The underground tavern was built inside the ribs of an ancient giant beast stone-hard into the canyon wall.
The tables were rough slabs of slate resting on piles of bleached femurs. The clientele consisted of two hundred heavily armed spectral deserters, rogue corpse-smugglers, and black-market spirit vein traders.
At the center of the chamber, sitting on an iron throne upholstered in tanned human leather, was Master Ghost-Bane.
The crime boss was a six-hundred-year-old spectral ghoul whose flesh was a patchwork of stitched grey hides, his fingernails filed into six-inch iron needles. Resting across his knees was a serrated flensing blade that dripped with cold grease.
“Transit tokens for the Black Mountain restricted shafts?” Ghost-Bane rasped, his voice sounding like dry bones rattling in a baked-clay jar. His hollow eye sockets flared with cold purple soul-fire as his gaze drifted from Zhao Wuji’s silk clothes to the blood-crusted bandages on Lin Ke’s arms. “A mortal merchant and an Azure Cloud student walking into Vault 0x7F? You take me for a fool, human?”
Two hundred cutthroats drew rusted cleavers and bone-daggers all at once, the rasp of iron echoing off the giant beast ribs.
Zhao Wuji took half a step back. His hand instinctively reached for his spirit-stone purse, but Ghost-Bane raised an iron-tipped finger.
