The guest quarters were a ruin.
When Jiang Dao landed back in the courtyard, his face fell. The air was stagnant and thick with the smell of dust and decay. Doors hung splintered from their hinges, and the entire area was choked with a lattice of cobwebs that shimmered in the faint moonlight. It was just like the old monk's chambers—utterly devoid of life. Du Feng and his men were gone.
"Dammit." The word was a low growl in his throat. His hand tightened on the hilt of his saber, the knuckles turning white as veins bulged on his skin. A cold, sharp rage ignited in his chest. He scanned the eerie, silent temple, his eyes glinting with a dangerous light. Far from being afraid, he felt a familiar, violent energy surge through him.
"Alright," he muttered, cracking his neck with a sound like rocks grinding together. "Let's see what you really are."
He strode through the blighted courtyard, his heavy footsteps the only sound in the oppressive silence. He soon reached the rooms where Li San's group had been staying, only to find the same scene of dereliction. Walls were crumbling, and weeds pushed up through the floorboards. They were gone, too. Vanished without a trace.
An anger unlike any he'd felt before coiled in his gut. His men had been taken from right under his nose, and he hadn't even seen the enemy. He moved deeper into the temple's suffocating darkness, kicking down one rotting door after another. The splintering wood echoed in the empty halls. They couldn't all be dead. Whatever had taken them had to have hidden them somewhere.
Then he heard it—the frantic slap of footsteps on stone.
He spun around, his eyes piercing the gloom of the long corridor. An unnatural wind had picked up, whipping dead leaves into a frenzy that stung his eyes. A shadowy figure was sprinting toward him. As it drew closer and saw him, it skidded to a halt. For a tense moment, they just stared at each other, two silhouettes frozen in the darkness.
"Is that… Brother Jiang?" the figure asked, its voice tight with caution.
"Li San?" Jiang Dao narrowed his eyes.
"It's me!" A wave of relief washed over the man's voice as he hurried forward. The night was moonless and black, and Jiang Dao couldn't make out his features until he was standing right in front of him. Li San was a mess—his clothes torn, his face pale and etched with fear.
"Jiang, you ran into it, too?" he panted.
"You as well?"
"Yeah," Li San nodded, his voice trembling with fury. "I was on watch. That little novice monk came up and said the master of the temple wanted to see me. I was careful, I swear, but I never thought the kid was the problem. He led me halfway down a path, and then this… this cold wind just blew through, and he was gone. Vanished. When I ran back, my men… they were all gone."
"And the novice didn't try to attack you?" Jiang Dao watched him, his gaze intense.
"That's the part I don't get," Li San admitted. "Maybe he knew I was too strong to take down quietly. Maybe he was afraid of alerting you."
Jiang Dao's mind raced. "Li, have you seen this kind of thing before?"
"I have," Li San said grimly. "But most warriors are useless against it. Even I can only handle the weakest of these… things. Look, we have to find our people. They've only just been taken. If we wait, it'll be too late."
Jiang Dao gave a sharp nod. Together, they plunged back into the temple.
"Hall Master!"
A panicked shout cut through the darkness. Jiang Dao turned to see another figure waving frantically as it ran toward them.
"Du Feng!" Jiang Dao recognized him instantly. "Where the hell have you been? Where are the others?"
"I don't know!" Du Feng gasped, skidding to a halt, his chest heaving. "I just stepped out to take a piss. When I came back, they were gone. Hall Master, this place is wrong."
"We're wasting time," Li San urged, his face a mask of anxiety. "We need to move."
The group resumed their desperate search, tearing through the temple room by room. As they moved from the front courtyard to the back, Jiang Dao caught the sound of more footsteps. He glanced over his shoulder.
There, in the rear courtyard, was another man holding a torch aloft, searching just as frantically as they were.
It was Li San.
Jiang Dao's blood ran cold. Another Li San? He whipped his head back to where the first Li San had been standing. The spot was empty. Only Du Feng was there, looking around in confusion.
"Du Feng, where's Li San?" Jiang Dao demanded.
Du Feng jumped. "What Li San? Hall Master, it's just been the two of us. There was no one else here."
I fell for it again. The realization hit him like a physical blow.
Just then, the Li San in the backyard spotted them. "Brother Jiang!" he called out, his voice a mix of alarm and relief.
Jiang Dao took a slow, steadying breath. "Li San?"
"It's me! Are your men missing, too?" he asked as he jogged over.
"They are," Jiang Dao said, his voice flat. "Find anything?"
"Nothing. This temple's been abandoned for decades. That novice was no human."
A cold dread began to seep into Jiang Dao. This place was a maze of illusions and death. Pushing deeper into it at night was suicide. He couldn't even be sure if this Li San was real.
Without another word, he turned and started walking toward the temple gates.
"Jiang, where are you going?" Li San called after him.
"I'm leaving."
Du Feng scrambled to keep up with him.
Li San's voice was laced with disbelief. "What about your men? You're just going to leave them?"
"Life and death are in the hands of fate," Jiang Dao said without looking back. "It's not my place to interfere."
"You can't be serious!" Li San was stunned. They were his own men, trapped in this godforsaken hellhole. How could he just walk away? "Fine! If you won't look for them, I will!" He raised his torch and disappeared back into the temple's oppressive darkness.
As Jiang Dao walked, the wind howled louder, a malevolent, living thing that tore at his clothes and threw leaves in his path. Behind him, Du Feng's expression twisted into a predatory smirk. He stared at Jiang Dao's back, one of his hands morphing into a shade of black as dark and hard as iron.
He struck. His hand shot out, a blur of motion aimed directly at Jiang Dao's spine.
CLANG!
The sound was like metal striking an anvil. Jiang Dao didn't even flinch.
The smirk on Du Feng's face froze.
Jiang Dao stopped walking. His head swiveled slowly, a full 180 degrees, his eyes locking onto Du Feng with an intensity that was terrifying in the darkness.
"Are you," he asked, his voice deathly calm, "tickling me?"
The creature wearing Du Feng's face contorted its features into another grin, revealing a row of blackened teeth. It launched itself forward, its claws a whirlwind of motion, shrieking as they tore through the air.
"Die," Jiang Dao snarled.
Power exploded from him. His muscles coiled like steel cables as he drove his palm forward with the force of a thunderclap, slamming it directly into the creature's chest.
BOOM!
The impact was absolute. The creature shrieked as it vomited a spray of black blood, its chest caving in as if it had been hit by a battering ram. It flew backward, clothes shredding, and crashed into the ground in a broken heap, every bone in its body shattered.
The thing that used to be Du Feng lay twisted on the ground, a grotesque ruin of what it once was. Black ichor oozed from its wounds, and the air filled with the stench of decay. It was no longer human but a shriveled, mummified husk, its chest cavity ripped open to reveal a squirming nest of maggots.
Jiang Dao held his breath, casually flicking the foul slime from his hand. So this was one of the puppets. But it was just that—a puppet. He glanced at his internal status panel; none of his skills had registered a significant kill. This wasn't the main event. Something else, something far worse, was pulling the strings.
RUMBLE.
A low, resonant groan echoed from the depths of the temple.
Jiang Dao's eyes flashed. He didn't hesitate. He launched himself forward like a cannonball, hurtling back into the courtyard he'd just left. There, under the sickly moonlight, two identical figures were locked in a furious duel, their blades ringing against each other in a shower of sparks.
Two Li Sans.
"Jiang! Kill him! He's the fake!" one of them screamed.
"No, he's the fake!" the other yelled back, parrying a vicious strike. "I found our people! They're in a cellar under the main hall's Buddha statue! Kill him so we can get to them!"
"Don't listen to him! He's lying!" the first one shrieked.
A slow, cold smile spread across Jiang Dao's face. "This is interesting," he said, his voice dangerously low. "If there are two of you, then I'll just have to kill you both."
He moved. A blur of motion, he appeared behind the first Li San, his hand already sweeping forward in his devastating Wind and Thunder Palm strike. The creature's face contorted from shock to pure, venomous hatred. With an inhuman shriek, its skin blackened and withered, and it spun around to lunge at him.
BOOM!
Jiang Dao swatted it out of the air like a fly. The corpse-thing flew backward, its arm snapping and its torso caving in. It hit the ground, a broken toy, and didn't move again.
The remaining Li San let out a shuddering breath of relief. "Jiang, thank you. Now, hurry! The cellar under the Buddha statue—"
"You can die, too," Jiang Dao said, his voice like ice. He turned, his hand lashing out and closing around Li San's face.
SPLAT.
The head simply ceased to exist, exploding in a shower of foul-smelling gore. The headless body crumpled to the ground, its limbs twitching for a moment before it dissolved into a rotting pile of flesh swarming with maggots.
Jiang Dao wiped his hand on his pants and walked toward the main hall. He couldn't tell the real from the fake. So he'd operated on a simpler principle: kill them both. He and Li San were strangers, their alliance one of convenience. Collateral damage was acceptable.
Inside the hall, the massive Buddha statue had been shoved aside, revealing a dark, square hole in the floor. A putrid stench, the smell of a mass grave, rolled out of the opening. He knelt, struck a flint, and held the small flame over the hole. All he could see was an endless, yawning blackness. It was like staring into the throat of hell.
He needed a torch.
Just as he stood up, he heard them again—hurried footsteps. A figure holding a torch high was jogging toward the hall.
It was Li San.
Jiang Dao's eyes narrowed into slits.
"Jiang! You came back!" the man called out, a note of surprise in his voice.
"I did," Jiang Dao said calmly. "Find anything?"
"No, I heard fighting and came to investigate. What about you?"
"Killed a few pests," Jiang Dao gestured toward the hole. "Found this cellar. Not sure what to make of it."
Li San walked over, his eyes widening as he saw the mangled corpses in the courtyard. "Are these… Corpse Slaves?"
"What's a Corpse Slave?"
"You don't know?" Li San looked at him, surprised. "They're puppets made from the dead, filled with hate but empty of thought. Some powerful creature controls them. They're strong, relentless, and almost impossible to kill."
"Is that so?" Jiang Dao watched him, his expression unreadable. This one... this one felt real.
Li San joined him at the edge of the pit, cautiously lowering his torch. The flickering light did little to penetrate the oppressive dark below. "Should we… go down?" he asked, his voice hesitant.
"Let's," Jiang Dao said.
They jumped.
The drop was about ten feet. They landed in a narrow, pitch-black tunnel that reeked of rot. After a moment to adjust, they moved forward, walking side-by-side down the suffocating passage. The deeper they went, the more overwhelming the stench became. After about five minutes, the tunnel opened into a vast, cavernous space.
It was a throne room of the dead.
Hundreds of bodies sat upright in neat rows, a silent, mummified congregation. There were men and women, young and old, monks, priests, and warriors from every walk of life.
Li San rushed to the nearest figure, a young woman, and gently shook her shoulder. "Miss? Miss, are you okay?"
The body slumped forward and collapsed, its back splitting open. There was nothing inside. The flesh, the organs, the bones—all of it was gone. It was just an empty sack of skin, crawling with maggots.
"Her flesh…" Li San whispered in horror, stumbling back. "It's all gone."
Jiang Dao was already scanning the room. He spotted them in the back—Du Feng and his men, sitting perfectly still, their faces as pale as marble. He strode over and pressed his fingers to Du Feng's neck. A faint pulse. They were alive.
"Li, we're getting them out of here. Now."
"Right!" Li San nodded, spotting his own men nearby.
They started grabbing their unconscious comrades, preparing to haul them out.
"Hehehe… Leaving so soon?"
A chilling, ethereal laughter echoed through the chamber, seeping into their bones like frost.
Jiang Dao dropped Du Feng, his saber in his hand, in an instant. He stood ready, his eyes scanning the shadows. Li San drew his own blade, his face pale with terror.
From the deepest darkness at the far end of the chamber, a shadow detached itself from the others and began to move. As it stepped into the torchlight, they saw a figure in a black robe, its skin a waxy, unnatural white. A scarlet slash of a mouth curved into a knowing smile. But it was the eyes that held them paralyzed—two glowing, emerald-green orbs that seemed to drink the light from the room.
"I thought my slaves would be enough for you," the creature purred, its voice a silky whisper. "But I see you have some fight in you. Good. Your flesh will be all the more delicious." It ran a long, red tongue over its lips.
"A fiend," Jiang Dao breathed.
Li San's blood turned to ice. "Jiang," he whispered, "we can't kill it. We have to break out of here."
"Break out?" The creature chuckled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "Oh, my dear, your fate was sealed the moment you stepped inside."
And then it moved, a blur of speed so fast it was barely visible, its razor-sharp claws aimed straight for Jiang Dao's heart.