Radeon did not bring the people all the way out.

He dropped them halfway down Wordsworth Shortspires, far enough that you could still see the violence if you squinted, and far enough that a frightened mind could tell itself it was already safe.

Cairnlight Barterhold sat at the center of the four. Ledgegrove Bazaar lay to the west. Wordsworth Shortspires ran south. Spendworth Hills rose to the east. Silvertoll Summits held the north.

Complaints stayed scarce for a simple reason. Silvertoll Summits charged too much at the gate.

One silver coin, as the name promised. The ones who could afford that price swallowed their words, and the ones who could not never got close enough to shout.

Then the wagons began to move in patterns that looked random.

Some slowed and stopped to tend the wolf pretend-horses. Some positioned themselves along the walls of Cairnlight Barterhold, as if wanting the turmoil clearer.

To the naked eye it looked ordinary. For Radeon and his team of horrors, there was no such thing as idle.

Every pause was work. Every still moment hid a hand moving where no one thought to look.

Beneath the boards, they unloaded. The carts were emptied of the herbs they had taken.

So far Radeon had harvested more than eighty types of spirit herbs, over forty tons in total.

None of it was the highest grade. Still, he believed it was enough to make high-grade elixirs from it.

As the wagons circled to pick up more people, Humphrey had a mission of his own.

Deeming the pig smart, Radeon had trained Humphrey in his spare time, passing on the Arts of Transformation and Disguise. It suited its mischievous nature.

Humphrey now held the form of a piglet, a ring piercing in its nose. It matched the exact system the five wraiths and his disciples had.

The small animal darted through lanes and slipped into warehouses. Once it had verified no one was around, it started swallowing the herbs into the system's exclusive space.

With Radeon's Myridion Seersight coordinating each location for the creature, it stole over seventy tons of herbs, both unprocessed and processed, from at least a couple dozen warehouses.

It was virtually too small to carry anything, and so it was neglected.

Back to where the carriages were.

The emptied ones ran a long round, harvesting herbs through the fields of Ledgegrove Bazaar a second time.

Radeon could feel the lull thinning. It would not last.

The cycle of evacuation repeated. Yet even with five hundred wagons, the people they were taking were still just a cup from the large tub.

Ledgegrove Bazaar had been operating at two hundred thousand capacity when the incident struck.

This time Radeon saw what was underneath. He returned to Cairnlight Barterhold peak to watch as the events unfolded.

While he walked back, Maeron and Ewan weren't idle. Through the system, they reported the array under Spendworth Hills was now operational.

They required almost no power. Their only clear effect was to blur life signals within Spendworth Hills, and beyond that they did nothing else.

The ghosts added their input, but Radeon only told them to trust him on it.

When the ghosts and wolves prepared for a third pass, Radeon sent a single message.

"Stop. Return."

They all returned to the obscure tunnels, one by one. Those tunnels were sealed behind them.

Back at the pavilion, Radeon glanced at his four disciples and waved his hand.

More white linen dropped down. By now the pavilion felt like a maze.

Nearly a thousand cloth screens displayed different views.

Tunnels. Passages. Crowds. Mountain ranges. Myridion Seersight stitched in the unreachable angles, filling gaps no ordinary array could cover.

The four disciples ran like mad, writing what they could and watching what they could, trying to stay ahead of the images.

Even knowing the secrets of Cairnlight Barterhold, they were still forced to face a new fact.

Their master was controlling horrors.

Ghosts and wraiths moved through the tunnels. Goosebumps rose along their necks.

Their respect for Radeon hardened into something closer to awe.

On the screens they saw ghostly monstrosities waiting in choke points.

They checked arrays. They checked papers like veteran cultivators. Some even joked, some waited with sharp focus.

Radeon did not move. He only looked toward the broken peak of Ledgegrove Bazaar.

Then a guttural, beastly roar erupted.

The surroundings shook. Ghosts reinforced the tunnels on instinct.

Even Radeon and his four disciples felt the tremor under their feet.

A mass of black violet flesh surged up from the broken peak.

It sagged over the jagged edge like fat, but the surface was not smooth.

It was stringy, tar wet, fibrous, clinging to rock as it hauled itself higher.

The men in masks did not let it crest. Sword light and talismans rained down at once.

Boiling flesh spewed. Explosions burst. The people who had been pacing their descent now broke into mad sprints.

On the far side of the crater, huge claws clenched the shattered rim, each claw anchored to a worm like appendage that flexed and pulled. Another claw shot up. Then another.

The top of its face emerged, studded with red cores like fly eyes, not natural, more like something engineered and set into place.

It climbed further and opened a vertical maw. Inside, seven colored chrome teeth lined the throat, packed with dense needle spines and hanging barbs.

More swords streaked in from other angles, arcing up to strike the Aberrant, now more than three hundred meters long.

Explosions rang. Flesh tore loose and flew. Muscle and tissue scattered, then decayed in an instant.

The Aberrant ate the rotted meat, and what was missing grew back. It wasn't mere regeneration. It was instant growth.

The masked cultivators saw that and shifted their assault, striking the rot itself.

From afar, Ledgegrove Bazaar became filled with qi and different martial arts as hundreds of men poured everything they had into stopping the Aberrant from getting out of the vicinity.

For a breath it looked like an answer. Yet it was only the beginning.

The Aberrant rushed down, its speed carving trenches as it dragged its slug-like body toward the men descending the mountain.

Gasps and shouts of fear resounded as it neared, but the creature was not looking for the regular people.

It even shoved aside men it did not recognize. As its fly-like eyes locked onto its target, seventy-two claws darted out at even more brutal speed.

Its targets were its patrons, those who consumed the Vision Crystals.

Men were tossed up into the air. They vanished into it in wet, choking bites from its maws.

Then it changed. The huge flab, under fire and swords, trembled, then with crunches it formed the visage of a calf.

More of its mass, already halved, returned as if the damage were a lie. As it ate more, it grew more, and evolved more.

Worm-like appendages with claws evolved into the arms of men. From seventy-two arms it grew to three hundred arms.

Then different types of qi light gathered in its many palms. Martial arts from what it consumed were thrown with wild abandon.

"Spread out. Spread out!"

"Intensify the Energy Prohibition Array. We need to keep this monster here."

The array in the carriages, once a silent blue light, now hummed red.

The masked men retreated as their martial arts stalled, carrying the diviners on their backs.

In their place, men with hulking, muscular builds entered the field. The Physical Body Path Cultivators.

They didn't wait for the monster to grow more. Their fists descended on the crowding men.

As for those who did not consume the Vision Crystals, the masked men didn't care.

They would rather kill the few thousand innocents now than let the monster grow further and endanger the lives of millions more.

Cries, pleas, and prayers erupted in the crowd. The disciples watching clenched their fists.

To them, this was blatant injustice. Their young hearts felt ready to break as they could only watch the unfairness of the world.

Their eyes looked at Radeon burning with passion, ready to help. But his expression was cool, even having a tea as he watched it all happen.

Fay felt Radeon had lost himself. Her emotions burst and threw slapped the tea out of his hands.

"Master! You wield such a massive force," she said, pointing at the ghosts, eyes shining with unshed tears.

"Is there no mercy left in your heart? In your eyes... are those people, even us, nothing but tools?"

Spice Cure tried to pull Fay away, but her eyes stayed fixed, curiosity stirring as she also searched for the reason why.

Radeon knew Fay's own trauma and helplessness had swayed her into this. Instead of agreeing, he asked back.

"If you had to rank that monster against its own kind, Fay, where does it land? Give me your read."

The disciples felt mocked, but when they thought of their master's character, they began to wonder why.

Explanations gathered in their minds. The ghosts were strong, yet they retreated. What's more, Radeon was here with them, in the safest place.

No one answered. They knew, and they would be hated if they were misinformed. So they waited for Radeon to answer his own question.

"It's a tick egg among its peers. Weak. Vulnerable even. Now picture us stepping out of cover. You think the ones above it won't clock us?"

Calyx, Oisin, Elsin, Maeron, Ewan, and the rest of the ghosts and wraiths listening to Radeon felt suffocated in their already dead hearts.

If what he said was true, then the dream of rebuilding the ghost realm was nothing but improbability.

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