When Red saw this, it was like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. The pressure the situation was putting him under only became clear to him now that it was gone, and he even felt light-headed after this change. He couldn’t help but sit down on the ground.

Domeron was staring at him in confusion. “What is it now?”

“You’re back to normal.” Red said.

“You mean I’m not a corpse anymore?”

The youth nodded.

Domeron smiled in relief. “That’s great!… No, wait, doesn’t that mean…” His expression fell.

Red nodded again. “Your decision to not go after her might have saved you.”

The swordsman frowned in dismay. “I can’t claim to understand what any of this means, but if your words were the thing that saved me, then I suppose I owe you my life.”

The youth shook his head. “None of that matters. Just because I saved you from imminent death, it doesn’t mean it won’t reach you yet.”

In truth, he was somewhat confused about why he had these premonitions. What was it about the girl, or rather, the being possessing her that cause him to have these visions about its victims? Was it just because of his connection to anything related to the undead?

Then again, he was told these premonitions weren’t something that made a lot of sense. One couldn’t force them to appear, and sometimes they could mean a myriad of different things that could only be interpreted by cultivators with deep knowledge in the machinations of faith. Thankfully, it seemed like Red’s premonition was pretty straight-forward in nature, and if anything, the youth now knew they weren’t set in stone.

He got up and looked around. Aurelia was still there, unseen by Domeron, and still pondering to herself in silence.

“We need to leave.” Red said. “Even if we avoided going into a trap, it doesn’t mean that she won’t come after us.”

The swordsman nodded. “We need to do something about the corpses first.”

The youth frowned. “We don’t have time to bury them.”

“I know that. However, we can still spare them the indignity of having their corpses violated after death.”

Red hesitated. “You want to stop them from turning?”

This was something he hadn’t even considered. This village was inhabited by a ghost, located right next to the dead forest, and all of its inhabitants died under conditions he didn’t dare to imagine. Even without the intervention of any necromancer or outside forces, it was likely that this could become the spawning grounds for undead, as the Spiritual Energy in the surroundings was influenced by everything that occurred here.

Domeron nodded. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

“… Even if we destroy all their heads, this doesn’t mean they can’t still be turned into undead.” The youth said.

“Maybe so, in which case we can be more thorough.” Domeron paused and looked around. “Let’s burn this place to the ground.”

…

At first, Red was still hesitant about the idea, but he knew the swordsman was right. If they left all these corpses here, they could become problems for the town and, in turn, their sect later on. To burn everything to ash was the only guarantee that these bodies wouldn’t become threats to the town in their afterlife.

There was, of course, still the possibility that their souls would be corrupted and become ghosts, but there was nothing the two of them could do about that. This wasn’t the funeral any of these innocent people deserved in the first place, but it was the only way the duo could provide some sort of dignity to them in their afterlife.

They acted swiftly. Red and Domeron went from house to house, pouring lantern oil that they found scattered around the town over the corpses and wooden appliances. Some minutes later, they gathered at the center of the village before the youth used a fire steel to strike a fire at every single house.

Everything here was built out of wood, so it didn’t take long for the flames to catch and spread. Neither of them planned to stick around and watch the fires burn, though.

“Let’s go.” Domeron said. “We have done what we can here.”

Red nodded, but before he followed behind the swordsman, he looked over at Aurelia.

The woman was still there, in her human form, pondering something with a focused expression. The youth was reflexively compelled to urge her to follow them, before he noticed how silly that would be. Instead, he just turned around and walked behind Domeron as they left the village.

“You think that ghost will come after the dagger?” The swordsman asked as they walked away.

“Most definitely.” Red nodded. “If I’m right and it is behind everything that happened, then it makes sense that it would also stop at nothing to get the dagger.”

Domeron grunted. “Hm, maybe it’s better if we just give it to them.”

The youth frowned. “You think so?”

In fact, this was something he considered, too. No treasure was worth his life when it came down to it.

The swordsman sighed. “I don’t know. We can’t be sure the ghost will leave us alone, and besides, it marked both me and Rimold with something, as you claimed, and that was before we even had the dagger. As far as we know, it might have been planning to kill anyone that it ever came in contact with.”

“That’s… Quite likely.” Red nodded.

The fact it had already exterminated every villager in this place was proof enough of its ruthlessness.

“In any case, if we are already in danger, we might as well make a profit out of it.” Domeron looked at Red and smiled. “Do you understand?”

Red nodded again. “I do.”

Rewards and risk came both in equal measure.

…

They continued to travel for a few hours until dawn arrived. Thankfully, through it all, they didn’t come across anything else. No ghosts, no imperials, no necromancers, no mercenaries.

It was a peaceful trip, but they still didn’t drop their guards down.

‘The New Moon will arrive tomorrow.’

The night before, the green shooting stars were still increasing in frequency. They would have made the darkness of the night look far too bright for Red if he wasn’t already accustomed to this with his dark vision.

However, the imminent arrival of the New Moon still worried him. He would need to find a proper place to go through the drainage of the moonstone energy from his acupoints, not to mention he still needed to refill those before then, which should be possible now, considering how bright the insectoid core looked. Even then, this was the first time he was about to undergo this process after opening his special Third Eye “acupoint”, and he had a distinct feeling something different would happen this time around.

He already warned Domeron about this, so the man wasn’t surprised when he mentioned it.

“What kind of hiding place do you need?” he asked.

Red hesitated. “Somewhere hidden by hills, preferably. However, I won’t be too picky.”

He knew the chances of finding a hiding place like the one Rog showed him before were close to nothing, so he couldn’t afford to be selective.

“When exactly do you need to do this little… ‘stop’?” the swordsman asked.

“During the night.” Red said. “We can continue moving until the sun starts setting, though, or at least until we feel like we won’t find a better hiding place.”

Domeron nodded. “Alright. When the time comes, I will just follow your lead.”

The youth was thankful that his companion didn’t question him about the purpose of this stop. When it came to being discreet and understanding of his secrets, there was no one better at it than Domeron.

They continued walking, before a voice suddenly interrupted Red.

“I figured it out.” Aurelia said.

The youth almost wanted to ask her what this was about out loud, but he held back. Instead, he reached into his pouch and grabbed the insectoid core before reaching towards it with his expanded awareness.

“What did you figure out?” he asked.

“How they knew I was a part of the Amber Saber Sect.” Aurelia said.

“… I’m all ears.”

She continued. “First, you need to understand what kind of existence I am.”

“You are a ghost, right?” Red was confused.

The woman scoffed. “That’s right, but there’s more to it than that. Ghosts are the souls of humans that were corrupted by undead influence. We are limited in the ways we can interact with the physical realm, and even our existence is unseen by most people. In some ways, we can live without a body, something that most souls wouldn’t be able to accomplish, but in the end, that doesn’t change the nature that our existence is based on… We are still just corrupted souls.”

The youth was familiar with the concept, though some things stood out to him.

“You are saying that some souls can live without a body?” he asked.

“They can, but that’s not the point.” She shot his question down. “Look, a soul is a collection of both mind and consciousness. It contains your sense of self as well as every memory and thought you retain in your head. That is why, when your soul is wiped out, you will cease to exist even if you heart still beats, while if your body is destroyed, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end if you’re a cultivator at a high enough level.”

Red had a realization. “So that’s why you survived and retained your memories, even after dying?”

“Well, my soul was probably captured and sold to necromancers, but the point still stands.” Aurelia said. “If I hadn’t reached the Spiritual Awakening Realm and started to cultivate my soul, I would have never have retained my memories and sense of self after being corrupted by the undead energies… Still, I want you to understand that I didn’t even spend ten years in the Spiritual Awakening realm before being killed, so my experience with matters of the soul is still limited.”

The youth was confused. “What do you mean by this?”

Aurelia was silent for a while. “As I said, ghosts are basically just bodiless and corrupted souls. Every part of our being is basically made up of our consciousness and memories, and every time we extend our powers and reach, it’s like we are exposing a part of ourselves…”

Red was starting to understand where this was going. “You mean that you might have exposed yourself when you tried to investigate that girl?”

“That’s what might have happened.” She said, confirming his suspicions. “Granted, in most situations I would have felt if someone was trying to probe me for information, but since I exposed myself in trying to investigate them, they could have likewise gleamed information from me without me noticing.”

The youth was silent for a while. “… You didn’t know this could happen?”

“Of course I knew this could happen!” Aurelia snapped back at him. “However, I have limited experience in matters of the soul. Besides, for someone to be able to avoid my detection and still probe into my memories without being noticed can only mean that they have much more experience and knowledge in this field than I ever had!”

“So, they learned that you were from the Amber Saber Sect and what your secret language was through that?” Red followed her logic.

“Only one of these things is true.” Aurelia said. “They definitely learned my identity as an inner disciple, since it is a core of who I consider myself to be and thus could be easily detected in my surface memories. However, they would never be able to learn the secret language of my sect through some ordinary probing. This I can assure you!”

Red wanted to ask her how she could know that, but the woman sounded very confident in her assumptions. However, this brought about another question.

“How could they have known your secret language, then?” he asked.

“There are a few possibilities.” Aurelia said in a serious tone. “They may have been part of my sect once upon a time, the secret language of my sect could have been leaked after its destruction, or they may have deciphered it themselves.”

“I thought you said that these languages were made so as to be undecipherable to outsiders.”

“This is indeed their purpose, but you should know that there are no absolutes in the cultivation world.” she said. “It happened before in the past once, though not with our sect. An extremely powerful cultivator who was a step away from ascension was able to decipher the secret language of the Crystal Sky Sect, compromising all of its secret operations and causing their sect to go through one of their biggest crisis.”

“Wait. Do you mean…”

A shiver ran up Red’s spine as a terrifying possibility crossed his mind.