Pitch-black figures emerged from the thick, churning darkness. Pale, vacant faces watched the living who had set foot in the Netherworld.
Perhaps the thought was a little ill-timed.
But a song sprang into Su Lin's mind: Seaweed, seaweed, swaying in the wind.
"Your relatives don't seem very happy to see me." Su Lin suggested, "How about I visit another day?"
Unfortunately, as if eager to prove him wrong, the crowd of identical, copy-pasted faces became a little too welcoming.
Almost as soon as Su Lin finished speaking, they surged forward, each trying to be first. Their forms dissolved into masses of darkness and then gathered again, silently swallowing the group.
Despair, darkness, cold. Every kind of misery mingled together, coming in endless waves.
"Such fine material for angels. I'm sorry I can't send you all to Heaven this time."
A compassionate voice rang out, full of regret and something like guilt.
A streak of azure sword energy shot upward, tearing a rift through the viscous darkness.
Su Lin ripped a head dangling by its spine from his arm and crushed it in his hand. "We should leave."
Grief filled Berna's eyes, but he gradually realized that no passage could be opened in the area illuminated by moonlight.
After all, this was one of the classic ways for a plan to go wrong. Perfectly normal...
Su Lin shook his head as though he had expected it. The power of faith within him began to burn, and he poured pure Adeptal Power into the Azure Jade Void Sword.
Golden light erupted, then dimmed. A sword's cry split the air, and another azure slash laced with countless motes of starlight swept out, fiercer and more powerful than the last.
In an instant, the world seemed to acquire boundaries, and the sky an edge.