"Come out, friends behind us. Aren't you tired of following us all this way?"
Lin Shisan's voice was quiet, but it echoed with particular clarity across the open wilderness.
The wilderness wind swept scraps of dead grass past his ears, and Lin Shisan abruptly stopped walking.
The dense forest fell silent for three breaths, then a chorus of snapping branches crackled through it.
A white-bearded old man stepped out first, wearing a gray robe washed almost white. His gaunt frame looked like a bundle of firewood, but his eyes glowed an eerie green, unlike anything that belonged to the living.
An elegant young man followed him, dressed in a moon-white robe, with a jade Command Token hanging at his waist. The character "Crimson" was carved into it, and an innate arrogance marked his features.
Behind them, ten black-clad men filed out, their movements perfectly synchronized. Even their footsteps overlapped as they landed.
The white-bearded old man stepped forward. The bluestone slab beneath his foot shattered soundlessly, and his aura erupted. He churned the Spiritual Power in the air into a visible vortex. The night wind veered away three feet in front of him, and even the moonlight warped for an instant.
Late Sky Soaring, and his aura carried a trace of deathly energy.
Lin Shisan's gaze swept over the old man's neck.
A dark purple line of stitches ran from behind his ear to below his collarbone. The flesh curled outward, exposing corpse blotches underneath.
"Corpse puppet."
Lin Shisan uttered the words quietly.
Zhantai Xian tilted her head. Her gaze lingered on the old man's stitches for a moment before shifting to the ten black-clad men behind him. Their eye sockets were empty, with only two eerie green clumps of soul fire dancing inside.
"Senior Brother Tian, these people are