It burned cold.
And somewhere behind his ribs, the spirit tether twisted softly—like something bowing.
Not to him.
To the blood that called this power through the veil.
---
The Eye of Agamotto pulsed like a second sun—quiet and absolute.
Inside the Hall of Watchers at Kamar-Taj, the Ancient One stood barefoot beneath a mandala of time, its glyphs moving in perfect celestial orbits. Before her, a suspended bowl of starmetal hovered in air, filled with still water. The pendulum had stopped an hour ago. And that meant something was wrong.
She exhaled softly and opened the Eye.
Green light spilled into the room like a silent tide, casting fractals against the walls. Time peeled apart with practiced ease. She had done this countless times before—watching kings fall, futures shatter, infinite outcomes fold into probabilities.
But this time… the river of time buckled.
---
She was searching for a thread—an anomaly in Manhattan. No arcane disturbance, no dimensional wound. But the dead had stirred there. Something walked among ghosts as if they knew him.
> "Show me the man," she whispered.
The spell narrowed. Images began to form:
A figure kneeling inside a crumbling room.
Blood on the floor.
Tattoos that breathed.
Smoke that listened.
A mouth whispering an unknown name.
Then—
Something looked back.
The green light inside the Eye of Agamotto dimmed.
Not faded. Smothered.
Her breath caught.
The water in the bowl turned black.
Not dark—black. Thick. Reflective like tar. And something began to rise from it. Not a form. Not a face. Just an impression:
A shrine. Built from bone. Covered in cloth soaked with gravewater.
She took a step back.
And then the Eye began to burn.
The sigils around her flared red. The time mandala cracked once—just slightly—like something inside it screamed. From the black water rose a dozen hands, skeletal and wet, grasping outward, their fingers wrapped in woven straw and teeth.
Then came the whisper.
Not loud.
Not even angry.
Just final.
> "Dudu kowe sing kudune weruh."
You are not the one meant to see.
The hands reached for her through the Time Stone itself.
One touched her chest.
And the world collapsed.
---
She snapped back into herself, stumbling as the Eye's glow extinguished entirely. Her body shook. A cold sheen of sweat covered her neck and palms. She clutched her chest—her skin burned where the finger had pressed.
A bruise was forming.
Wong rushed into the chamber, summoned by the alarms that didn't ring.
"What happened?"
She didn't answer at first. She turned, slowly, toward the sacred mirror along the wall.
The surface was cracked.
Not physically. Spiritually.
The reflection stared back at her with eyes not hers. For just a moment—one blink—a face hovered behind her shoulder.
No eyes. No mouth. Wrapped in white burial cloth.
Then it vanished.
---
Finally, she spoke.
> "He is not hidden," she said, breath shallow. "He is guarded."
Wong's voice was barely audible. "By what?"
She looked at her palm. The mark was gone.
But she still felt the grip on her ribs.
> "Not what," she said.
"Who."
---
Far beneath Manhattan, where no leyline crossed, a voice echoed through a bricked-off well:
> "He has arrived."
And something, blind and ancient, began to pull itself toward the surface.
---
Author's Note:
Thanks for reading through Chapter 3—this one was a big turning point, yeah?
We've now officially crossed the line where the supernatural starts pushing back. Our MC isn't just adapting to the MCU anymore—he's beginning to change it, one ripple at a time. The spiritual ecosystem is waking up, the Ancient One is spooked, and something from his old world might be clawing its way into this one.
How are you feeling about the story so far?
Are you enjoying the blend of MCU and Indonesian supernatural elements?
Is the pacing working? Want more ghosts, more rituals, more conflict?
Drop a comment or let me know what stood out. I'm excited to keep pushing this world open—one curse, one whisper, one tumbal at a time.