In the swirling, rain-soaked gloom of the pit, a blood-stained figure stood, gaze brimming with venomous hate as it watched them depart. Beneath its feet, the muddy ground quivered with soft tremors—the last desperate struggle of Blood Scissors and the six other martial artists, who were now trapped below.0

Their bodies were smothered by piles of bones—ghastly, silent remnants whose eye sockets and mouths were black voids like melted wax. These eerie shapes clamped their hands over Blood Scissors’ mouth, dragging him deeper.0

Summoning his seventh rank power, Blood Scissors whipped his flattened arms about like blades, slashing furiously. But every swing simply passed through the skeletal limbs as though they were mist. Meanwhile, the bony grip on him held fast.0

Though he fought with every ounce of strength, he advanced only an inch or two. The others, weaker than he was, had already been hauled into the pit’s darkest depths. With a final jolt, Blood Scissors also sank beneath the churning mass of corpses, his screams cut short in the silent darkness.1

By the time his pouch dangled at his side once more, it had turned into a bleached-white hand bone, and the 50 taels of gold inside proved to be nothing more than mud clotted...0