Hei Mu paid no attention to the moving skeletons, and instead looked straight toward the center of the protective circle formed by the thirteen skeletons. There stood a white jade platform three inches high, on which lay a life-sized white skeleton, with a brightly colored silk cloth draped over it like a quilt.
What Tian Buyi and the others found most impossible to believe was that the ghostly light and cold wind around them were both coming from this skeleton.
Hei Mu ignored the enormous skeletons that remained on guard against him and floated straight to the jade platform, quietly looking at the human skeleton.
The thirteen skeletons slowly stood, turned their bodies, and all looked toward Hei Mu in front of the jade platform. The clack-clack of bones rang out in a chaotic jumble, making anyone who heard it frown.
Just when Tian Buyi thought Hei Mu was about to act, the white skeleton on the jade platform slowly sat up and raised a hand, wrapping the bright silk that covered it around its body.
During this, Luo Yunji and the others saw that a white pearl had been placed by the skeleton's right hand, a jade disc was caught at its left ankle, a ring was lodged in the broken place at its throat, Bone Jade was embedded in the center of its forehead, and at its spine was the Great Wizard's Black Staff.
When the white skeleton, wrapped in silk, sat cross-legged on the jade platform, the cold wind and light all vanished, and darkness instantly swallowed everything.
Luo Yunji, who had been staring nonstop at the Bone Jade on the white skeleton's forehead, noticed the surroundings suddenly turn black and silently took a Night-Shining Pearl from his robes.
When the Night-Shining Pearl once again brought light