Fay watched it all unfold with her mouth slightly open. Bafflement gave way to confusion, then to horror.

A few words from Radeon had bent the mine around him.

Men who had been swinging picks a moment ago now ran as if the ground had started to rot beneath their feet.

She began to count the bodies moving through the shafts. Hundreds. Then thousands.

Fay counted till the numbers slipped through her fingers and became a single rushing mass.

This was not an orderly evacuation. This was flight. The kind that only happened when people believed a disaster had already started.

Radeon was already sweating hard. Not from the number of people moving, but from what he saw as the tunnels cleared.

It was here. He would not mistake it for anything, even watered down to the thinnest trace.

The blight. The same wrongness that had once killed him.

The men had been mining around it for years, maybe decades, feeding it without knowing.

Not with blood or qi, but with faith. Every prayer for fortune. Every whispered plea to the mountain.

Every desperate promise. They had given it attention, and attention became fuel.

Now the mine was emptying. The flow of bodies broke. The voices faded It was as if someone had stolen its meal in the middle of a bite.

Radeon let the disguise fall. Robes sagged into their true cut. Long white hair spilled down his back. His real face returned.

The mortal men and their families saw it and dropped into bows, instinct dragging their foreheads toward the dirt.

Radeon's expression tightened. This was not the time for reverence.

"Save the bowing. Move. To Goldkeep Crownmarkets, now. Hurry!" Radeon roared.

The older men understood first. Radeon was no ordinary cultivator, not some wandering blade for hire.

They began shouting orders and slapping sense into the younger ones who were too eager to sprint for their lives without thinking.

"Lines. Move in lines."

"Take the children first."

"Stop pushing, you fools. You'll kill your own."

Chaos dulled into motion with brutal speed. A mine learned discipline when fear became a teacher.

Radeon and Fay stayed at the back, letting the flow pass and thin.

Biscuit lingered until the last moment, chest tight in his arms, then looked over his shoulder one final time as if trying to carve their shapes into memory.

He turned and went, running. He knew this was already beyond him.

Fay watched Radeon in the dimness. She had no doubt now. She had seen his authority.

The way men listened without being told they must. The weight of his presence, the prestige in his aura.

She saw something else too. Fear.

Not the panic of a weak man, but the sharp familiarity of someone who knew exactly what slept beneath the mine, and knew what it did when it woke.

"Master, what is happening?" Fay asked. "This disciple apologizes, but I do not understand."

She tried to bow, but Radeon caught her by the arm and yanked her upright.

"Up. No time," Radeon said, throwing her onto the bison's back.

He flicked a blood pill into the bison's mouth. It swallowed, and its frame surged, flesh and bone swelling back to full size.

The beast's hooves dug into the ground as its weight returned.

Radeon leapt onto its head in one smooth motion. With a gesture, he triggered the fittings along its spine.

Wings unfolded and snapped open across the bison's back, drake wings stretching taut as if they had been waiting for this moment.

Then he turned to Fay and warped her back into her youthful form, wrinkles smoothing away, posture straightening, the borrowed years falling from her like shed skin.

"Let's go," he snapped at the bison.

They took flight. Men below looked up and froze, faces caught between awe and terror as the great bison lifted on its wings and climbed into the dim sky.

Radeon did not have time to bask in their praise filled eyes. Two truths had settled in him like stones.

Heaven's child was here, and only that one could serve as an anchor to suppress the disaster. Second. The disaster was already upon them.

Behind, the mine began to fail. The ground sagged, then gave way.

What had been half a mile deep collapsed further, stone folding into stone.

When Radeon glanced back he saw only a widening chasm. Ironbuck Mines was no more.

He drew his largest magazine and braced himself flat along the bison's head, making his body small against the wind.

Then he circled low over the last men still near the rear of the fleeing line.

His eyes sharpened. He probed them with his divine sight.

"Fuck."

The ropes of misfortune was still there. What more both her and Fay were also now wrapped within the black threads.

He waited, one of his eyes strained. Zoomed and locked on the edge of the chasm.

Then he heard humming. Something beating at a very fast speed.

"Put your torches out. Now," Radeon roared.

The miners followed at once. The humming reached them too, low and wrong, vibrating through teeth and bone.

As they ran, their eyes adjusted to the dark, and they looked up to find Radeon hovering above them.

A shot rang out. Sparks erupted atop the bison as Radeon opened fire.

"Mount up. Drop anything you can replace." Radeon shouted.

Moths. Flying gu mounts. Five meters long. Only these were wrong. Their pristine white wings had turned crimson-veined.

Mouths sprouted across their bodies, even along their legs, wet openings that opened and closed.

Tentacles pushed out in ropes and knots, malign growths writhing through chitin and fur.

They should have flown. They could not. All that grotesque weight pinned them to the ground.

The creatures ran with wings dragging, limbs punching through dirt as they surged after the nearest warmth.

Radeon pelted the beasts from above, trying to draw their attention, but it was for naught.

The horrors turned as one, chasing vitality of the many. The fleeing lines of miners were a perfect meal in their grotesque eyes.

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.