For a long while, the youth didn’t know what to say, and this made the masked cultivator uncertain, judging by his fluctuation. The man, however, didn’t approach Red.

“Are you alright, young fellow?” he asked.

The youth looked over at him, seeing melted flesh seeping from beneath his mask. This wasn’t just the slow, rotting state that he found Domeron to be in back then. Rather, it seemed like the flesh of everyone ahead of him was decomposing at an incredible pace, as if their doom was arriving quickly.

“Red, what is going on?!” Aurelia detected his unusual state and her voice reached his ears.

He didn’t respond to her, though, looking around the trees for something. He extended his crimson sense in every direction he could, even beneath their feet, but nothing seemed to appear in it. Nothing was heading their direction or waiting in ambush, and yet the vision in front of him continued to consolidate.

A premonition, though more dire than the one from before. A sense of impending doom, and the simple knowledge he couldn’t stop it.

This wasn’t a matter he could avert by just walking away like before. This was an unstoppable tide, one that wouldn’t be denied.

The deformed, terror-stricken faces of the villagers from before flashed through his mind.

“Red?!” Allen’s alarmed voice also reached him. “Are you alright?!”

The youth wasn’t even paying attention to his surroundings any longer. Instead, he tried to think of a way out in the brief amount of time he knew he still had.

In the end, only one thing came to his mind.

Red exclaimed towards the darkness of the trees. “I don’t have the dagger!”

“What are you doing?!” Aurelia’s incredulous voice reached his ears.

There was a sense of confusion coming from the fluctuation of his companions. The masked cultivator, in particular, seemed to have been put on guard and was looking around their surroundings.

“T-The dagger…?” Rimold’s bewildered voice came from above the bird.

Red frowned as he looked over at his companions. Their bodies were still in a state of quick decomposition, making it clear that nothing he said made this being change their mind. They were still all going to die.

‘Damn it, of course they know I don’t have the dagger!’

The being had found out about the dagger on its own before, so why would it be unable to now? The youth didn’t know if he could even reason with them in the first place, but he knew this was the only way he could stop it.

An idea came to his mind. A faint possibility, but still one worth exploring.

“I can get you the dagger!”

His voice echoed through the clearing, his lung veins increasing its volume. A still atmosphere permeated around them, and the masked cultivator finally noticed there seemed to be something wrong with their surroundings. He looked around in alarm, but just like Red, he found nothing out of the ordinary.

The youth, for his part, looked at his companion’s bodies in a daze. The rotting slowed down to a crawl, though now they were mostly skeletons with bits and pieces of flesh and skin still attached to their bones. Whatever he said seemed to have worked to slow down the incoming doom, though it didn’t reverse it as it did to Domeron once they changed course.

The risk was still very much here.

“R-Red, what are you talking about?” Allen asked.

Red could feel the young master’s gaze on him, even with his absent eyes.

“What is going on here?” The cultivator also looked over at him, though his tone seemed far less friendly.

The youth, however, continued to ignore them. He could feel there was another gaze on him, one he could not pinpoint but that was still there all the same.

They had made themselves known. They were listening.

“I can get you the dagger…” Red repeated his offer. “Just let them go.”

“H-hey, who are you talking to?!” Rimold asked with alarm.

“Red, what do you mean by that?” Allen, on the other hand, sounded shaken and concerned.

There was no response from whomever the youth was talking to. Yet, the silence and the fact his companions were still alive seemed to be the being’s answer in its own way.

Perhaps that was what it sought all along.

Red sighed and looked over at the cultivator. “Go. Leave.”

There was some hesitation in the man’s fluctuation.

“No!” Allen shouted. “I’m not leaving you alone!”

The young master jumped from the bird’s back before landing on the ground and running towards Red. His skeletal form had not disappeared, but the power and emotion in his movements were clear to see.

The youth frowned, still staring at the masked cultivator. “Go! Take him or else everyone dies here!”

The last bit of hesitation in the man disappeared. He pointed at Allen, and a rope made of blue light extended from his finger before wrapping around the young master’s form.

Allen didn’t even have time to dodge before he was tied up.

“No!” He struggled against his constraints, to no avail. “Damn you, Red! I won’t forgive you, you hear me?!”

The cultivator pulled back the rope, and Allen flew back into his grip as if he weighed nothing. Then, without hesitation, the man jumped onto the bird while carrying him, flying up over six meters to land right on its neck.

“Go!” He made a signal at the eagle.

The monster let out a shriek that shook the trees around it and began to flap its wings. The wind generated by the movement was so strong that Red almost fell back, having to kneel just to not be pushed away.

Soon enough, though, the bird was in the air above, and quickly distancing himself from the area as if its life depended on it. In truth, it probably did.

Even from dozens of meters away, though, a desperate voice still reached him.

“You fucking bastard! I will never forgive you if you die, Red! You have to live! Do you hear me?! You have to…”

The voice started to fade as the enormous eagle flew away in the night sky. It was so fast that Red quickly lost track of it, but even then, his heart wasn’t at ease.

After all, right up until the moment they had left, their bodies hadn’t returned to normal in his vision. The threat was still there, and he could feel that even hundreds of meters above the air, the being could still reach them if it wanted to. Yet, it did no such thing.

The surrounding air was still heavy with a stillness that the youth could almost taste. There were no sounds of animal, of wind, or of anything else. Only this oppressive silence that weighed down on his mind more than even the gaze of the Moon once did.

“Why didn’t you run with them?!” Aurelia’s angered voice reached his ears. “You stupid mor-”

“Stupid? No,” a foreign voice cut her off. “I would say he is quite smart.”

“H-How are you…? The woman stumbled over her own words in shock.

It was quite clear what surprised her. Everything she said was transmitted directly into Red’s ears, not even travelling through the air like sound waves did. Yet, somehow, someone had intruded on their conversation, listening to everything that Aurelia said.

“Why act surprised?” the voice asked. “I thought such tricks were commonly taught in your sect.”

They spoke in a neutral tone, making it hard to discern whether the one speaking was a man or a woman.

Red looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice, but he knew it was a pointless task. It felt as if the voice was coming from all around him all at once, yet it somehow reached his ears with clarity.

“Are you the ghost that killed the villagers?” the youth asked.

He didn’t feel nervous as he spoke, simply because he knew there was nothing he could do to get out of this situation. The crimson mist in his body was exhausted, the crystal core was depleted - all of his trump cards were exhausted, and even if they were still functioning, he was skeptical they would work against whoever this was.

“Ghost?” The voice chuckled. “Is that what you think I am?”

Red was confused. “What are you if not that?”

They sighed. “I suppose it’s too much to expect you to know even that... You’re not even a necromancer proper, after all.”

The youth frowned but kept silent.

The voice continued. “Still, you must be commended. I never expected you to be able to detect traces of my curse, much less see through my plans. You can count yourself amidst a select few that were ever able to make me feel frustrated… Alas, it was nothing more than a fluke at the end of the day.”

‘The way they speak…’

“Who are you?” Red asked.

“This is not something you need to know.” the voice said. “The only reason why I even deigned to speak to you is to make my intentions clear - get me my dagger and I will let your companions go.”

“Only my companions?” the youth frowned.

“You heard me. You, more than anyone else in this gods-forsaken kingdom, is someone who I just can’t afford to let live.”

“Do you truly expect us to follow your com-?” Aurelia interjected.

“Be silent, maggot!”

The voice boomed in Red’s ears, and he heard a scream of pain from Aurelia.

The voice laughed in derision. “You think I am afraid of you? A mere core disciple of a defunct sect? If only you knew how many of your kind I killed. How I tore their arrogant tongues out of their mouths, how I defiled and used their corpses in death… So confident and courageous in life, yet begging for mercy and bargaining in every way possible when I had them in my hand.”

A maniacal edge touched the voice, which seemed to affect the youth’s very soul.

“You should know your place. To me, you are as mortals are to you - no more than an ant.” They said. “The only reason I hesitated to be so heavy-handed at first was because I saw that man’s touch in you. Yet, now I can see that he has truly abandoned you as soon as he felt my presence in the region, like the coward he always was… Worry not, though, he will get his due one day, only none of you will be there to see it.”

Aurelia offered no remark to this, or rather, she couldn’t do it as she suffered in pain.

Red was in deep thought before he spoke again. “The dagger for my companions’ lives?”

“Correct.” the voice said.

The youth hesitated. “… Why not take it yourself?”

They laughed. “Draw your own conclusions, but believe me when I say this is a favor I’m granting you out of admiration for your abilities, and not out of absolute need.”

Red, of course, didn’t believe this. In fact, he suspected that they were probably incapable of entering due to the formation surrounding the town, hence why they requested his help. At this, many plans started to form in his mind.

“Since I have clarified your situation, you can now go on your way.” the voice said. “Once you enter town, I will give you half an hour to get this dagger, or else your friends will follow you in death, too.”

Red nodded, turning around to walk away with dozens of calculations in his mind. Even if things were as bad as this, he would always search for a way out, no matter how slim it may be.

“Ah, I’m sorry, but I forget about something else.” The voice spoke up again, causing the youth to pause.

Suddenly, he felt many fluctuations walk into his detection range. His expression paled, and he looked around. There, just peeking through the trees, he saw dozens of human figures of different shapes and sizes, all walking slowly towards him. Their flesh was charred until almost nothing remained but bones, and yet they were still walking.

All of them, without exception, had fluctuations belonging to Lesser Ring Realm undead. That, however, wasn’t even the thing that frightened Red to his very core.

“Many people in their day thought that burning corpses could prevent them from being resurrected as undead.” the voice said. “They were right in some ways, but it was not a fool-proof method. Life force is not something that can be easily extinguished, and as long as trace amounts of it remain in these corpses, an experienced necromancer can draw it out of them… There is no escape from our grasp.”

The charred corpses stepped out into the light, and Red could even spot what seemed like children among them. He knew who these people were.

The corpses of the villagers he and Domeron had burned.

The voice continued. “These will be your escorts. If you fail to come out of town in time, they will kill and convert every single being in there, including whatever friends of yours you still have in there… Now, kill any thoughts of resistance from your mind and do as I say, and maybe you will still be able to die a dignified death.”