Radeon and Fay pushed farther north. Fay rode wrapped in a fur coat, a heating stone cupped in her hands, yet the cold never bothered to snow.

It was a dry bite, a thin air that scraped the throat. The tundra changed under them. The white crust turned coarse and the bison's hooves answered with a grind, like stone on stone.

Radeon reined it in. His body slithered down and let the wood sink its awareness into the ground.

The crust was not snow at all. It was salt, pale as ash. Death energy sat inside it, held tight as if the land had learned to hoard corpses.

'We were on the right track. The sect library map said this was one of the signs.'

They traveled for hours and saw nothing that lived. No men. No trees. No birds cutting the sky. Only distance and that bitter whiteness.

Then the horizon broke. Mountain ranges rose like old teeth.

Dead trees began to appear, bleached and withered, their branches twisted as if they had tried to crawl away.

Shapes moved among them. Skeletons, too many to count, wandering without haste.

Radeon's eyes went to the bison. Its vitality was loud. A beacon. He did not need to test it to know the dead would smell it.

He chose the long way. Up the side of the plateau, along a narrow path where hooves could still find purchase.

It was slower on paper, faster in truth, because it kept them from fighting every mile.

They did not ease their pace. The ground fell away behind them as they climbed toward their destination.

Ossuary Necropolis waited somewhere ahead, a top tier sect that made servants from flesh, called the dead like hounds, and turned bones into puppets with obedient joints.

Radeon caught Fay watching his wooden body, the way her gaze lingered on the grain and the joints as if she expected it to twitch wrong.

Her fingers tightened in the bison's hair. Not from fear of falling.

From fear of asking. He let the silence give her room.

Fay drew a breath, steadying herself, and spoke.

"Why must you kill them all?" Fay asked. "Why not spare the weaker ones? Make them swear an oath?" She watched Radeon closely, gauging where his heart truly stood.

Radeon had trusted Heaven's oath once. Now it felt like a husk, a ritual cultivators wore like armor until tribulation came to collect the debt.

"There are people stronger than them. People who can force an oath to break. Dirty methods. Soul-reading's just one."

Fay chewed on that, then shook her head as if she refused to accept the world being that ugly. She tried again.

"I apologize if I overstepped," she said softly. "But... why do we need so much treasure?" Then she lifted the rope behind her back, drawing out the crystal nestled there. "Even this as well?"

"It is for a new body," Radeon said.

The words hung there, plain as a bill. Radeon knew she was curious, and simple answers would not cut it.

He began to tell her his theory of an apocalypse, a calamity the ancestors had fought and were still fighting, even if the living had forgotten the war.

Fay listened like a child hearing a forbidden story. Her eyes brightened. She asked where it was happening.

Radeon only answered with silence. He was not sure. He would not plant a guess in her mind and let it grow into a lie that could steer his plans.

Fay's gaze turned dissatisfied. She did not say it, but he heard it anyway.

'This man. I can feel it. This is not the first time he has kept something from me.' Fay thought, though her memory was still muddled.

Radeon still did not give an answer. Silence came easily to a man who was already a log.

The narrow path pressed on. Fay looked over the edge and saw only fog, thick and soundless, swallowing the world below.

"Fay. Heads up. I felt something." Radeon warned.

He fed the bison a blood pill without warning. The beast swallowed, and its veins answered at once. Heat rolled off it in a thick breath.

Radeon's wooden body stretched with the motion, grain pulling long, then flattening until he was more board than man.

The rock face ahead opened its mouth. Skeleton hands reached out of stone itself, finger bones pushing through cracks like pale roots.

Radeon let the bison rush it. The hands were only bone, but they pulled with the strength of a gilded core cultivator.

Radeon felt it in the air, a tug that tried to steal momentum and pin flesh in place.

If one grip landed right and held, they would be trapped on that ledge until the dead climbed up to finish the work.

The passage narrowed. Radeon pressed himself flatter, smoothing his surface, giving those bony fingers nothing to hook.

Hands scraped and slipped, nails clicking along his lustered grain.

Then one erupted from beneath the bison.

It clamped around a hoof with a sound like a trap closing. The bison lurched.

Fay was thrown sideways, her body lifting off the beast's back as if the mountain had swatted her.

Radeon had been watching her. He let himself slide, turning his flat body into a sleigh.

He caught her descent and guided it, wood on stone, skimming down a steep slope. Sparks of grit bit into him.

Behind them the bison lost its footing and rolled, a heavy tumble down the narrow chute, hooves flashing, ribs thudding against rock.

"Senior... what is that?" Fay cried as they dropped. "The bison..."

"Hold still. The beast's tougher than you think."

The slope spat them out into a valley. Fay landed hard and sat there a moment, wincing.

The bison bellowed, its voice full of longing as it searched for its owner.

Then a voice boomed across the valley.

It did not speak to ears alone. It struck Radeon's soul like a hammer blow, and he knew, with a cold certainty.

The owner of that voice knew he was a man inside wood. His spirit jolted. His thoughts went sharp and thin.

If that voice decided to bury them like the rest of the dead, this was where the journey ended.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.