On the left stood a hunched crone. Skeletal fingers, nails tinted a corpse-blue, slipped from the sleeves of black robe, at waist spun a rosary of soul orbs.
On the right loomed a swollen-faced old man, eyes rolled white, drool threading from the corner of his mouth. He gripped a chain-bound scythe wreathed in ghostly fire.
They were the Nether Duo whom Dioz had summoned in haste, Granny Deadclaw and Lord Drowned Souls.
“Grand Elder Dioz, what calamity drives you to such panic?” Granny Deadclaw’s voice screeched like nails skittering across a chalkboard.
A quick glance at the children’s ashes had irritation flickering in eyes. “Had you not hauled us here, we’d be tempering afresh vessel with the Hundred Ghosts Soul-Refining Art.”
Dioz jerked to his feet, sleeve trembling, and pointed at the dais where five extinguished lamps smoked faintly. “Ghostmask… All Five Wraiths are dead…”
Lord Drowned Souls’s cloudy eyes twitched, the scythe clanged to the floor. “Impossible! The Five Wraiths together, bolstered by that Ravenousor Wraith, could fell a Top Level Wandering Immortal. Who in the Third Heaven wields such power?”
“Soul lamps do not lie,” Dioz hissed, knuckles white around a clenched fist. “Worse… The token on Ghostmask’s body is missing. If it falls into outsider hands, every secret of our order, every shackle we wear, will be laid bare.”
The Nether Duo traded a glance, shared horror flashing between them.
Granny Deadclaw pinched brittle fingers, divining unseen currents.
Wrinkles deepened with each calculation. “Just before the soul lamps extinguished, the energy signature showed them near Bloodshadow Palace, colliding with a… A peculiarly twisted force… Then nothing…”
“Bloodshadow Palace?” Dioz’s pupils shrank. “I know their strength. Since when do they harbor someone capable of killing the Five Wraiths?”
Lord Drowned Souls licked cracked lips. “Whoever it is, we must reclaim the token. Grand Elder Dioz, do you have any lead at all?”
“None…”
Dioz slammed a fist onto the stone table, fissures spider-webbed to the edge. “Ghostmask never even managed a telepathic message for aid, died that suddenly!”
“So it falls to you two. Take the Underworld Shadow Guards and scour every inch of the Third Heaven. Tear up the earth if you must, but bring that token back!”
Granny Deadclaw’s thin grin revealed dark gums. The soul orbs at fingertips flared crimson.
“Rest easy. Anything tainted by Ghostmask’s aura cannot escape my Ten Thousand Souls Lock. But…” Her gaze slid toward Dioz. “If the token is sealed away, its aura smothered, even we may…”
“Enough!” Dioz’s voice cracked like a whip. “If that token stays lost, the three of us are corpses. Find it! Living or dead, I want proof. The token must be returned intact.”
The Nether Duo bowed once, then swept out with a hundred Underworld Shadow Guards at their heels, a black tide rolling straight toward Bloodshadow Palace.
***
The wasteland lay in utter ruin.
Bodies littered the ground in grotesque disarray, and several unciothed female corpses were exposed to open air, a sight that made Lord Drowned Souls lick his lips in morbid delight. Granny Deadclaw shot a glacial stare, and hastilyjerked his eyes away.
She stood upon the scorched earth, pointing a shriveled finger at claw marks gouged one meter deep into the ground. “Judging by the spacing, that’s the Netherworld Earth-Splitting Claw of a Ravenousor Wraith. But the counterforce that met it…”
Bending low, scooped up a handful of singed soil. in palm, a soul orb whirled like a cyclone, cracking with sharp snaps.
“What’s wrong?” Lord Drowned Souls asked. He thrust his chained scythe into the ground. Instantly, countless souls clawed their way up, howling as they pointed in every direction.
“Their auras… Have been wiped clean!”
With a sudden squeeze, Granny Deadclaw crushed the soul orb as face darkened. “This isn’t ordinary soul dissolution. Even the last trace of spiritual sense and energy ripples were devoured, as though something swallowed them alive, leaving not even a splinter of bone behind!”
“What kind of monster could do that? Don’t tell me the Five Wraiths were eaten by their own Ravenousor…” Lord Drowned Souls frowned, baffled. “After all, that beast can devour anything…”
