The giant skeleton's steps thundered across the earth, each stride shaking mountains and bending trees. Its ribcage glowed faintly—foundation Qi cracking into the marrow. With every movement, the glow deepened until the hollow bones were no longer mere bone; they became the centerpiece of something greater.
Pillars rose in the image of a pavilion, forming around the skeleton like an ethereal temple carried upon its back.
The girls clutched at the bone-palms that held them, eyes wide as the air shimmered. Columns unfolded, latticework carved itself out of nothing, and lanterns flickered to life, burning with pale, ghostly flames.
Takara's voice trembled, awe and disbelief colliding."This… this is impossible."
Kaede's naginatas drooped at her side as she stared upward, watching the pavilion complete itself around them."He made… a fortress that walks…"
Sana's lips parted, breathless, as the roof sealed overhead. Banners unfurled with black and crimson patterns that pulsed like living veins. She turned to the men who had crafted the room they were in."Oliver-kun... are you sure you aren't a deity?"
The air twisted. Before any of them could move, the pavilion's pull seized them. One by one, the women were lifted, their bodies dissolving into streams of light as they were drawn deeper into the structure. Takara fought the pull for a moment, then gave in, vanishing. Kaede and Sana followed; their voices echoed, then fell silent. Oliver—still merged with the Oni—grinned as the walls imploded around them.
When the tower collapsed back into the forest, it left a great indentation. Hundreds of people scattered across the surrounding hills froze—panicked, fearful of what they had just witnessed.
Yet among them, some were bolder: bandits, scavengers, monsters, and fortune-seekers who made their living in this new world.
"What was that?" a woman asked, the wind blowing across her face as she watched from atop a hill. Her eyes widened. Papers and empty pill bottles lay scattered behind her on the balcony. She turned to her backpack full of climbing gear."Could other people be trapped there too?" she wondered aloud. "I should go check it out."
—
Far away, at the macaque settlement, the night-stained clearing stirred. The alpha's puppet body groaned as its joints cracked. Its glowing eyes opened once more.
It rose slowly, towering over the collapsed macaques that sprawled across the ground in a haze of exhaustion. With a harsh growl, it kicked at the nearest beast, then another, until the entire pack stirred awake.
Their yellow eyes blinked with confusion, then fear, as their leader stood tall, bow in hand. Behind him, the women who had endured the night were gathered, their bare bodies trembling as he forced them into a line before him.
"Prove your worth," the alpha's puppet voice commanded.
The air shimmered.
Dozens of golden Qi swords appeared before the macaques, floating like holy relics, their edges gleaming with killing intent. The beasts froze, staring at the blades. Some reached for them; others recoiled.
"Survive," he said simply.
The macaques looked at one another, snarling nervously, clutching the conjured blades like crude clubs, unable to comprehend how their leader had pulled weapons from the air. The women trembled, pressing together, their backs against the alpha as though he were both protector and captor.
The commotion carried far. From the bone nest, from the leather nest, and from the far edges of the settlement, other packs arrived. They paused at the sight: the alpha conjuring weapons, his women lined like offerings, the air thrumming with unnatural Qi. Whispers and low growls spread like wildfire.
Then the sky split.
The pavilion's gate opened above the settlement, lantern light spilling like blood across the clearing. Its pull seized everything. Women screamed as they were torn from the macaques' grips—those behind the alpha, those tied in other camps—all ripped into streams of light and swallowed by the pavilion's yawning maw. The macaques howled, clutching at empty air as their prizes vanished.
And then he came.
Oliver's Oni form stepped out from the pavilion, his group beside him upon the skeleton's palm. The monster's skull glowed with inner fire; its towering frame blotted out the moon.
The macaques fell silent.
From the pavilion's open gates poured dozens of ghosts, chains rattling as their hollow wails filled the night. They surged downward, surrounding the settlement in a storm of pale mist and shrieking death.
The Oni's crimson eyes scanned the trembling macaques. His polearm gleamed with murderous hunger, and his voice thundered across the clearing.
"Tonight," Oliver declared, grin sharp and merciless, "your world changes."
The giant skeleton's foot came down with a quake, splitting the ground beneath the macaques' feet.
"And I begin my war."