XXXIII

  A Ghostly Tomb

  “Good work!” Kiran smiled.

  His sister gave me a small round of applause.

  I shrugged them off. “Duels are not their strength.”

  Not that of the lesser drakes at least. But if they fought me as a pack? Even if they were all below lvl. 15, facing more than four at a time would prove an issue.

  Casting the Dragonflight from my mind, I sank into the lotus and entered the garden.

  Ashwing was lounging on the top branch of her tree. Her talons dripped but neither the grass nor the ground sucked up the drops, leaving the ichor to evaporate.

  I poked the cinderwing with my senses. ‘Halfway, huh.’

  A place like the Tomb would surely have avian enemies. Otherwise, I’d need a serious influx of essence to bring the tree up to peak stage.

  My head rotated towards the balekin tree, whose roots slurped from their second source of nutrients.

  ‘It’ll hatch soon.’

  It just needed to finish gorging on this new corpse. But whatever beast may come out, it probably wouldn’t do much at early stage.

  ‘I need more drakes.’

  A phantom bitter taste entered my mouth as the thought finished, giving me pause. I stood still as the winds caressed my face. Flames danced in the distance. Chicks chirped. Warm grass tickled the sides of my feet.

  But the wails from my nightmare weren’t present.

  Consuming the drake was just like absorbing any other monster.

  ‘Was it not a high enough level?’

  But from the way Vyke spoke, the level shouldn’t matter. I was assimilating the soul after all…I sighed the topic from my mind. There was no answer for me to find. Not here. Not by myself.

  Steps carried me away from the balekin and towards a particular troublemaker.

  “Now, what’s the matter with you?!”

  Saber was loafing inside his tree. He growled noncommittally and turned his face away.

  I placed my hands in my side and stared him down. Yet Saber remained silent.

  “Fine. Stay grumpy.”

  I exited the garden.

  The hours went by and more and more people poured into the clearing. Finally, the grey light shielding our entry into the Tomb dissipated. Though it was shaped like a doorway, there was no actual door to speak of and nothing but a sheet of darkness covered the entrance.

  Cold waves of pressure seeped from the shadows, which roiled into and through my bones. From the way other disciples shivered, they must feel it, too.

  Yet none allowed themselves to be scared off.

  The Black Fangs entered first. After the last of them stepped through, an assistant standing a ways away from the gate called for Gaje.

  The omen didn’t show himself, so the Weapon Empire moved to enter.

  “Good luck,” Judith said.

  “You as well,” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  If luck held up that was.

  Shadows curved around their physiques and swallow their visage. Then they were gone.

  Another call for Gaje. Once again, no response.

  The servant turned to us.

  We assembled in front of the gate. Looking at it from this close, the shadows within the entrance shifted. So much so that gazing at them for too long threatened to give me a headache.

  “Remember,” Raven said, “our first priority is to find each other.”

  “Yes, boss!” Rin said with enthusiasm. Her face was entirely expressionless.

  Raven shook his head, then motioned with his hand, giving me a smile. “Ladies first.”

  Duke snorted.

  I took the offered courtesy. The darkness wrapped around me.

  You have entered the first ring.

  Objective: Find a shrine.

  The switch from darkness to light was gradual. Gradual enough that I didn’t notice it.

  A shiver told me my environment had changed. High walls rose around me and boxed me in. Fog passed between my feet, the clouds thick enough that they didn’t leave the floor visible. Light cascaded from the roof but lacked heat. While the tunnel was wide, the ceiling was perhaps three or four times my height above me.

  ‘They’re similar…’

  I had dreamed the chase through the tunnels, hadn’t I?

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

  The entire place was made from the same kind of grey stone though…I exhaled.

  “Focus,” I whispered.

  My senses raced through the corridor. The feedback made me frown. When I normally cast out my spirit, I could ‘feel’ the area around me and form a three-dimensional image of what I was scanning. Here, everything was a blur. The indiscriminate stroke of a paint brush which told me something was there but not what.

  I pulled out my locator. It, too, didn’t give me a clear sense of where the others were. Just an indication of them being far or close.

  No one was close or far away from me.

  “That’s just great.”

  Behind me, the tunnel extended further than I could see. There was a T-section immediately ahead of me though.

  Before I could take a step in that direction, a falling, glistening object caught my eye. I swiped it out of the air and rolled it around In my hand.

  A coin with the words ‘Tier 0’ were engraved on it. I placed it in my storage ring. With the same stroke of the hand, I painted on the world. Three chicks flew out of the gate. One headed towards my rear while the other two went to scout both arms of the intersection.

  My integration with the chicks had improved now that the cinderwing tree had reached late stage. I could view through all three of their eyes at once. It required some meshing of views and could get confusing quick, but it worked.

  When none of them returned anything interesting within the first five minutes of flight, though, I got a move on.

  ‘I wonder how far away from me they can get.’ I’d never thought to test it but this Tomb may be the perfect opportunity.

  Picking a direction at random, I took a right at the split and stepped out into a hallway the exact same as the last. Only this one was longer and had multiple intersections.

  ‘This isn’t going to work.’

  There were just too many for my chicks to scout. The pathways were also identical. Only the fog seemed to change, little by little, the cold growing more oppressive with each step. The fact that this was a tomb—a graveyard that was never meant to be disturbed—began to dawn on me.

  I turned to the shifting signals of the locator beacons, which convinced me I wasn’t alone in this place and still dreaming.

  ‘An hour has passed already.’

  Either this place was enormous or some magic shenanigans were going on to keep us from seeing each other.

  I recalled one of the chicks and instead called for Saber. Not because I believed he was a better scout but because having him at my side reassured me.

  From his growls, he was still grumpy. But he rubbed against my leg as he passed me up and took position at the front.

  His growls deepened half an hour later of wandering as we came up on an intersection my remaining two chicks had passed up.

  My breath exited as a white fog. I waited with rounding the corner until my chicks were back and sent one to scout deeper into the tunnel. Nothing revealed itself. But Saber stayed primed to pounce.

  ‘Is it invisible?’

  I recalled my second chick into the garden and motioned for Saber to approach. The muted hallway was the same as the one I was standing in right now. Down to the movement of the fog.

  So why did being near it raise the hairs on the back of my neck?

  ‘Something’s here.’

  There was no doubt in my mind. Yet, no matter how long I waited or scouted, nothing jumped out. Not keen on forcing the issue any further, I turned around and chose another path.

  I didn’t get the sense of being followed (Saber also didn’t voice his concerns) but ever since then I couldn’t shake the thought that something was watching me.

  Looking over my shoulder revealed nothing, of course.

  Three hours passed, during which I repeatedly got closer and further away from every signal the locator fed me.

  A change in plans was needed.

  I scratched Saber’s back. “We’ll start hugging the right walls, okay? We’ll pick the right-hand path whenever we reach a split.”

  The cat moaned his agreement.

  Remaining in place and allowing the others to find me was also an option. But sitting in one place for too long made my nerves fire like they had never before, so that wasn’t an option I was inclined to try.

  Another went by as I tried my new strategy.

  That’s when shouts and the clanging of metal reverberated off the tunnel walls.

  Saber and I stalked forwards until the shouting became so clear I could make out the curses being thrown at the opposing party. I peeked around the corner of the intersection.

  A disciple in wolf’s skin and his lion companion traded blows with a drake.

  [Beastman - lvl. 13]

  [Bronze Drake Whelp - lvl. 15]

  The Black Fang cultivator’s level explained why he was having trouble with a single drake despite his advantage in numbers. Blood ran down a wound on his right arm, which hung limp.

  The drake was missing a few scales but was other wise unhurt. Nothing that’d kill it.

  I watched the two do battle.

  ‘That lion will push Saber into middle tier.’

  Combined with the drake, this was a meal served on a platter…But could I really do that? Kill them? The drake was one thing (they were out to get me anyway), but the boy’s spirit companion another. His clan had attacked me in the past. But every clan had its bad apples. Moreover, he’d protect his spirit beast to the death just like the boy outside my inheritance dungeon.

  Killing his companion was the same as killing him.

  So I decided to wait. From the looks of it, he and his spirit beast wouldn’t survive anyway. So when the drake won, I could finish the drake and absorb the corpse of the lion.

  ‘Isn’t that the same as just killing them?’

  Whether the drake killed him and his spirit beast, or I did, what did it matter? In the end, they all died the same.

  As I warred through that dilemma, the drake’s jaws closed around the much smaller beast’s neck and ended the debate.

  “Nala!” the Black Fang cried out.

  Droplets scattered in the air behind him as he roared forwards in a burst of speed.

  Nerves on my forehead pulled taut as I followed the gleaming tears sailing through the air. How long had those two been together? Years? Decades? Was I seriously thinking of snapping the connection between a cultivator and their companion because it would speed up my growth?

  Despite the boy’s final gambit, the loss of his companion and his wounds weighed too heavy. A gout of flame roasted him. Then the drake’s jaw closed on his charred corpse.

  The pulse of the shard was a jab of pain that cramped my stomach. I kept my gaze trained on the drake. The whelp didn’t reach out to eat the remains but clumsily searched the boy’s pockets with its too small arms. It removed the Black Fang’s pouch and threw it on the ground so the contents spilled. Long toenails sifted through the materials and fished out a coin which it stored in its mouth (I thought store, for its throat muscles didn’t move in what would be a swallow).

  ‘Is stole his token? Why would it do that?’

  White light poured through the sides of the drake’s mouth. The beast spit the coin back out, clawing away some of the fog hanging low over the floor to see.

  My angle didn’t allow me to see what the coin showed, but I could wager a guess.

  ‘Did it merge its own coin with that of the Black Fang?’

  I’d gone up to ask it if it would’ve given me an answer beyond a breath of flame.

  That reminded me of the urgent matter of ambushing this drake. It was making it’s way towards the intersection where I was hiding.

  I didn’t strike out immediately as the beast advanced. Something about the situation was off, my subconscious told me. Something was missing…

  Only then did I notice the pulse of the shard had vanished instead of getting worse.

  Before I could even frown at the situation, two shadows blasted from behind the drake.

  The whelp whirled around in time to avoid the leaping strike and showered its ambushers in flames. The second shadow jumped over the attack and landed on the beast’s back, making the drake abort its technique. A battle cry ruptured from the drake’s throat as it prepared to ram itself into a wall. But with the flames gone, the first shadow was free to barrel forwards and tackle into its feet.

  My mind struggled to keep up with what I was seeing. The two shadows were Black Fang and his spirit companion.

  The drake slammed the lion into the wall but the spirit beast’s nails were dug deep into its target’s back. A stray swipe of the bronze drake’s tail cut the disciple’s bad arm off at the shoulder, but the boy didn’t slow down in the slightest. Together, the pair of newly invigorated zealots continued to assault the drake until the poor creature grew tired and sagged to its legs.

  The disciple jammed the end of his axe deep into the socket of the drake, and then the whelp was no more.

  Breath refused to leave my lungs as fog poured into and out of the wounds of all three. The lion and disciple had limbs hanging from a thread—the disciple’s head being attached only to the right side of his neck—but they were still moving.

  ‘…necromancy?’

  It was all I could think of.

  And it was a matter I accepted without qualm when the bronze drake whelp rose in the same manner as the disciple and his spirit beast.

  The three corpses shared a moment with each other.

  Then their faces whirled towards me.

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