“I will eat your limbs one by one,” Ghost Fang growled as he sucked at his wounded fingertips. “If you bow down now, I shall even let you live long enough to taste the marrow of your thighs!”

  “You court death!” Mu Min spat at him.

  He laughed as she charged.

  The dao was a heavy weapon, and the dark-haired cultivator put that weight into every swing. Even with her short reach compared to Ghost Fang’s monstrous arms, she kept him back. A slash at his wrist or hand seemed a tiny cut on the demonic spirit beast’s bulk, but a thousand cuts can kill any monstrosity.

  Qian Ling struggled to move from where she lay on the ground. The silver-haired cultivator's entire body ached from the impact of falling. Her limbs were heavy, if not broken. She’d used too much qi in her struggle to keep Ghost Fang entangled — how could something have so much power? So much resilience?

  Even now, the gash in his neck was closing. She’d prayed to the heavens that Mu Min’s attack was a mortal blow, but it seemed the ape was favored in this fight.

  Ghost Fang flicked his injured hand at Mu Min, and droplets of his boiling blood flew at her face. The second it took Mu Min to deflect the attack was enough to let Ghost Fang close the distance.

  He clapped his hands down and crushed her between his palms.

  Mu Min cried out in pain, and her saber fell to the ground with a heavy clatter.

  Qian Ling spun up what qi she could and hurled a lasso around Ghost Fang’s ankle. She yanked with all the strength her 8th Stage Qi Condensing cultivation could provide.

  The ape staggered, releasing Mu Min from his grip.

  The dark-haired cultivator collapsed to the ground, but Ghost Fang ignored her as he swaggered over to Qian Ling.

  Where did things go wrong?

  The Hidden Master sent them to kill this monster, but they failed. Tears filled Qian Ling’s eyes. She failed the test, and she failed as a cultivator. Her dreams of immortality crumbled with every ground-shaking step Ghost Fang took toward her.

  Even in this hellish pit of despair, as the pagoda pine towered above in a mockery of eternity, she wondered if this was all on purpose.

  Had the Hidden Master set her up to fail as a retaliation for her deception?

  Was this monstrous fate something she deserved?

  Noxious fumes kept rising. The stink of sulfur and bitter acid filled her nostrils, and the world started spinning. She could barely maintain consciousness. The fumes invaded her meridians, eating into her almost empty dantian.

  Her heart felt like it would explode.

  Qian Ling tried to crawl away, but the lasso around Ghost Fang’s ankle still linked them, and after letting her crawl a dozen paces, he pulled her back. She slid across the tiles toward him, too weak to even grab the cracks in the ground.

  He picked her up with his dexterous toes, snapped the qi thread, and inspected her.

  “I want to say this was fun,” he said with a grin. “But I doubt I’ll even remember you or your friend by the time I’m done shitting you out.”

  He lay on his back as he lifted Qian Ling over his head. He stretched his monstrous jaws so wide she could fall into his throat without touching his lips. The stink of rotten meat and fruit washed over her, somehow worse than the literal vapors of hell trickling up from the cracked tiles.

  “Wait…” Qian Ling gasped. “You mustn’t…”

  To her shock, Ghost Face actually closed his mouth and lowered her to his eye level. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes, and it reminded her far too much of a child about to pull the wings off a captured bug.

  “Tell me why,” he said. “Season your flesh with meaningless reasons for me to spare you.”

  Qian Ling tried to pull herself out of his hand, but one painful squeeze arrested her efforts.

  “If you kill us, a World Severing cultivator will destroy you, your kin, and this entire forest you call home.”

  His lips peeled back into a fanged snarl.“Your pathetic sect doesn’t have someone that strong.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  He laughed, but there was a glint of fear in his voice.

  Qian Ling bit back the instinctual rage that came at having someone insult the honorable Shining Mountain Sect.

  “He’s not from our sect,” she said through teeth clenched against pain and indignation. “He’s a wandering cultivator. A hidden master.”

  Ghost Fang snorted with derision.

  “And what is this hidden master’s name?”

  “He severed his name in his pursuit of immortality.”

  That stilled the demonic ape’s mockery.

  “There’s no way…” Ghost Fang murmured, no longer even acknowledging Qian Ling. “I didn’t think he was that strong.”

  “You know him then?” Qian Ling said as her hopes rose. “So you know he’ll destroy you unless you let us walk away from here. We’ll allow you to keep our storage treasures. There’s food, and weapons, and cultivation resources in there…”

  Ghost Fang tossed her to the ground. She landed hard and gasped for air.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  He paced back and forth.

  “This is intriguing… I’ve detected nobody powerful in my kingdom. The man who killed my pale furred child was devoured by my soldiers, and wasn’t even a cultivator… unless… hmmm…” he trailed off as he chuckled to himself. “Could someone have come after all this time? I must take a closer look.”

  He sat down amongst the roots in the lotus position. His pale eyes closed, and the ever constant flickering of fire faded. The ape’s giant body stilled as vapors rose in tendrils to fill his flared nostrils.

  Silence filled the pagoda, broken only by the groan of the swaying pine and the moans of the two female cultivators as they crawled closer to each other.

  “Are you alright?” Qian Ling asked Mu Min.

  Her dark-haired friend’s eyes flickered, but there was no response. Though her qi was still present, she was completely immobile. The burns on her face and body pulsed with heat and demonic qi.

  If Mu Min didn’t wake, Qian Ling could carry her back to the sect… after sleeping for a few hours.

  She had the spirit fruit in her storage ring, but she was too scared that pulling it out would wake Ghost Fang from his trance.

  Even so, they needed to get away from the vapors.

  Qian Ling hooked her arm around Mu Min and started crawling toward the half-collapsed stairs that would take them up to the next level of the pagoda, where the air was fresher.

  She didn’t crawl far before Ghost Fang snapped his fingers. A wave of qi knocked them up off the ground and onto the stairs. Qian Ling gasped at the impact and crawled a little further up the stairs.

  “Don’t move,” Ghost Fang said with his closed eyes. “You’ll disturb my technique.”

  Qian Ling couldn’t even imagine how much worse the battle would have gone if Ghost Fang had used his qi like that. He was toying with them the whole time…

  The demonic qi radiating out of the floor twisted and curled like worms in the air. The qi flowed toward Ghost Fang as he pulled a technique together.

  Qian Ling vaguely recognised the shape of the pattern he wove in the qi. She’d seen the elders do something similar, but what was it…

  “Astral projection,” Mu Min whispered. “He shouldn’t be able to do that in the Foundation Establishment realm.”

  Qian Ling grasped her friend’s hands, relieved that she was conscious.

  “Quiet,” whispered the demonic ape in a voice that trembled the interior of the pagoda. “Don’t make me come over there… Oh, your friend killed my daughter? Interesting… he seized her technique and worked it against her, entombing her in the earth she loved to manipulate. Truly, that is a staggering amount of skill and power, but World Severance? No. He couldn’t be more than Foundation Establishment. I can negotiate with an equal.”

  Qian Ling’s heart skipped a beat as she listened to the demonic ape.

  She wasn’t sure what to believe.

  Had the Hidden Master tricked her with his cultivation level? He’d never actually confirmed his power, merely let them make the assumptions they did. But she’d felt it… Hadn’t she? The aura? The majesty?

  Doubt pulsed through her body on the echoes of pain as she forced herself to cultivate. With her injuries and fatigue, it was difficult to replenish herself while preventing the demonic qi from entering her dantian. She would need to be exorcised and treated for over a month at this rate. But she needed qi if she was going to escape and bring Mu Min with her.

  Her finger stroked the ring, but Ghost Fang would probably tear her arms off if she summoned the fruit. Whatever moment of peace they’d won, she needed to maintain it for as long as possible.

  Qian Ling needed qi and time to think of another desperate strategy to postpone their deaths.

  But most of all, she needed the hidden master to come save the lives of his foolish juniors.

  ###

  High above the battlements, Cabbagy spun through the air with all the grace of a trained acrobat. He moved my skeleton as though it had no weight, until he pointed my feet together like a spear and dropped them into a monkey's back. My toes punched through the lesser spirit beast’s muscles, and the weight shattered the creature’s spine. Even with the monkey’s enhanced physique, a broken spine left it completely paralyzed. Blood splashed up my shin bones to match the gore coating my skeletal hands like ruby gloves.

  Monkeys fought guards. Dust still veiled the moon, and it was dark and chaotic atop the battlements. The air was a din of weapons and cries of pain. The village stretched out behind us in a reminder of vulnerability. When the spirit beasts turned on Cabbagy, he ducked and wove through them, jabbing joints, eyes, and groins with deadly precision.

  I’d thought my skeleton form was weaker than my flesh form and blood magic, but the way Cabbagy moved showed me that my biggest problem wasn’t my tools: it was me.

  “Maybe I need more training…”

  “Now you say it,” Cabbagy growled as his battered leaves swayed in the wind. “Right at the end of things.”

  He kept my skull tucked under my arm as he moved us through the last of the spirit beasts, his strikes weakening and stunning the monkeys so that the guards could finish them off.

  While the guards were preoccupied with the injured monsters, Cabbagy bent down and smushed my skull's grinning face into a corpse’s split-open stomach. He did it so fast I didn’t even know if it was human or monkey.

  “Hurry up, kid,” he said. “Work your blood tricks before someone pays enough attention to notice a walking skeleton.”

  I focused on the blood splashing onto my bones. I ignored the screeching of monkeys as they charged my body. I ignored the shouts of the guards as they fought for their lives.

  Being seen was the last thing I wanted, but I needed to protect this town.

  Cabbagy could focus on the battle for now, but my bones alone weren’t strong enough to take on the larger monkeys. I needed blood if I was to face Ghost Fang.

  20 chapters ahead on my .