The shield dissipated ten seconds later, and the snake wandered over to Red with extreme eagerness. It wandered up his leg before settling into its usual position around his shoulders and camouflaging with his dark clothing. Its fluctuation disappeared from his senses again, and the creature acted as if nothing happened.

The youth considered tying its mouth shut again, but he decided against it. The serpent proved itself to be of essential help to him, so he thought it earned at least this amount of trust. He was still wondering how it found him, but this matter could be left for latter.

Red looked over at the paralyzed necromancer. “What do we do with him?”

Domeron frowned. “I would like to interrogate him, but… He’s a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator. It’s too risky.”

The youth agreed with his assessment. Cultivators were resilient and resourceful people, armed with tricks and contingency plans for all kinds of situations. Even if they found all kinds of ways to restrict him, how could either of them guarantee that the necromancer wouldn’t turn this situation around? By then, they might die without even knowing what happened.

Although the necromancer was paralyzed, his eyes could still move, and he evidently seemed very nervous as soon as Domeron said that.

“I can finish him off.” Red said, his grip tightening around his sword.

“No.” Domeron cut him off. “You shouldn’t get close to him. Just use a talisman and kill him in one blow.”

The youth was surprised. “A talisman? Why?”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry.” The swordsman insisted.

Red hesitated. “… It’s my last one.”

“It’s worth it if we can kill a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator without getting hurt.”

The youth sighed. He knew Domeron was right in his caution, so he didn’t protest any more. He took out his last offensive talisman, one that he brought specifically because it had already proven to be effective against the ghouls in the past.

A wind blade.

He started to chant, and the talisman glowed. Although the necromancer was paralyzed, his eyes could still move, and there was panic mounting in them. Yet there was nothing he could do to defend himself from this.

Red waved his hand, and a large blade of condensed air appeared in front of him, shooting towards the necromancer. It cut right through his body, splitting it in half at the waist. Blood splattered out from the open wound, although there seemed to be far less than one would expect to find in a bisected human body.

Both halves of the man fell to the ground, and even after the wind blade hit him, he still seemed unable to move or struggle. To his credit, the necromancer didn’t die immediately, as they were expecting. Instead, it took almost a full thirty seconds before his fluctuation disappeared from the youth’s crimson sense.

Suffice it to say, such injuries were fatal even for Lesser Ring Realm cultivators, even if they could last for longer than any mortal would in their situations.

Red looked at Domeron and nodded. “He’s dead.”

The swordsman sighed in relief. “Great. I’ll look through his body.”

Red was more than okay with letting him search through the necromancer’s skeletal body. A bit later, though, Domeron turned back to him with an ugly expression.

“Nothing.” he said.

“Nothing?” The youth was confused. “He’s a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator. How could he walk around with nothing at all?”

“Necromancers often store their belongings in their thralls.” Aurelia’s voice reached his ears, startling him.”

Domeron shook his head. “We don’t know what happened to him before this. Maybe he stored his belongings somewhere else to protect them.”

Red frowned. “What happened exactly?”

“You tell me.” The swordsman stared at him. “You started to run away as soon as you got close to that cliff face. I noticed something was strange and considered knocking you out to protect you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t catch up to you.” Domeron shrugged. “Either way, I followed you here to that cave, but before I could do anything, the necromancer attacked me. Can you tell me what happened to you now?”

Red paused. “… I was caught in an illusion.”

The man frowned. “Is that all you have to say?”

The youth shook his head. “No, but now is not the time. There’s something inside that cave.”

“What is in there?”

“The dagger… And a lot of bodies.”

Domeron’s expression became stern. “Take me there.”

“… I don’t know if it’s safe.”

Red half-expected Aurelia to say something here and tell him if he was right to worry or not, but she remained quiet. This left him at a loss.

Domeron pondered for a bit before unstrapping the sword from his waist. He threw it towards the youth. “Take it. If something happens to me, at least I will be disarmed.”

Red grabbed the sheathed sword with some hesitation. He could still remember the feelings that flame evoked in him, or more specifically, in the crimson mist in his body. However, no violent reactions happened to his relief.

“Just follow behind me and don’t hesitate to attack if I show any signs of possession.” Domeron said, before walking ahead.

The complete lack of hesitation from the swordsman’s part in putting himself at risk for the sake of others was still jarring for Red. Still, he had learned better in this journey than to try to convince his tutor otherwise.

They both walked into the cave, though soon enough Domeron was forced to light a torch so he could see in the darkness. The youth was ready to strike and knock out the man if he showed any strangeness, but even as they arrived in the chamber, no such thing happened to him.

Once Domeron laid his eyes on the room, he immediately paused. The corpses of the zombies Red killed were still there, all with their heads cut off, and the skeleton holding the bone dagger was in the back of the room, the centerpiece to the whole macabre image.

“What happened?” the swordsman asked.

“They were giving the dagger its power. I needed to kill them.” Red said.

He obviously couldn’t explain everything that had happened since it involved Aurelia, so he hoped this explanation would be enough.

Domeron didn’t comment on it, instead looking over at the few remaining living undead in the room. “There are some left.”

Red frowned. He didn’t have time to kill all of them before he went over to help the man. The remaining zombies seemed all to be in a catatonic state, no longer chanting and instead just laying on their knees and looking down at the ground.

“Do you think that’s the mother?” Domeron pointed at one of the still living undead.

The zombie was a rather young woman, dressed as a peasant. She looked to be in a rather conserved state compared to some of the other undead, yet signs of rotting were already evident all over her skin.

Red shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. She’s gone.”

Domeron sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Will you kill them off?”

The youth nodded and set about putting the zombies out of their misery. He felt comfortable doing this after noticing his companion showed no signs of possession.

Once every undead in the room was dead, their attention came back to the item they were looking for this entire time. The white dagger was being held in a skeleton’s hand, which, unlike the other corpses in this room, showed no signs of reanimation.

“He died with the dagger in his hands.” Domeron said.

Red nodded. “His skeleton seems well preserved, too. Either this happened recently or something is keeping it in that state.”

“A cultivator’s body will always decay far slower than a mortal’s.”

“… Does this look like a dagger made out of the bones of a near-ascendent cultivator?” Red asked.

“Maybe if it was carved from the finger bone of a giant.” Domeron shook his head. “I can’t sense anything special about it. No spiritual energy, no natural manifestation, nothing. Still, it’s clear it is related to what happened to all these people.”

The duo trailed off as they continued to examine the dagger in silence. They both wanted to grab the dagger and investigate it more closely, but neither of them were foolish enough to take such a risk after everything they saw. So they were waiting and trying to discern something that would tell them if it was safe to approach, but it was clear that no such indicator would be forthcoming.

“You can take it.” Aurelia said. “The ghost inhabiting the dagger is gone. It’s just an empty vessel now.”

Red frowned. The woman sounded downtrodden, but he couldn’t ask what had happened at this moment.

Still, without saying anything, he started to approach the dagger. Domeron seemed surprised at this, but he didn’t try to stop the youth.

Red stopped in front of the dagger, half-expecting to see that same many-armed ghost appear in front of him. No such thing happened, though. He then inspected the skeleton, but he also found nothing out of the ordinary with it, and he couldn’t see anything in its bones that would indicate a cause of death.

His attention finally turned to the dagger. No matter how hard he stared at it, though, nothing strange popped out from the dagger, and none of his senses reacted to it either. It looked just like a normal dagger, just carved out of bone instead.

With no more hesitation, he reached down and grabbed the weapon by the rough handle. He felt the cold and coarse sensation of filed down bone, but other than that nothing else happened. His touch revealed nothing special about the dagger, either.

Red was surprised for a moment. Yet, it seemed Aurelia would provide no explanation, so instead, he tried to pull the dagger away from the skeleton’s grip.

To his surprise, though, its hand didn’t budge. The youth applied more force, but even that wasn’t enough to pry the dagger away from its skeletal hands. It had an iron grip around it.

This was not to mention that just by moving the skeleton around, he could feel how heavy it was. It should weight at least a hundred kilos, something that shouldn’t have been possible for a human skeleton of this average size.

Domeron’s voice came from behind him. “Like I said, it’s the skeleton of a cultivator.”

Red frowned and took out his sword, trying to use it for leverage to pry the fingers from the dagger. Even that didn’t work, though, so instead he tried to saw the finger bones. This felt like trying to cut through an iron ingot. There was visible progress with his superior weapon, but it was simply too slow for his liking.

The youth then decided to hack at it. He didn’t hack at the finger bones, though, since they were wrapped around the dagger and he was afraid to damage it. He instead opted to cut at the wrist.

It took him a good minute of hacking at the ligament before he finally managed to hack it off. Finally, the dagger was free - with a skeleton hand wrapped around its handle, that is.

“So, do you feel anything?” Domeron asked with some eagerness.

Red frowned. “I don’t. It just feels like a normal dagger.”

“That’s because it is a normal dagger.” Aurelia said with an angered tone. “All the power inside it is already spent.”

The youth wasn’t sure whether to be happy or disappointed upon learning this.