The ruined pagoda was full of shadow and the rotten smell of demonic vapors. Groans came from the pine thrust up through the center of the ancient temple, but no sound could drown out the terrible snores from Ghost Fang as he lounged in the roots below.

  Before Qian Ling could lose her nerve, she cycled liquid qi from her dantian and formed a technique.

  Merciless Ribbon.

  A garotte of qi threads formed between her hands. With the threads being so short, she was able to make them strong enough to cut through steel.

  If she could get it around Ghost Fang’s neck…

  She looked Mu Min in the eyes.

  “I trust you to cover me,” she said.

  “Ling…”

  “I need you.”

  The conflict roiling behind Mu Min’s placid expression almost broke Qian Ling’s heart. If they got out of this… when they got out of this, she would do everything in her power to make it up to her friend.

  “I’ll conjure a mist, young mistress,” Mu Min said. “While I blind and suppress, you go for the kill.”

  They clasped hands as warriors and held each other as the wind blew through the pine branches and filled the pagoda with an alpine scent. The moment was now. They were ready.

  Both women started as they realised the same thing at once: there was no more snoring.

  The shadow they stood in deepened as something blocked out the moonlight.

  Ghost Fang hung by one arm from the balustrade above them. Shadow played across his metallic coat as he filled the space in front of them with his size and presence. His gigantic eyes glowed with white fire as he smiled at them.

  He’d moved so fast they hadn’t even heard him.

  “Two little cultivators full of qi,” he said with a voice as deep and rich as a vein of silver. “Just when I was ready for a meal.”

  He smiled, revealing the jutting fangs that gave him his name, and then he attacked.

  ###

  The yellow-furred monkey stood outside the arrow range of the guards defending Falling Hen Village. She was stirring up more attacks in the earth, displaying a level of qi control I hadn’t expected a wild beast to possess. It was only a matter of time before these attacks destroyed the walls, and so I had to do something.

  As my bones quietly clacked toward the yellow monkey, I wondered when my flesh would grow back. Back in the facility, it happened soon after I woke up from the fires. Maybe it took longer for me to recover from being eaten compared to being burned? But I couldn’t figure out why that would be. My other hypothesis was that the extreme damage to my bones used up my wellspring of healing before I could regenerate flesh. Though it would be helpful if I could tell how much healing I had left in my reservoir… if I had any at all.

  Huh.

  This whole time, I’d been operating on the theory that I could heal forever. If that wasn’t true… Nope, no time for that kind of thinking.

  Forty or so lesser monkey spirit beasts were cowering behind raised banks of earth as they waited for the yellow-furred monkey to dispel the protective mists and walls. It was more strategy than I expected from spirit beasts. Twice now, they’d surprised me, which was a concerning trend.

  For all Cabbagy’s help, it seems I was yet to become a tactical genius.

  The yellow monkey stood twenty paces away with her back to me as she stirred the earth with her staff. Whatever kind of qi technique she worked had her complete attention.

  She stood so open and exposed, I had to make a move.

  I left my cover and sprinted across the open ground.

  The yellow monkey kept her burning gaze on the village ahead. My bony feet made almost no sound as they struck the soft dirt. I moved in perfect stealth, covered by the darkness and the cries from the villagers panicking behind the shaking village walls.

  I was ten paces away from the yellow monkey when a spear of earth shot out of the ground and punched into my stomach.

  Since I was only bones, it hit my spine and launched me away. I flew through the air and crashed hard onto the ground, rolling and bouncing until my fingers clawed into the ground and yanked me to a stop fifty feet away from the yellow monkey.

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  She didn’t even turn from working her qi technique.

  “I’m busy,” she said with a high-pitched, hooting giggle. “Leave me be.”

  The rocky lance crumbled as another wave shot off toward the distant walls.

  Shaking my head to get the loose rocks out sounded like somebody dropped rice into a wok.

  It seemed even my skull was completely empty after my run-in with the monkeys — knowing that they ate my brain actually sent a shiver down my spine.

  Desperate not to think about that, I charged the yellow monkey again.

  Another earth lance shot toward me, but I dodged to the side.

  When I hit the ground, another spike of rock launched up and almost ripped my leg off as it flung me away from her.

  “She’s sensing you through the vibrations in the dirt,” Cabbagy said as I smacked into the ground and crawled behind some cover. “In case you were wondering.”

  She wasn’t even watching me, just facing away and relying on her qi. Her arrogance brought up every bad memory my past lives ever experienced when interacting with cultivators. This spirit beast acted exactly the same as the worst of them.

  Dirt crashed against the palisade.

  There really wasn’t much time before the gates fell.

  “I wish I could use my blood,” I grumbled.

  “Come on, kid. Just because monkeys ate your brain, doesn’t mean you need to be an idiot.”

  “What?”

  “Your blood manipulation clearly wasn’t enough to take out the other monkeys. Why would it be enough now?”

  I frowned — which is to say my bony face remained unchanged — but he was right. That fight with the black monkey hadn’t even been close.

  “Blood is my only weapon.”

  “Who decided that?”

  “What else can I even do?”

  “Kid… what do you do when one plan fails?”

  “Use another plan?”

  “Exactly! One weapon failed, so try another weapon.”

  “I don’t have any other weapons, Cabbagy.”

  He snorted.

  “You’re the weapon, kid.”

  I glanced at my bony fist.

  “I suppose…” I said. “I might be able to build up a top speed, but I’m weaker like this.”

  “Then don’t use strength, use trickery.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Damn, kid, you’re as thick as they come. If it’s going to be this much trouble, just go kill a monkey and steal its blood to regrow your flesh.”

  “Ugh,” I said as I glanced out of my cover toward where the monkey troop was cowering from the arrows. “If only I could be in two places at once…”

  I looked down at my foot. My toe bones wriggled. That foot had been separated, but it came toward me.

  “Maybe…”

  “Now you get it,” Cabbagy said.

  I grabbed my wrist and pulled. My hand came free without any pain and only the lightest click. My fingers continued wriggling. I formed a fist in my mind, and my detached hand echoed the movement.

  “I can work with this,” I said with a grin.

  Placing my hand back onto my wrist, I experimented with detaching and reattaching my hand. Using a brief concentration of willpower, I was able to detach my hand effectively at will. Further experimentation showed that I could detach any bone I wanted, as though they were all tied in place, but the strings came loose when I focused on them.

  Moving the bones when they weren’t attached was a lot harder than I’d expected. It flexed the same mental muscles as controlling my blood, but the actual usage was different — like comparing dancing to harvesting turnips.

  I could bring the bones toward me, and though it strained my mental stamina, it was almost a subconscious action — much like how my foot first hopped toward me subconsciously.

  Which was the other problem I had with controlling bones.

  I could move them a little when I could see them, but as soon as they were out of sight, it was almost impossible to know what they were doing.

  Of course, I was under a time pressure, so as soon as I figured out how to remove my bones, I started moving.

  “Good,” said Cabbagy as I snuck into position. “You can master your bones another time… if you know what I mean?”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s good advice.”

  I glared at him, but not really, because I had no face. I’m sure he understood the point, because he fell silent.

  I reached the edge of the range where the yellow monkey seemed able to sense the vibrations in the ground. It was dark enough that none of the other monkeys had seen me. I’m sure I would have heard screams from the townsfolk if they saw me wandering out with the monkeys.

  For a moment, I was invisible, and it was kind of nice.

  Then I ripped off my hands and lobbed them at the yellow monkey.

  “Flying Fists of the Undying Skeleton,” I whispered to myself, kind of embarrassed that I was even voicing a name like it was a cultivator’s technique.

  “I heard that!” Cabbagy shouted out.

  The yellow monkey turned in surprise. Her eyes widened when she saw me standing there. Before she could voice her confusion, my fist smacked her in the face. She stepped back as my other hand landed around her throat.

  I concentrated, forcing my hands to crawl around her neck and face like skeletal spiders. She staggered back and slammed her staff into the ground.

  A wave of rock blasted out around her, and I scrambled back to avoid getting blasted away. Clouds of choking dust obscured the air, but fortunately, I didn’t need to breathe.

  I almost charged through the dust, but stopped as I realised this was exactly what she wanted. Neither of us could see in the dark clouds of debris, but she could detect my footsteps.

  The problem was that I couldn’t feel my bones. Where were my hands? I focused as hard as I could on squeezing and heard an ugly gasp from inside the clouds.

  The yellow monkey staggered out into the open with both of my skeletal hands wrapped around her throat. Her bulging eyes locked onto me.

  I grinned and pointed my wrist bone at her.

  “Choke on it!”

  With a spinning motion, I launched my arm at her. It struck her shoulder and wriggled toward my hand like a snake. They clicked together, and I wrapped it around to attach to my other hand. With my arm bones for leverage, I really started to choke out the yellow monkey.

  “Damn,” Cabbagy said. “This isn’t even a fight.”

  The yellow monkey leaned on her staff, her head spinning. I retreated slowly, focusing as much as I could on my bones but trying to stay out of range of her technique. She sent spikes of rock at me, but they were too slow and easy to avoid.

  With her choking, she couldn’t signal the other monkeys. I was about to take out the boss before the minions even knew there was a problem. The only problem now was the damned constitution possessed by a spirit beast.

  She thrust her staff into the ground, and another rock lance shot up.

  Her aim was getting so bad that this one struck her in the face. She stumbled back as dust billowed around her head.

  “Idiot,” I said with a grin.

  “You’re the idiot,” Cabbagy said.

  “What?

  My detached arm whirled toward me out of the dust. I barely managed to catch it before it flew away into the night.

  The yellow monkey staggered out of the dust. My bones no longer hindered her as she reared up to her full eight feet. Blood streaked her face, dripping from her broken nose where her earth lance had struck her.

  Too late, I realized she used the self-inflicted attack to remove my hands. With my advantage gone, I had to think fast if I was going to best this spirit beast and save the town.

  could die.

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