Two dozen necromancers, give or take a few, were charging at them from either side, but Bianca couldn’t help but feel excited. She hadn’t lost all sense of self-preservation, but she was beginning to get used to her own strength. Approaching the peak of the third realm, her Tyrannical Deity and other skills bestowed her with endless might, and if she was willing to unleash her anger and her fury, then it grew even further.

  Without that other voice in her head keeping it at bay, she had anger in abundance, especially after recent events at the town they’d left behind – and who better to unleash it on than the eternal foe of the next woman she wanted to fuck?

  As they neared, Bianca was able to see that the necromancers hadn’t come on foot, instead riding a variety of skeletal monstrosities that were able to carry them at a decent pace. If they were able to charge in like this, they could gain an advantage in the fight, and she wasn’t about to let them have it.

  Channelling her power into her sword, she filled it to the brim before releasing one big ssh, all of that power surging out far past the range she could control it. Nevertheless, the crackling crimson surged forth, rushing towards her foes, easily surging through some of the weaker, more damaged structures and crossing the gap in seconds.

  Still, seconds were quite a lot of time to cultivators. Many leapt up on their mounts before the ssh could reach them.

  The three or so that failed to evade were engulfed in crimson, their mounts likely returning to the state of death while the riders fell to the ground, each damaged by her power to at least a minor extent. The others were able to leap over it, and after nding back onto the ground, they sped up, resuming their charge as though nothing happened.

  Theirs mounts carried them awfully quickly to their position, leaving Bianca with too little time to ssh again, instead forcing her into a defensive position alongside Song Ming, stepping up in front of her since her Abyssal Shield would be more effective than anything her pet could do.

  Luckily, her pet had been preparing her runes as their foes approached, and thus unleashed them just as they were about to strike. Numerous dark teal explosions briefly outshone the light from the array beneath them, managing to hit another four necromancers and engulf them in light. The others were out of reach, or managed to escape with minor damage, leaving six to form a semi-circle around Bianca and her pet.

  “You brought a reaper right to her grave! Stand down, and we may-”

  “Get fucked!” Bianca’s eloquent – in her dreams, anyway – reply came with a quick ssh towards the nearest necromancer, managing to catch him off-guard and slicing right through his mount, forcing him off it as he blocked the crimson with a sudden manifestation of bones.

  They shielded him from harm, following him as he leapt back, before he unleashed them all in a barrage towards Bianca.

  Her barrier blocked them with ease, but it gave the other necromancers the opportunity to use their own skills. One raised skeletal warriors from the ground, another threw out a set of bones that stayed in the air, hovering around him, and a third impaled his steed with some kind of skill that caused a wave of energy to surge out to his allies, flowing from it while the skeletal being – a strange mixture of horse and goat, perhaps quite literally – twitched at the top.

  “If that’s your choice, then die!” the dismounted necromancer shouted, prompting his allies to all attack at once.

  Bone shards, strange curses and all kinds of skeletal monstrosities rushed towards her, but before she could envision a way to deal with them, she felt a rush of energy behind her. Her spiritual perception revealed the reaper approaching, her scythe held at the ready, overwhelming light gathered at the bde.

  “It is not yet our time. Only those who have vioted the Compact must die,” Shouge Zhe procimed, her words seeming to echo with unknown power.

  In an instant, she moved to Bianca’s front, a swing of her scythe tearing through a skeleton that had been charging at her. Then, lowering her weapon, she sliced near the ground, as though harvesting crops. Eerie light blossomed near where her bde had been, and it quickly spread outwards, as though reaching for the necromancers standing before her.

  The mounted foes instantly retreated by a few steps, but one of the ones on the ground chose to stand his ground as he conjured bone spikes – too numerous to count – to impale them. However, before they could be unleashed at them, the light reached him, and suddenly his face grew pale, his eyes becoming misty.

  In an instant, it was as though he aged a hundred years, dropping to the ground without a hint of life lingering in his body.

  Bianca saw an opening with one of the necromancers, the one that had sacrificed his steed to empower his allies, and sshed towards him, sundering the spike and striking his side before he could evade. Although it didn’t kill him in one go, the crimson energy rampaged inside his flesh, leaving him screaming in pain and on the brink of death.

  “You cannot flee from destined death. Accept it!” Shouge Zhe, meanwhile, lifted her weapon and leapt into the air, sshing in the direction of the necromancers.

  It unleashed a wave of light that seemed able to cut them all with ease, but more importantly, an overwhelming aura seemed to follow in its wake. Where it passed, all skills of the necromancers dissipated, their skeletal minions fell apart, and the ground itself seemed to be cleansed, in some way.

  The four surviving necromancers put their powers together and just barely managed to block the wave, but the aura made their bone shield crumble into naught.

  Her scythe was still surging with power, so as she nded and seemed to point with the top of her scythe, targeting one of the necromancers, before she brought it back, readying a swing. Bianca couldn’t quite keep up with her after she suddenly disappeared, moving even faster than with her previous skill.

  She appeared right next to that necromancer, and even though he attempted to raise another bone barrier – while the others sought to guard him with strange skills and energy – Shouge Zhe’s scythe was able to slice right through him without any difficulty, as though none of his defences even existed.

  Although she was rather shocked by how exactly she was able to pull all of this off, Bianca still used the opportunity to take down another necromancer, one who also thought to use the chaos to strike at Bianca. She wasn’t able to guide her minions to strike at Bianca before a crimson wave crashed into her, blood spttering onto the streets as she crumbled to the ground.

  “How are you doing this, reaper? You’re in the third realm!”

  “The dead ought to remain silent!” Shouge Zhe suddenly thrust her scythe up into the air, all of the power on the bde gathering into one final invocation, “Die!”

  The necromancers seemed confused, but only for a moment. Suddenly, all of them froze up, some clutching at their chests, others stopping with eyes wide. All of them, no matter what they thought to do, ended up crumbling to the floor, dead.

  “Whoa… I couldn’t even join in, Mistress…” Song Ming, who had been trying and failing to set up runes underneath the necromancers, pouted, “What was all that…”

  “A safety measure, to bestow upon a reaper the sembnce of higher realms,” the reaper replied, lowering her now dull scythe and returning to the centre of their battlefield.

  Her st invocation cleared up not only their side, but also the side left to the kitsune and the others, although from what gnces Bianca could spare, they seemed to be handling it just fine on their own. Xue Yaling alone was akin to an army with the versatility of her various skills and artefacts, and when combined with Huang Su’s overwhelming strength, the few necromancers that responded to them right away could hardly do much.

  “Still, what are we going to do now? Although we’ve dispatched those idiots, more will certainly come for us, especially if there are any higher realm cultivators around,” Bianca asked, “Is this thing able to bring us right to the core of the array?”

  “No, that would be awfully risky if a necromancer was to ever learn and be able to control this method. As unlikely as this was – is – I wouldn’t expect those defilers to pass up the opportunity to get in and take control of our defences,” the reaper said, waving her hand to urge them closer, “Now, stand within the light. We must advance.”

  Bianca wasn’t about to argue with that, at least. They gathered in the middle, and when the bottom of the reaper’s scythe struck the ground, light overwhelmed their vision.

  She felt as though something grabbed her and threw her over the horizon, an instant sensation of force that was as soft as it could be, yet never soft enough to cushion the sheer intensity of it. The moment she could open her eyes again without being blinded by the light, she found herself elsewhere, standing atop one of the inner walls.

  Above, a great structure that had an open front, a pavilion of sorts, numerous pilrs supporting the roof at the front, each decorated with skull and bone-like patterns. In a way, it fit both the necromancers and the reapers, although with the way that most of the pilrs were damaged or defaced in some way, it was clear that the necromancers didn’t appreciate the resembnce.

  This was clearly close to the ultimate seat of power in the Reaper’s Grave, and Bianca’s ultimate goal. Although she couldn’t peer into the inside of the structure from her position – the angle and a cliff in her way making it difficult – she was already starting to imagine what it could be like to sit in there, on a throne, and let in an audience of subservient, reverent subjects that would quite literally kneel before her.

  Below, the battlefield where they had just fought stood out, the light there still fading out slowly.

  And to the other side, the peak of the coffin-like mountain was awfully close, now. If no obstacles presented themselves, she could’ve sprinted up there within an hour even without her cultivation – at least, hypothetically. It was hard to recall quite what her limits were back then.

  However, the key part was ‘no obstacles’, which…

  “Shit. I knew this would happen,” Bianca muttered, looking at the dozens of necromancers standing there, seemingly ready to sprint down to the lower levels before they spotted their little group standing right there, “Huang Su!”

  Just shouting that name seemed to stun them for a moment, as they likely pondered why a Sect Master would be here, of all pces. It was also clear from their auras that none were above the fifth realm, meaning that the Phoenix Sect’s leader would be able to take them down with retive ease, at least in theory.

  In practise, due to their presence, it was clear that the Sect Master would be somewhat limited, and would likely struggle to an extent.

  Nevertheless, their goal was never to defeat all the necromancers with just force.

  As the Sect Master unleashed a wave of fming feathers to obscure them, Bianca looked to the reaper to guide them. Fortunately, Shouge Zhe didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity and rushed forward, with Bianca and the others following in her footsteps. The reaper didn’t head for the stairs up, where the necromancers stood, but instead towards the cliff, as though they could just walk through the wall before them.

  As it turned out, that wasn’t too far off. The Reaper released some of her energy into the stone, and it suddenly opened up into a small passage way, in a less… esoteric manner than the passage in the wall below.

  Whatever the mechanism behind it was, Bianca didn’t really have the time to question it before she had to rush inside, looking out to see the Sect Master bombarding their foes with fming feathers as she followed behind them, putting up the biggest, strongest barrier of fme she could before getting in just before the opening closed.

  “Now, we have only a little time before they figure out a way to break inside. Bianca, you had said that you might be able to take control of the array, didn’t you?”

  “Potentially, I’ve a decent grasp of spiritual perception,” she responded, not missing the kitsune nearly failing to contain a guffaw at the statement, “So, if I get to the core, I might be able to take control.”

  “Then I will assist you. The others can keep us safe for long enough – and if we cannot succeed, it is best that we evaporate without leaving a trace than leave our bodies for the defilers to abuse,” the reaper stated coldly, “Will you need anything else?”

  “You could call me the Sect Mistress, if you want,” Bianca said, almost jokingly, but Shouge Zhe’s expression indicated that she took it in the most serious manner.

  More interestingly, it appeared that she was actually considering it, rather than simply swiping the suggestion aside as nonsense. After an awfully long time, given that they were in danger of being chased down by the necromancers outside, she finally nodded.

  “It would only be proper, even if your chosen title is… Sect Mistress, let us grant this pce a second chance,” the reaper said, and Bianca agreed.

  She couldn’t be happier to help, now that the reaper would start addressing her as such. After all, if she just happened to omit the first part of the title, wouldn’t it be awfully convenient for her in the future?

  Regardless, she couldn’t dwell on it now, and had to follow the reaper further in through a narrow, humid passageway. There was moss growing on the dark-grey stone, and if the floor was any smoother, slipping on it would’ve been inevitable, but it was just rough enough for them to travel along safely. There were quite a few forks on the road, but the reaper seemed to know exactly where to go, leading them along as though she had been here many times before.

  Ultimately, they arrived at an open chamber, roughly the size of her former school’s gymnasium, albeit roughly rounded.

  There, in the middle, was the core of the array, a glowing point with numerous markings in the ground that was responsible for controlling the array that covered the entirety of the Reaper’s Grave. Along with the entrance they had used to get here, there appeared to be numerous other tunnels leading away from it, perhaps to other secret entrances, or perhaps to mislead people further.

  ‘And in our situation, it will probably leave plenty of opportunities for enemies to come to us,’ Bianca frowned, but forced herself away from considering their vulnerability.

  As she approached the middle, she looked to the reaper, who walked beside her.

  “So, since you’re helping, I’m guessing I’d need your energy in order to be able to manipute the array, yes?”

  Shouge Zhe nodded, “Only one that uses the Reaper’s Song can… easily… interact with it. Therefore, if you want to have the easiest time of it, you will need me to permit your energy into the array, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  “Do you not intend to prepare in any way?”

  “As I said, I’m good with spiritual perception,” Bianca was able to speak with utmost confidence, ‘With the Weave, even I can control it, and if I just have the Demonic Tyrant do it, then…’

  She didn’t want to appear overly confident, though, so she didn’t expin her possession of the Weave – and she was never going to share the truth about the Demonic Tyrant with anyone anyway. Instead, she just kneeled by the central point of the array, waiting for the reaper to sit down beside her, and pced her hand on the carvings in the ground.

  “Well, let’s get to it. Huang Su…”

  “Yes, Mistress?”

  “Keep everyone safe, please.”

  “I… will do what I can, Mistress,” she promised, and she seemed to do so genuinely, giving Bianca enough peace of mind to look back to the array.

  She couldn’t estimate how long this would take, so she desperately hoped that it wouldn’t give the necromancers any chances to strike at her, or her pet… or the others, of course. Unfortunately, she had the feeling that she wouldn’t be lucky enough for that.