He formed various spiritual constructs.
One of them was supposed to form a spiritual shield around his body. When he activated it, the shield was incredibly weak and didn't do a thing to stop his weird state.
Another spiritual construct was meant to track the passage of time. The spiritual clock failed to register the passing of a single second.
Since his modest creations failed to accomplish anything, Ves cautiously took more risks. His subsequent spiritual constructs became larger as he attempted to find anything that could change his abnormal state.
He continued to create various spiritual constructs and empowered them with specific spiritual attributes. In the span of fifteen minutes, he created what he thought to be a rudimentary spiritual jammer, a different spiritual shield and a spiritual helmet.
Nothing worked. None of his constructs helped him defend against this unknown field.
As he became increasingly more hopeless, his mind wandered off a bit. He felt increasingly annoyed at the grey shadows that passed through the bulkheads. The way they obscured his vision and caused him to feel disturbed throughout the duration of this anomalous hazard caused him to develop a strange impulse.
He began to build a spiritual net of some sorts. He invested a bit more of his spiritual energy into its formation because he wanted to make sure it wouldn't break apart.
Once he formed the net, he concentrated his mind to the utmost and cast his senses back to the turbulent imaginary realm.
Ves did his best to ignore the fluctuating corrosive winds while at the same time preventing any of the desperate phantoms to collide against his presence.
"I have to be quick!"
Knowing that it was difficult to avoid every grey phantom, Ves hastily targeted one of the passing grey shadows that was locked in a clump of spiritual energy and cast his net!
His throw hit the mark!
Once the net fell upon the grey ghost in question, the being convulsed and released a tortured pulse!
Ves immediately felt a pressure on his mind as his spiritual net seemed to sustain some damage. He tried his best to ignore the pain and attempted to close the net and secure his target.
"Come on! You're mine now!"
Even though the pressure on his mind increased, Ves did not give up on tightening the bonds around the phantom!
Since the grey ghost was partially fused with a clump of strange spiritual energy that was different from the corrosive winds, the net also encompassed it as well.
Though the phantom constantly tried to break the net, Ves was glad that it didn't possess the strength to do so. If the grey ghosts were any stronger, he wouldn't have dared to cast his senses back into the imaginary realm for the duration of this anomalous hazard!
"Now, let's see if I can get you back."
After taking a deep mental breather, Ves attempted to drag his presence and his mysterious catch back into the material realm!
The process was a lot more difficult than before! Ves felt as if he was squeezing his body and his captive through an opening that was too small to accommodate his entire body.
He had to push himself back by expending more of this spiritual energy!
Fortunately, his strength was barely sufficient for him and his catch to return.
The moment Ves successfully brought the grey ghost back, one of the vague grey smudges had grown clearer. It no longer looked vague and out of phase, but appeared close to what his spiritual senses had observed from the phantom!
The ghostly entity, upon reaching the material realm, began to convulse and panic. It was as if it had entered a completely unknown environment and didn't know what kind of threats it faced!
Ves found to his dismay that he needed to expend even more effort to keep his captive under control.
"You're in my grasp, now! Don't think of getting away!"
He continued to wrangle his ghostly captive, ignoring the reactions or non-reactions of the others in the room. Ves didn't really care whether Calabast saw him struggling to keep some kind of weird opaque ghost under control.
As time began to pass yet continue to freeze, Ves kept a constant eye towards what was taking place in the imaginary realm.
Roughly half a minute after it started, the turbulence finally faded! The imaginary realm returned to calm and the material realm in this specific area no longer came under the influence of any weird phenomena.
The grey smudges disappeared. The occasional frost went away as if they never froze anything.
Unfortunately, even though nothing seemed to have happened, everyone who was locked in the same strange state for roughly half an hour were still somewhat aware of the horror that they had just experienced.
"MEOW!"
Lucky finally succeeded in jumping to the air! He immediately flew to Ves and readied his claws for anything that needed to be mauled!
Nitaa thundered forward in her heavy combat armor and armed her rifle, causing it to whine dangerously as it began to accumulate a large amount of energy.
Once she reached Ves, she bodily pushed him back into the corner, ignoring the fact that he was still busy with trying to keep his captive in check!
"Hey, stop! Ahh! Damnit!"
Calabast immediately pushed herself off the desk and sprinted behind the desk while pulling out a slim but sophisticated pistol.
Both Lucky, Nitaa and Calabast each bore their respective weapons towards the strange grey phantom that hovered in the middle of the office. Even though it was caught in a net, the strange spiritual pulses caused all three of them to feel incredibly threatened by the mysterious entity!
"Don't shoot!"