Desert.
Three horses galloped across the boundless desert.
Black clouds rolled beneath their hooves. Their eyes glowed red, and their coats shone black as lacquer.
One of them spoke in a human voice. "Why did that monster suddenly appear?"
"Who knows what got into it today," another horse replied.
"Enough. Pick up the pace and get back to the ruins as soon as possible!" said the horse in the middle.
At its command, the other two fell silent.
Before long, the three horses arrived at a mountain cave.
Calling it a cave was a bit of a stretch. It looked more like the remains of some prehistoric monster, as large as a mountain range.
The three horses shook themselves and transformed into three burly men.
They entered the cave and looked around.
"The Receiving Envoy hasn't returned yet," one man said.
"That's all right. That monster has already awakened. The envoy will probably come back to hide any moment now," another man replied.
The last man sat down and started a fire.
The three sat in silence for a while.
Suddenly, one of them spoke. "Brothers, don't you think we have more spoils today?"
The other two looked up together.
All around the cave, corpses of all shapes and sizes hung from ropes.
"I remember there being fourteen," one man counted. "Nine from the Human Realm, two from the Yellow Springs, and three Asura—strange. Why are there fifteen corpses?"
The two men exchanged a look.
The one in the middle snorted. "What are you thinking? This is the refuge of our Beast King Path. Only its Holy Chosen can enter. So it's simple: the envoy must have gotten itchy fingers and casually killed a Holy Chosen from another Path of Reincarnation."
The other two found the explanation convincing and gradually