The drums did not beat—they breathed. Each pulse came not from a hand or a stick, but from the bones of the mountain itself, shaking dust into the air until it looked like a gray rain.
THOOM.The floor groaned.THOOM.The air shoved against their lungs like a fist.
Li Muye pressed one palm against the cold wall. His rune, seared into his chest, burned bright and unsteady. He could not tell if it was resonating with the drums or resisting them. The sound felt as though it wanted to reach inside him and pluck the bell-strand taut until it snapped.
Captain Lei raised his hand—three fingers, sharp, a signal to hold formation. His voice was steady, but his jaw worked once before he spoke: "Eyes wide. Weapons ready. Breathe shallow."
Old Yu spat to the side and then swore when the spit landed on his own boot. "Shallow? This damn mountain's already squeezing me dry." Still, he checked the rifle, thumb tracing the safety, knuckles pale under grime.
Zhou Zhan was half-mad with awe, his notebook pressed to his chest as though it could shield him. "They carved chambers to carry resonance… you don't understand. This isn't percussion. It's a calibration system. The whole tomb is a drum." His glasses slid down his nose, and he shoved them back with a hand that trembled between terror and thrill.
No one answered him.
They had reached the drum chamber—a vast square hall, its ceiling too high for torchlight to touch. At each corner rose a bronze war-drum taller than three men, their skins patched with blackened leather that gleamed slickly, as though wet with oil. Between them, stone reliefs crowded the walls: lines of warriors in impossible poses, beast-headed gods locked in battle, rivers of sigils that seemed to crawl when the drums struck.
THOOM.The figures shivered.
The corpses that had risen earlier were not alone. Now, a second rank emerged from the shadows under the drums, dragging ancient weapons that rang as they scraped stone. Their helmets had long fused to bone. Blue fire burned in their sockets.
Muye's breath stuttered. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw his own reflection inside one soldier's eyes—a boy in mud-stained gear, chest glowing where no armor should glow.
"Hold!" Lei barked, sword up.
The corpses froze mid-step. The drums silenced, as though they had heard him and chosen to wait.
The silence was worse than the thunder.
Old Yu hissed, "Don't just stand there, Captain, they're staring at us." His finger inched closer to the trigger.
Lei didn't blink. "They're waiting. For what, I don't know. Muye—"
Everyone's heads turned, almost in unison, toward the youngest of them.
The rune under his shirt burned hot enough that he felt it sear sweat dry on his skin. He wanted to say I don't know, I didn't ask for this. Instead, his lips parted and the word that left him was: "Command."
The syllable was not his. It rode the edge of the drums, woven into their last echo.
The corpses shifted in response. Weapons dipped, heads bowed a fraction. The gesture was grotesque, but unmistakable: deference.
"Holy—" Zhou Zhan's voice cracked. He scribbled furiously, pages tearing under the force. "He—he's recognized. This is the succession protocol, Captain! This is—"
"Shut it," Lei snapped. But his eyes never left Muye.
Old Yu's snarl was louder than the drum silence. "You hiding tricks from us, boy? Playing ghost-king in your spare time?" He stepped forward, rifle tilting not at the corpses but at Muye's chest. "Maybe we cut the root before the weed strangles us."
Lei's blade swung up, a silver arc between the muzzle and Muye. "Stand down."
For a moment, the chamber had three sides: the living corpses waiting for orders, Old Yu with his finger curled around a trigger, and Captain Lei holding steel between soldier and scholar.
And behind them, A-Chuang.
The quiet man's smile had returned, thin and almost polite. But his eyes had none of the confusion or awe of the others. He looked at Muye with clarity—as though every drumbeat was confirmation of something he had always known. His blade turned lazily in his hand, point down, then up again.
It wasn't threat. It was calculation.
Muye's legs felt like stone, his heart like a bird in a fist. He forced himself to step forward—not toward Lei, not toward Yu, but toward the corpses. The rune pulsed once, hard.
"Move," he whispered.
The corpses obeyed. They took one step back, as a unit, the ground trembling under their collective weight.
Zhou gasped. "They're bound to you. The— the drums are the key."
And then, as if in answer to his words, the four drums struck together.
THOOM.The floor cracked. Dust rose in choking clouds.THOOM.The sigils on the walls blazed white.THOOM.The corpses raised weapons again, this time not at the intruders, but at the drums themselves, as though saluting them.
The mountain spoke in its own voice. A stone stair split open in the chamber's center, downward into shadow. From below came a draft of air that stank of wet iron and old incense.
The corpses stepped aside to clear a path.
A-Chuang's knife clicked softly against his sheath as he sheathed it again. His gaze never left Muye. "The gate opens only for one. Remember that."
And then the drums stopped.
The silence was so sudden, it was like the world itself had inhaled.
Muye swayed. His chest rune still glowed, but fainter now, as though exhausted. He looked at the open stair and felt the weight of eyes—mask, corpse, comrade, and traitor—all on him.
Captain Lei's voice was flint. "We descend. And we don't look back."
The stairs yawned like a throat. Wide enough for two men abreast, yet each step had been worn into a hollow curve as if countless feet had trodden it. The darkness below exhaled steadily, a damp wind heavy with copper tang.
Li Muye felt the pull of that breath inside his lungs. He was not breathing into the tomb—he was breathing with it. The rune burned faintly, steady like an ember, pulsing with the hidden rhythm of something vast beneath.
Captain Lei descended first, blade drawn but kept close to his thigh. He had sheathed his emotions into the same steel—sharp, unyielding, but hidden. "Eyes sharp. No noise unless it's warning or command."
Old Yu muttered, "Easy for you to say. My ears are still ringing from those blasted drums." Yet he came next, one hand brushing the wall for balance, the other tight on his rifle. His eyes, small and hard, flicked to Muye whenever the boy's back wavered into sight. Greed and suspicion wrestled in those eyes, neither winning but both ugly.
Zhou Zhan nearly tripped twice, too busy sketching the reliefs carved into the stairwell walls. Winged serpents devouring suns, rivers of sigils knotted into labyrinths, men kneeling beneath towering masks. He whispered with fevered awe: "Every step is a chapter… gods above, this stair is scripture…"
"Quiet," Lei hissed.
Only A-Chuang made no sound. His steps were soundless, measured, too controlled. A predator's patience. He carried no notebook, no complaints, only a blade turned slightly forward, so that each step downward doubled as preparation for a strike.
They reached the bottom after what felt like the length of a lifetime. The stair opened into an antechamber vast as a temple. Four colossal pillars shaped like beasts—tiger, turtle, dragon, and bird—held up a ceiling lost to darkness. At the center stood a bronze mask unlike those in the upper halls. This one was three men tall, its face stretched into a permanent grimace. Its hollow eyes peered down at them as though they had trespassed upon its dream.
Muye froze. His rune seared a warning, the pain crawling up his throat. "It's awake," he whispered before he realized he'd spoken aloud.
The mask's mouth creaked open, stone grinding on stone. A low hum poured out, not a voice but a vibration. The ground quivered; hairline cracks spidered outward across the floor.
Lei braced, feet spread. "Positions!"
The cracks split wide. From them, skeletal arms clawed upward—corpse-soldiers bound into the stone itself. Their armor was fused to their bones, weapons jutting from ribs like growths. They dragged themselves free, eyes alight with the same blue fire as the guardians above.
Old Yu fired. The shot cracked like thunder, blasting through one soldier's skull. It fell—but its body crawled forward regardless, driven by some other law.
"Head's not enough!" Yu swore, yanking back the bolt.
Zhou shrieked, nearly dropping his notes. "They're constructs! The fire is the mind—kill the flame, not the flesh!"
"Shut up and show me how!" Yu barked, kicking a corpse off his leg.
Muye's chest seared. The rune flared, and his sight shifted—suddenly he could see the currents of power coiling inside each corpse. Blue strands wrapped like cords, binding them back to the mask. His stomach lurched. "They're tethered. Break the tether!"
He thrust both palms forward. The "镇" symbol carved in his flesh burned white, spilling into the air like molten light. It branded itself onto the floor between him and the advancing line.
The corpses halted mid-stride. Their flames guttered, trembling against the invisible pressure. Then, with a sound like a hundred ropes snapping, half the cords shredded.
Five corpses collapsed instantly, their fires extinguished. The others staggered but did not fall. The mask above screamed—not with sound, but with another thunderous vibration that cracked two of the supporting pillars.
Muye staggered back, blood wetting his lips. "I can't—hold it—"
Lei moved to cover him, blade cleaving down a corpse that lunged too close. Sparks flew as steel rang against bone, the Captain's stance unbroken. "You did enough. Regroup!"
But A-Chuang did not regroup. He stepped forward, almost leisurely, past Lei's flank. His blade turned downward and, with a flick of his wrist, severed the tether of one corpse directly—not with light, but with an edge so sharp it seemed to cut through spirit itself. The fire winked out instantly.
Muye blinked, gasping. He sees them too.
Their eyes met across the battlefield. Muye's burned with confusion and dawning dread. A-Chuang's gaze held no awe, only recognition. And under that recognition—something like inevitability.
Old Yu fought like a cornered dog, cursing every shot, his greed half-forgotten in panic. Zhou crouched against a pillar, frantically sketching runes even as the chamber quaked. Lei roared commands, each word like iron keeping the group from collapse.
And Muye realized, with sudden clarity, that A-Chuang was not struggling. He was practicing. Each cut deliberate, precise, as though he already belonged here, as though the corpses were his sparring partners and the mask his teacher.
The last of the tethered soldiers collapsed, their fires dimming into ash. Silence returned, filled only by ragged breaths.
Then the bronze mask tilted. Slowly, impossibly, it bent forward, lowering its massive face until its empty eyes loomed inches above Muye.
He could feel its breath—if stone could breathe—washing over him. The rune in his chest flared once more, not in pain this time but in resonance.
The mask spoke. Its jaw did not move, but the words thrummed through the stone:
"Heir."
The ground split open behind it, stone slabs grinding aside to reveal a descending path of black marble. From below rose the smell of incense long rotted into bitterness, and beneath that, the unmistakable iron tang of blood.
The drums struck once.
THOOM.
The stair shook. Zhou screamed, dropping his notebook. Old Yu nearly fell to his knees.
Captain Lei's voice cut through it all: "That's the main tomb." His eyes, hard as iron, shifted to Muye. "And it just called you."
Muye's legs trembled. He wanted to refuse, to claim ignorance, to hand this fate to anyone else. But the rune pulsed with his heartbeat, sealing him to a truth he could not escape.
A-Chuang's low voice slid into the silence: "It won't wait forever."
The mask's eyes dimmed, leaving only darkness yawning in the new stairwell.
Lei tightened his grip on the blade. "We descend."
The group stood at the threshold of the true burial chamber. Each heart carried a different weight—greed, awe, duty, or secret designs. The silence stretched, taut as a bowstring.
Then the drums fell silent.
The world seemed to pause, balanced on the edge of a knife.
And from below, faint and deliberate, came the first echo of chanting.