"There really is a ruin ahead!" Shen Mu ran with the herd, and all at once saw the land ahead drop away. A canyon opened before him, and within it many ancient buildings still stood — palaces tumbled rank on rank, broad plazas, towering halls. And at the front of these ruins rose a gateway of immense height, spanning the canyon from wall to wall, its thick ornamental pillars carved with coiling dragons. The herd was charging straight at that gateway, pouring into the ruins. "The darkness is coming!" Shen Mu looked up, his scalp going numb. The darkness was like ink pouring down the cliffs from above the canyon, flooding into it. Soon it would reach the gateway of the ruins, and drown it. The herd grew more frenzied still, hurling itself madly at the gateway; it had become a deadly thing — beasts colliding, beasts trampling, and one misstep meant being crushed to powder. But there was no time to care about any of that now. To fail to get inside the ruins before the darkness came meant a death far worse. Shen Mu charged madly forward and suddenly seized the tail of a colossal beast. That creature was magnificent, like a black mountain racing at speed, sending strange beasts flying and flattening them wherever it passed. And the beasts left behind in its wake leaped up too, seizing its tail and letting the giant carry them into the ruins. Shen Mu looked down. Beasts that were ordinarily fierce as devils now clung trembling to that tail, not daring to stir. He looked back and saw Senior Brother Chu, Senior Sister Liu and the other three of the five who hunted him also racing madly toward the ruins, not far behind. At last, before the darkness drowned the gateway, the giant beast plunged through the vast portal, and in the same instant the darkness, black as ink, swallowed the gate. Senior Brother Chu and Senior Sister Liu and the rest came screaming up, but only Senior Brother Chu, Senior Sister Liu and one other youth made it through before the darkness closed over the gateway. Of the two remaining youths, one was a step too late — only a single arm thrust through the portal; the other got his face, his chest, his legs, half his belly and one arm inside, while the rest of him was caught by the darkness. Senior Brother Chu landed beyond the gate and at once reached out to grab his two junior brothers. He caught one by the hand and hauled hard, dragging a bleached skeleton out of the darkness. Before his other hand could seize the second youth, he saw the boy fall face down. Senior Brother Chu and Senior Sister Liu shuddered with dread: the youth's front still had flesh and blood, but his back had none at all. Something in the darkness had eaten the flesh from his back clean away. "What in the darkness is it? How can such a thing exist?" cried Senior Sister Liu shrilly. Senior Brother Chu steadied himself, spat out a foul breath, and said in a low voice, "When a man dies, his lamp goes out. Our two junior brothers died in the defense of the Way, slaying demons. They died where they should, and they died gloriously. That little spawn of evil deliberately waited until the very moment before the darkness came to reach these ruins — he meant to use the darkness to kill us!" The other youth, choking with righteous fury, said hatefully, "He is in these ruins too, and darkness is all around — there is nowhere for him to run! Find him and cut him into ten thousand pieces, to avenge our two junior brothers!" "There he is!" Senior Sister Liu saw Shen Mu leap down from the giant beast's tail and shrilled, "Little monster, you killed two of my junior brothers, and you still think you can run?" Shen Mu was sick with rage. "You are the ones who hunted me down for no reason at all, chasing me without letup until nightfall, and got yourselves killed — what has that to do with me? I never provoked you, and yet you came to kill me. How am I the guilty one?" Senior Sister Liu ground her teeth. "You dare to quibble, you little wretch..." "Demon, my ass!" Shen Mu said furiously. "Granny and I killed one deer to make clothes, and you call us demons. You killed a whole herd of deer, and you still dare to call us demons?" Senior Brother Chu's face darkened; he stepped forward. "This little monster is a glib twister of men's hearts. There is no need to waste words on him. Kill him outright!" The three were about to make their move when low, rumbling beast growls came from all around. Startled, they looked about and saw that these ruins had gathered eight hundred to a thousand strange beasts, among them no few lord-class beasts, every one of them staring their way with unfriendly faces and murder in their eyes. Senior Brother Chu thought this boded ill and quietly stepped back a pace. And when the beasts saw that they did not act, they too grew calm and made no further move. Shen Mu clicked his tongue in wonder. These beasts would ordinarily tear at one another over territory and prey, yet now they stood perfectly peaceable — very strange indeed. "Could these beasts have laid down a rule, that no killing is permitted within the ruins?" Shen Mu blinked. Many of these beasts were sworn natural enemies that would fight to the death, yet here they stood in peace, which meant his guess was right. The villagers often said that strange beasts had spirit, and the Xuanliao demon ape he had seen could even speak, calling him little bean-sprout over and over. These beasts might truly have set rules here. Senior Brother Chu had hit on the same thought and breathed a sigh of relief. "Do not act tonight," he said quietly. "Wait for dawn, and then kill him at once." Senior Sister Liu and the other youth nodded. Shen Mu looked around. The ruins sprawled over a vast area, like a city set down within the canyon. Strange beasts were everywhere, and yet upon the plaza there was not a single one. On that plaza there were only skeletons — human bones, two or three hundred of them at least, dead here for some unknown reason, still dressed in splendid garments. "These people were all women." Strangely, the women's skeletons all sat cross-legged in neat ranks — fifteen rows of fifteen dry bones each — as though a calamity had struck while they sat in meditation, leaving them no time to escape, turning them in an instant into dry bones. He came to the edge of the plaza and studied them closely. The women's skeletons had a leader, seated cross-legged before the ranks of bones. All of them, leader and ranks alike, faced that vast gateway, turned toward the same direction. "Senior Brother, look!" Senior Sister Liu's eyes lit up. She jerked her chin toward the skeletons on the plaza and whispered, "There are treasures in these skeletons' hands! Every one of them is holding something!" Senior Brother Chu swept them with his gaze, and his heart began to pound. Some skeletons cradled precious swords, some gripped whisks, some carried jade pendants, some held jeweled vases — weapons of every kind. The treasures still shone bright and gleaming, as though fresh from the forge; plainly they were remarkable things beyond price. Most striking of all was the bright pearl resting in the palm of the leader's skeleton, floating there in the hollow of the hand. Within the pearl, mists and clouds seemed to drift and flow. This place was nothing less than a vast treasury! "If we could only get our hands on these treasures..." Senior Sister Liu said softly, her breathing a little quick. Even the treasury of the Five Elders of Lanjiang was not one ten-thousandth of this! With treasures like these, they could found their own house and become a sect in their own right! Senior Brother Chu's eyes flickered; he smiled. "Heaven has dealt generously with us! Fifth Junior Brother, go and fetch those treasures." Fifth Junior Brother stepped forward. He had barely entered the plaza when the strands of a whisk in one woman's skeletal hand lifted gently, and each strand, as though alive, began to grow; one of them came before Fifth Junio