Chapter Text
It was a small party that gathered to watch the esteemed Hanguang-jun sacrifice himself for the good of the cultivation world. His brother was there, impeccably serene; the small contingent of Lan disciples at his back was as silent and stoic as jade statues. The Jiang contingent was smaller still, and far less peaceful: they shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, bit at their lips, fidgeted with their swords. Still, none of them spoke, lest their leader turn and take out his rage on them: Sandu Shengshou stood with his arms folded, thunder on his brow, and watched the proceedings with unwavering fury. From time to time lightning would crackle through his fingers, springing to life apparently unbidden, and the nearby Nie cultivators would put their hands uneasily on their weapons.
Theirs was by far the largest contingent, surpassing even the Jin who stood off to one side and looked as uncomfortable as their leader. Now, as before, the Nie sect was the driving force in the war, and their numbers reflected it even here.
They stood in a sparse clearing at the entrance to the Burial Mounds, watching the trees uncertainly. No one had come out to greet them. The terms had been established over several months of correspondence; still, they had expected a representative of some sort, some final formality. Instead there was only the narrow dirt path, untidy with dead leaves, under an arch of gnarled branches. The resentful energy that emanated from the tree line was faint. Once, it had been strong enough to turn an unwary traveler’s stomach, to send even a strong cultivator to their knees from prolonged exposure; the going theory was that it had been repurposed into protective wards of some kind. No one knew what kind, despite many efforts over the years to investigate the Yiling Laozu’s defenses. All they knew for sure was that it was something unorthodox – something new.
Jin Guangshan, were he still alive, would have made some long-winded speech that everyone would have to politely pretend to listen to. His son, wan and stiff at the head of his golden disciples, did not seem inclined to say a single word. No more verbose were the other major sect leaders, all of them too young and battle-worn to have any interest or patience for flowery words. The minor sects had not attended; many of them would have preferred to, but in the end it was not considered strategic to bring a crowd.
“He’s not coming,” Chifeng-zun finally said. His words were punctuated by a vicious crackle from Zidian.
Hanguang-jun stepped forward. His voice was utterly without inflection as he said, “Then I will go.”
He bowed to his brother, with the exact depth of a first disciple bowing to his sect leader. They shared a long, speaking look. Then he turned and strode calmly down the path, toward the twisted trees.
Hanguang-jun walked alone into the Burial Mounds, the white of his robes shining bright as a beacon against the drifting mists, and did not once look back as he vanished into the clinging darkness.
Not one hour later, the first corpses emerged. Their crumbling bodies were lined up in precise military formation, their rotted spines as straight as any soldier’s. Their tattered clothes were too stained with blood and grave dirt to show clan allegiances, but the assembled cultivators could not help but look for familiar faces among their ranks.
There were a few. The attacks against the Burial Mounds had finally dwindled off to nothing some years previous, but there had never actually been a truce before now. Nearly every sect present, and many that were not, had left behind bodies in those dark woods.
Twenty corpses marched out of the Burial Mounds and formed up neatly into four columns. Their eyes were glazed and white; their movements were jerky and mindless. It was a tiny force, but still the silence in the clearing was tense. Any veteran of the Sunshot Campaign knew just how much damage twenty corpse puppets could do.
Before the rising wave of uneasy mutterings could crest, the fierce corpses all took a single step to the side in sharp unison, opening a corridor through their center. The Lan, who were directly in front of that corridor, were far too disciplined to gasp, but their eyes went wide, and their fine silks rustled with their minute flinches.
The Ghost General strode out from between the silent ranks of corpse soldiers. The disciples of other sects, less composed than the Lan, gasped and stumbled back in a ragged wave of shock.
The edges of his plain black robes fluttered in a nonexistent wind. Faint black tendrils of mist curled around his arms and eddied at his feet. His hair hung loosely, utterly unadorned, and when it fluttered in that same ethereal wind, the black veins climbing up his neck showed starkly against his unnaturally pale skin. His eyes were clear and dark, unsettlingly alive.
He stopped several paces away from Zewu-jun, who watched him impassively. The Ghost General raised his arms and bowed deeply, with impeccable formality. Zewu-jun inclined his head in polite acknowledgement.
The Ghost General then turned to the Nie and offered a far more shallow bow, though no less courteous. He bowed as shallowly to the Jin, and did not appear offended when Jin Zixuan was too rigid with tension to even nod in return.
Sandu Shengshou’s scowl grew, impossibly, stormier when the Ghost General walked over to stand before him. Zidian sparked to furious life, and this time its sparks did not subside. Only the Jiang were close enough to mark the Ghost General’s slight stumble at the sight. He recovered quickly, and no one there knew him well enough to read the signs of anxiety on his stiff, dead face.
The Ghost General raised his arms and bowed to Sandu Shengshou as deeply as a servant bows to a lord. “We are yours to command,” he said, and did not rise. His voice was dry and rasping as brittle leaves upon the autumn ground.
Sandu Shengshou reared back. Panic and disgust flared briefly in his face before his habitual anger overtook them. “Chifeng-zun is our general,” he snarled. “He will command you.”
The Ghost General straightened and shook his head. “Wei-gongzi was quite clear,” he said. (Everyone noted with great interest that he said gongzi, master, and not zongzhu, sect leader. There had never been concrete evidence that anyone lived in the Burial Mounds but the Yiling Laozu with his army of corpses, but there were mutterings that he styled himself a sect leader anyway.) “We are yours to command.”
Sandu Shengshou’s lip curled. “Fine,” he snapped. Zidian crackled. “Then keep up.” He turned on his heel and stormed away. His disciples parted before him and fell into place in his wake, casting uneasy glances over their shoulders at the Ghost General as they did.
The Ghost General did not signal to the waiting corpse puppets in any visible way, but the stronger cultivators in the clearing felt the pulse of resentful energy that traveled between them. The Ghost General set off after the Jiang, keeping a respectful distance, and the corpse soldiers marched after him in two neat columns.
One by one, the other sects followed, sharing uneasy glances all the while. Last to go were the Lan. Zewu-jun stood still as a statue while the clearing emptied, gazing sightlessly at the spot where his brother had vanished into the resentful mists of the Burial Mounds. His disciples waited patiently, wrapped in their own contemplations.
It was some time before he finally turned his back on the twisted trees. Slowly, with a careful grace that any Lan could recognize as the deliberate stride of someone for whom every step was a separate effort of will, he walked away.