What is the Phantoms? To answer the question, you have to know the interrelation between the belief and the Legendary Souls, and their concepts.
Legendary Souls, aka Heroic Spirits, are human souls or certain concept themselves that ascend the Throne of Heroes accordant to the belief that is passed down orally or as the history or fairy tale. And the belief is not only that of the religion, but also comprehensive belief which is caused by cognition according to the legend, mythology and history. Even if it were to be the infamy, it is included in the belief as the one is believed to be 'such an evil.'
Usually, when a Legendary Soul is manifested as a servant, the belief functions as the mould to shape the said servant. And the soul and concept itself functions as the core that nucleate prana, enrooting the mould and incarnating the phantasm based on the belief. The more coherent and solid the mould is, the more the prana requirement for manifestation increases along with the output of phantasms. This is why a high class servant, of which reflects only a certain aspect of the Legendary Soul, is difficult to summon.
Even with the texture that is mixture of the Age of the Gods and the Age of the Men, it is difficult to summon a servant. And even a low class Legendary Soul has strong sense of self, thus is headstrong and dangerous.
So, the director recommended to use phantoms. One becomes a phantom when their legend isn't strong or coherent enough to ascend the Throne, or when the object of belief does not exist. Therefore, they are divided into two classification; one that its mould of the belief is inconsistent and insecure; and another is the empty shell that its core, a soul or a concept itself, does not exist. The former is easy for Jason to control, while the latter can be used as the spiritual gear with him being the medium. The prana requiremen of both of them is more economical than the servant summoning.
Jason decided to avoid the former method though if possible because, under Themyscira island, there was the Underworld of the dead, the regime of Hades. Jason did not want to be involved with any of divine spirits. Doing so was guaranteed to be a huge clusterfuck of headache whether one to be a Wonder Woman's patron god(dess) or not.
It did not take long for him to find a suitable phantom for his use. The phantom he chose would be undoubtedly powerful, for it was a product of one of the Legendary Souls, none other than William Shakespeare's: Jeanne d'Arc the Witch. Even though Jeanne d'Arc is a Legendary Soul, the phantom of Jeanne d'Arc the Witch came into existence accordant to the belief that said "Look what she went through! She must have resented Pierre Cochon as well as Charles VII." It is because Jeanne d'Arc is a saint who cannot be tainted or altered, thus the belief become a empty shell.
Jason left on the France flight. The ticket, identification card and passport were cautiously taken care of through spiritron-hacking. He had no illusion of which the Batman, Oracle, and, hell, the Justice League did not notice his intrusion. The fact he was a dead man for the world was only a little solace.
His exact destination was the Seine, Rouen, where Jeanne d'Arc was burned at the stake and thrice disgraced by the repeated stake before her ashes were dumped into the river. Perfect place to summon the fabrication witch.
He unpacked his luggage in his room of the bed and breakfast near the Seine and went sightseeing. When he looked into the leyline around the river, he couldn't help but shook his head in ridiculousness at the state of it. Too much unruly water; that was his diagnosis for it. The river would flood in a year, considering prana had tendency to infiltrate into water.
'It was not supervised or tamed at all! What the fuck are magicians doing, neglecting all this?!'
Well, at the least, he would never have od shortage when he performed the ritual thanks to vast mana in the river. The od consumption for a formalcraft ritual was generally very small because the ritual consumed the mana around its circle. The Od was only used to trigger the spell. Really, it would do a favor for people of Rouen, for it would reduce the scale of the river overflow and prevent casualties.
A bound field was set up to stop any person coming near, the formalcraft circle was drew by Etherlite. When Jason's od peaked, he would be immediately able to execute the modulated ritual of evocation that made himself the medium and master.
"The time of confrontation hath come!
Raise the rancor out of lapsed time, stand up for the broken ideal!
Swept away by the spurious purity, the ignominy of the defeated screamed and howled.
You, the locked resentment and frozen tears,
it's time for you to stand!"
And the midnight had come.
"Scansio(Rise)!"
Heightened prana lit his all magic circuits, his eyes opened wide to release the sudden heat. He was degenerated into the component of a machine for the magical ceremony, so that he could not see anything even though his eyes opened to the death perception.
"Your action is under my will, and my fate assumes your vengeance.
If you heed the this call, and obey my will and reason, then answer me.
I hereby swear.
That I shall achieve all good in the world with whole my life. That I shall defeat all evil in the world with my whole soul.
You, the spirit of vengeance who descended from Seventh Heaven.
Come forth from the circle of binding phantasm, O' raging avenger!"
Jason saw the image of drawbridge falling and heard the rattling of the broken chains. It was the hallucination his brain conjured out of accomplishment. That he did not intend to accomplish.
The door to the truth opened, the wheel of the new reason began to spin.
Atlasia overlooked some factors. He overlooked he was a sole pure magus, ignored the influence of the Age of the Gods, and disregard 『Death』 his brain contained. As a sole magus, he was monopolizing Mystic. The Age of the Gods never ended. And 『Death』 was a part of 『』. He was too close to 『』 not to accomplish a Miracle.
It had been half the year from his death. There was no way his boby did not decay at all. Despite of it, he did not need to 'kill' any decay or autopsy scars. Why?
Because his soul had already stopped recording anything after the death. His soul remembered the information about state of the body only before his death. It meant he already had achieved a part of a miracle when he returned from death. The Deterrent Force, both Gaia and Alaya, did not stopped him and took advantage of it in stead by unloading onto him something more than he intend to shoulder and bound it to his soul.
Thus he reached at the Third truth, Materialization of the soul.
The world shook with the awakening of new order.
"SHIT." cursed Jason.
He promptly fled from the scene, returned to the bed and breakfast and slept.
=Avenger's Rhapsody=
《Unknown time and space》
Corrigan relinquished his role as the Spectre and passed on into Heaven, letting the Spectre Force return whence it came. So, the demon Etrigan seized a chance and tried to trick the Spectre Force into bonding with the rogue angel Asmodel. Asmodel reached out their power to the Spectre Force, giddy with anticipation for Armageddon──
──before it was suddenly snatched away by some unseen magic. Even in his Marble Phantasm, he could not find it. It just… disappeared from the plane of the time, nay of the causality in his Alien Common Sense, leaving reverberation of the ceremonial prana pattern with odor of demonic Od.
The odor was somewhat familiar.
"You…!" Asmodel's eyes glowed with unearthly light in fury.
"You dare… Eligoooooooooooooooooos──!"
Avenger's Rhapsody=
"ATCHOO!"
Next morning while brushing his teeth, Jason sneezed spattering toothpaste foam on the mirror.
'Okay…. I now have some rough ideas how I obtain the Third and what witch phantom can do. But, fuck, why the hell are they changed?'
He knitted his brows, glaring his own eyes as if they offended him in personal level. The iris was red around the black crisscross pupil.
[Postscript]
Day of Vengeance would not come. That's good, right?
…Maybe…?
Thanks for follows and all, everyone. As I said in Chapter 1, feel free to point out errors.