The bones were still warm.
With a light leap, he returned to his former spot. Without even touching it, he could feel the faint warmth still emanating from the place where Nepheli had sat.
They were indeed human bones, though they were somewhat incomplete.
From the way they were piled together, he could also make out that, unlike Etched Wisdom's earlier pose with its arms wrapped around its knees, this one had been much more solemn.
Given her style, even if something she had sought for many years was right in front of her, she wouldn't have struck a pose like a little kid in front of him.
The only relatively intact skull, on the other hand, gave him an even more twisted impression.
It was as if the brain inside had swollen from the heat, causing the pressure in the skull to rise beyond what it could bear, until everything was squeezed out of shape.
Of course, there were no longer any dancing tongues of flame on the remains. The fire only flowed over their surfaces and through their insides, which was why they gave off that "sparkling" impression.
Perhaps the historical distortion he had just experienced wasn't entirely reliable, but there was a very good chance these were indeed Nepheli's remains.
To hear the Dao in the morning... She might have been trying to figure out how to use this place to verify the truth of the world ever since she discovered it.
No matter what the cost.
And in the end, she had indeed died that very evening, content with having heard the Dao, and become a pile of bones here.
As for why things had gotten so lively around Moore, the whole chain of events now seemed clear—
Nepheli had asked him for a wisp of