The night mist clung to the mountains like a shroud.
Lin Tian stood before the cracked mausoleum, its doors sagging under centuries of weight. The carvings across its stone face had eroded almost to nothing, but faint lines still glimmered—runes that pulsed like dying embers.
Behind him, two dozen undead waited in silence. Their eyes were pale lanterns in the dark, their blades rusted but steady. The skeleton sentinel stood at his right, cracked but unyielding.
Lin Tian pressed a hand to the mausoleum's cold surface. A pulse answered him—deep, slow, like the beat of a heart buried beneath stone.
The graves had whispered before. Now they called.
His breath came ragged. His body still screamed from the battle against Elder Han and the sect's squad. His channels felt raw, his bones ached. But the mausoleum pulled at him, demanding.
"Show me," he whispered.
The doors groaned.
---
At the sect, chaos sharpened into resolve.
The outer disciples had failed. Fear spread like plague. Even elders bickered openly. The Bonecloud Sect's reputation hung by a thread.
The sect master stood before the gathered elders, his expression colder than frost. "No more half measures. The boy defies heaven and sect alike. His filth spreads. Tonight we send the inner disciples—the heirs of our sect's true line."
Lanterns flared as names were called.
Yue Shan, spear prodigy, his qi piercing as sunlight.
Fang Ruo, mistress of silken blades, every thread soaked in poison.
Chen Hu, body cultivator whose fists could break stone.
And Zhao Wu, standing among them, lips curled though his arm was still bandaged.
The sect master's gaze swept them. "Do not fail. Bring me his corpse, or do not return."
The inner disciples bowed as one. Their confidence was sharp, honed, unbroken. Unlike the outer ranks, these were the sect's chosen—true cultivators already halfway up the mountain.
Drums thundered. The gates opened once more.
---
The mausoleum's doors cracked open.
Mist poured from the darkness, thicker, heavier, carrying with it a chill that sank into bone. The whispers grew louder, echoing inside Lin Tian's skull. He staggered, his vision swimming with images not his own.
A battlefield of ages past. Corpses strewn like waves. Cultivators in robes long forgotten. And among them—an army of the dead, kneeling before a figure cloaked in shadow, silver eyes burning.
Lin Tian's breath caught. The vision fractured. The mausoleum loomed empty once more.
But something stirred within.
The skeleton sentinel rattled, bowing low as if before an unseen master. The other corpses trembled, their pale eyes flickering.
Lin Tian stepped forward, heart pounding. The air inside was colder than death itself. Rows of sarcophagi lined the walls, cracked and broken. Bones lay scattered in heaps, long untouched.
But as his presence filled the chamber, they shifted. Fingers twitched. Skulls turned. Hollow sockets fixed on him.
And one by one, they began to rise.
---
The inner disciples marched through the mist with unwavering steps.
Unlike the outer rabble, they did not falter. Yue Shan's spear glowed, its tip cutting a line of light through the fog. Fang Ruo's silken threads hissed, weaving patterns of death between her fingers. Chen Hu's fists cracked with qi, each step shattering loose stone underfoot.
Zhao Wu strode among them, lips curled in triumph.
"This time, there will be no retreat," he sneered. "Lin Tian will fall."
The mist thickened, swallowing their torches. But they did not break formation. Their qi blazed, a beacon in the dark.
Then they saw it.
The mausoleum loomed ahead, its cracked doors open, mist pouring forth like a tide. And in its shadow stood Lin Tian—silver-lit eyes gleaming, flanked by nearly fifty undead.
---
The clash was thunder.
Yue Shan's spear struck first, piercing three corpses in a single thrust. Fang Ruo's threads hissed, slicing limbs and heads cleanly from bodies. Chen Hu roared, fists smashing undead into dust with every blow.
They were no outer disciples. Every strike carried lethal weight.
Lin Tian staggered under the backlash. His channels screamed as his servants fell one after another. The inner disciples were monsters compared to the fodder before.
But he did not falter.
"Rise!"
The fallen corpses twitched, broken bodies dragging upright once more. Even bisected husks lurched forward, clutching blades in half-formed hands.
The inner disciples cursed, their formation tightening.
"Impossible—"
"Cut them to ash! Don't let them stand!"
But each kill only fed him. Each death poured more cold qi into his veins. His dantian pulsed like a drum, silver light blazing brighter than ever.
Lin Tian's lips curled into a bloody smile. "Do you see now? Every strike you make… strengthens me."
---
The battle surged before the mausoleum.
Yue Shan's spear glowed with blinding light, cleaving swathes of corpses apart. Fang Ruo's threads wrapped around the skeleton sentinel, pulling until bones snapped like twigs. Chen Hu waded through the host, his fists reducing corpses to rubble.
But for every fallen soldier, two more rose.
The mausoleum itself seemed to answer Lin Tian's desperation. The sarcophagi cracked, spilling ancient bones that rattled upright. From the soil around the steps, skeletal arms clawed free, dragging themselves into his host.
The inner disciples faltered as the tide swelled.
"This is—" Yue Shan snarled, his spear trembling. "This is not one boy. This is the entire graveyard!"
Zhao Wu's face twisted with fury. He raised his blade, qi flaring. "Then we cut him down at the source! Kill Lin Tian, and the rest will fall!"
---
They surged as one.
Yue Shan's spear thrust. Fang Ruo's threads slashed. Chen Hu's fists shattered the air. Zhao Wu's blade aimed straight for Lin Tian's throat.
Lin Tian's veins burned, his vision dimmed, but his will blazed brighter than the moon.
"Rise!" he roared.
The mausoleum answered.
A single figure stepped from its shadow.
Taller than any man, its bones blackened by age, its skull crowned with jagged fragments of armor. In its hands rested a rusted halberd that still hummed with ancient qi.
The inner disciples froze.
"What—what is that?" Fang Ruo gasped.
The skeletal warlord raised its halberd. With one sweep, it tore a line through earth and stone, scattering the front ranks like leaves.
Lin Tian swayed, blood streaming from his lips. Summoning it had nearly torn his channels apart. But he smiled.
"Behold," he whispered hoarsely. "The dead do not only obey. They protect."
---
The inner disciples staggered, their formation shattered. Even Zhao Wu stumbled, eyes wide with terror.
Yue Shan's spear shook in his grip. Fang Ruo's threads tangled. Chen Hu's fists bled.
The warlord loomed, halberd gleaming faint silver under the moon.
The battle was no longer even.
It was a siege—
and the dead were winning.
---