Night fell heavy on Bonecloud Mountain. Lanterns flickered along the walls, their light dim and trembling. Every disciple felt the weight pressing down like a storm about to break.
The sect could not ignore whispers any longer.
In the main square, dozens of outer disciples assembled, weapons clutched in trembling hands. Their breaths steamed in the cold air, faces pale but set. Overseers in crimson barked orders, but even their voices lacked the usual arrogance. This was not a drill. This was war.
At the head of one column stood Zhao Wu. His crimson sleeves gleamed against the torchlight, his smirk sharp but brittle. Unease flickered in his eyes, but he forced his voice to carry:
"Remember who you serve. The Bonecloud Sect bows to no ghost, no corpse. Tonight we drag filth into the light!"
The disciples shouted back, but the sound was weak, thinned by fear.
From the steps of the great hall, Elder Du glared down, voice thundering:
"Enough waiting. Strike the burial grounds. Burn the corpses. Drag back the boy alive if you can—if not, bring me his head!"
The command snapped across the square. Drums began to beat, slow and relentless, echoing through the valley like heartbeats of war.
The gates creaked open. Beyond them, the mist awaited.
---
Lin Tian felt them before he saw them.
Kneeling among the gravestones, his palm pressed into the earth, he sensed the tremors of countless footsteps. More than before. The sect was moving as one.
His four servants stood nearby—one skeleton cracked, three corpses battered but unyielding. Behind them, a dozen more bodies stirred, newly raised from shallow graves and fallen disciples alike. Their eyes glowed faintly pale, movements jerky but loyal.
Lin Tian rose slowly, lips curving faintly.
"So. They come."
The mist thickened, curling eagerly around his ankles. Bones rattled beneath the soil like sleepers preparing to wake.
"They cast me here to die," he whispered. "Now they send more to feed me."
He raised his hand. The dead stirred.
---
The sect's vanguard pushed into the mist.
Torches flared, qi shimmered faintly along blades, but the fog swallowed light and courage alike. Each crunch of bone underfoot made disciples flinch.
"Hold formation!" Zhao Wu barked. He strode at the front, blade flashing. "Do not falter!"
Then the mist parted.
Lin Tian stood atop a broken gravestone, the fog curling behind him like a throne of shadows. Pale silver gleamed in his eyes. At his feet knelt his host of corpses, weapons raised, hollow gazes fixed. Beside them loomed his skeleton, cracked but unbroken.
The disciples froze.
"Filth," Zhao Wu spat, though his voice wavered. "You dare mock this sect further?"
Lin Tian's gaze swept them coldly. "Dare? No. I simply obey. The living scorned me. But the dead—" His hand lifted. "—the dead kneel."
The corpses rose as one.
---
The clash erupted.
Sect disciples surged forward with ragged shouts, blades gleaming.
Lin Tian's servants met them in silence. Steel rang against bone. Sparks cut through the fog. A corpse took a sword through the shoulder but lunged forward regardless, fingers crushing the throat of the boy who struck him. His scream ended in a wet gasp.
The skeleton barreled through the line, claws raking, scattering torches. Two disciples went down under its weight, blades useless against relentless bone.
"Hold ranks! Hold!" Zhao Wu roared, cleaving through one corpse with qi-infused steel. The body collapsed—then twitched. Eyes rolled pale, head lolling, and it lurched upright once more, blade still clutched in dead fingers.
A disciple screamed. The line faltered.
---
Lin Tian did not move from his stone perch. His raised hand conducted the slaughter like a silent orchestra.
Every time one of his servants fell, his will seized them again, dragging them upright. The mist fed him—cold qi rushing into his meridians, numbing pain with raw strength. His channels burned, his veins screamed, but he forced them wider. Stronger.
"Rise," he whispered. "Rise."
And they did.
Every scream became silence. Every death birthed another soldier.
The disciples' formation shattered. Corpses pressed from the flanks, dragging the living down. Torches sputtered out one by one until the night swallowed everything.
---
Zhao Wu fought like a cornered beast.
His blade cut through corpse after corpse, qi flaring bright. Blood streaked his face, sweat stung his eyes, yet still he shouted, defiance cracking his throat.
"Trash! You are still trash! No matter what filth obeys you—you will never rise above me!"
But the more he cut, the more they rose. Their hollow gazes closed in from every side.
Then Lin Tian's voice drifted through the fog, calm as death.
"You call me trash. Yet your sect feeds me with every step."
Zhao Wu's chest heaved, rage warring with fear. "I will end you!"
He charged, blade high, straight at Lin Tian.
---
The skeleton intercepted him.
Claws clashed against steel, sparks bursting. Zhao Wu roared, qi blazing, shoving the thing back—only for two corpses to lunge from the mist. Steel scraped his guard.
He hacked one apart, but the second's blade bit into his arm. He screamed, fury and terror tearing his voice raw.
"Lin Tian!" he howled. "Fight me yourself!"
Lin Tian's gaze was cold as winter. "I do not need to lift a blade. The dead fight for me."
---
The battle raged until the ground before the graves was carpeted with bodies—living and dead, all stained alike in blood.
At last, horns blared retreat. Overseers dragged survivors away, torches blazing desperate paths back to the sect.
The mist closed behind them.
Where once Lin Tian commanded a dozen servants, now nearly two dozen corpses knelt in the gloom. Their eyes glowed pale, awaiting his command.
Lin Tian swayed, his veins burned, his dantian screamed with both pain and triumph. But he stood.
And the dead obeyed.
---
Zhao Wu limped from the fog, arm bleeding, face twisted in hate. He had survived by fury and fear alone.
"You will not win, Lin Tian," he hissed, staggering toward the sect's lights. "I'll see this ground burned to ash. And when the sect comes, I will be there to watch you fall."
His vow vanished into the mist.
---
Lin Tian stood alone among the graves, his army kneeling at his feet.
He raised his hand. Every corpse bowed.
"They sent their strength to bury me. Instead, I buried them."
The mist curled higher, wrapping him like a crown. His silver eyes burned in the night.
"This is only the beginning."
Bones rattled like applause. The graves whispered like sworn fealty.
And for the first time, the Bonecloud Sect truly trembled.
---