They stood upon the jagged ledge for a long while, staring into the pulsing fog below.
The altar loomed like the heart of a corpse god, its eye ever open—watching, breathing, beckoning.
Lin Mu broke the silence.
"We go no further together."
Daoist Chu turned, startled. "What?"
"You and Meng Bai should stay back," Lin Mu said calmly. "This depth… it doesn't welcome us."
Meng Bai clenched his fists. "But Master—"
"You've seen it," Lin Mu said. "These phantoms—these specters—they're not simple ghosts. They're not like anything we've faced before."
Daoist Chu exhaled slowly. His robes were scorched, and more than a few talismans had turned to ash at his waist. The fatigue in his bones was not merely physical.
"You're right," he admitted. "I've hunted ghosts and restless dead since I was a Junior disciple in the Zenith Heaven Sect. But this—this is something else entirely. They don't move like ghosts. They don't feel like them."
