The boatman in his straw cloak plied the oar, and they set out into the sea of fog. Shen Mu stood in the bow and looked back; the Village Head still had not appeared, and his heart sank with a jolt.

The demon clouds had already flooded into the village and would soon reach the dock, but by now the skiff had entered the sea of fog and vanished.

"The Village Head's powers are so great—he will surely return safe!

" Shen Mu consoled himself so, and sat cross-legged beneath the lantern in the bow; he took the Chubao Sword from his back and laid it across his knees, quietly watching the surging fog ahead.

The power stored in the Deaf Elder's diagram was already dispersing, the strength of the dragon's blood was fading too, and the great furnace was dimming as well, soon to vanish. The little boat drifted on, farther and farther.

Suddenly the fog beneath the boat churned, and a skeleton in ragged clothes leaped up from the sea of fog and pounced at Shen Mu on the boat.

Shen Mu seemed to have long foreseen that leap: the moment the skeleton's skull broke the surface of the fog-sea, the Chubao Sword on his knees was already drawn.

The Cutting Sword Style! Shen Mu remained seated, unmoving, eyes fixed ahead; he swept the sword in a level cut, and the clothed skeleton hurriedly raised the human-bone pipe in its hand, but could not block that stunning stroke. The Chubao Sword cut across its neck before the human-bone pipe could rise, passing in a flash; its head swayed, the skull tumbled into the sea of fog—but the body fell onto the boat and still stood, frozen in a posture of pouncing, with no power left in it.

"I have waited a long while for you, watching you beneath the boat.

" Shen Mu returned the sword to its sheath; the patterns of the Nine Heavens of the Sacred Pupil in his eyes were slowly fading, the power of the dragon's blood and the Deaf Elder's diagram receding swiftly.

To the headless skeleton he said, "You lurked and swam in the sea of fog, following the boat; I saw it all.

I was waiting for you to deliver yourself onto my blade, and then I cut you down.

" The skeleton's strength suddenly left it; with a clatter it came apart into bone after bone scattered over the deck. Shen Mu glanced at the human-bone pipe that had fallen onto the boat, hesitated a moment, then threw that pipe and all the broken bones on the boat into the sea of fog.

The pipe, able to stand against the Chubao Sword blow after blow without yielding, was a fine treasure, a primal weapon of the very highest grade—but it was forged from human bone, and he did not like it in his heart, so he threw it away. "Village Head, you must be safe.

.

. " the youth sat beneath the lantern, the sword still across his knees, and said in a low voice. The little boat drifted toward one mountain of white bone after another, sailing toward the entrance of this strange place.

And in the Dead's Living Realm, a vortex suddenly surfaced in the sky; the vortex split open, cut in two by a stunning flash of sword-light, and the Village Head burst out, drenched in blood, while blood flowed unending from the vortex.

The blood-colored vortex hung in the sky, bleeding without cease, like a wound in the heavens. The Village Head turned; his ten fingers danced, and sword-light after sword-light flew from his fingertips and nailed into the vortex, sealing it. Blood still flowed unending within the vortex, and something enormous seemed to be angrily striking at its mouth, wanting to break through, but the Village Head's sword-light held it back, and for a time it could not burst out.

The Village Head let out a breath of relief, then made for the mountain gate of Fengdu.

He was about to fly over the gate when he suddenly halted: atop the gate stood a strange being with a bird's head and two wings, standing on one leg, the other drawn up beneath its feathers.