The destruction of the five Ghost Sect Elders was swift, cold and exact, and fully empty of mercy.
Surrounded by nearly five thousand hijacked armored corpses, the five bone palanquins were isolated islands of purple silk in a sea of bristling, advancing iron. The headless body-refiners carrying the palanquins, their neck pins also claimed by Lin Tao’s broadcast override, suddenly halted. Then they knelt in the frozen mud, dumping the scared elders onto the frozen shale.
Elder Ku was the first to fall.
He scrambled on hands and knees through the yellow slush. Then, attempting to crawl beneath an overturned siege ram, three hijacked cavalry corpses came together upon him. Their six-foot glaives struck at the same time in an upright downward thrust, pinning his robes and limbs to the frozen earth. Before the elder could invoke his protective ghost charms, a fourth corpse brought its heavy hardwood shield crashing down across his skull. It crushed his brain cortex into crimson bone meal.
Elder Ming, Elder Sha, and Elder You tried to form a triangle of defensive soul fire, channeling their combined Core Formation training into a roaring vortex of black flames.
“Nether Soul Barrier!” Elder Ming screamed, spitting a mouthful of blood onto his bone scepter. “Hold the barrier until the Patriarch arrives!”
