Chen Wuxian and Zhu Meixing instinctively recoiled, their own chaotic auras flaring like startled snakes. A strange, heavy calm—the profound silence that precedes a truly momentous event—fell over the bone-white clearing.
Then, Chen Wuxian's grotesque, slit-like smile returned, his mania rapidly overpowering his initial fear.
"And who in the Hells are you?" he cackled, his voice a strained, high-pitched thing. He brazenly stepped out from behind the petrified skeletal remains. "Another ancient, lonely ghost looking to take a nibble on our souls? Get in line!"
The figure's voice was simple and clear, yet it resonated with the impossible weight of ages, a chorus of a thousand dying whispers compressed into a single, monotone sound. "You may call me a Wraith. I am the collective, dying resentment of a dozen God Emperors who perished in this forest millennia ago. But more importantly... I am the being who just saved your insignificant lives."
