Quinn Shepherd, the Taotie Bone Box, Bruno the Dragon-Qilin, and a flurry of flying skeletons and bones crashed down together. Quinn felt a wave of despair—he’d tried to make no sound at all to avoid Aiden Starr’s freakish hearing, but man proposes and heaven disposes; all his careful planning had just gone up in smoke!
Thud, thud, thud—they tumbled into a chaotic pile of bones.
All around them, a mob of skeletons shouted and bickered, arguing about who broke whose pelvis or whose femur, and some even fought over ribs—the noise was deafening.
Suddenly, a few skeletons started brawling, brandishing bone-clubs from who-knows-where and whacking each other’s skulls with loud, echoing thuds.
Unless Starr is literally deaf, there’s no way this could escape his ears!
Quinn staggered to his feet, dazed, and looked around. The thick fog from before had thinned out here, letting in more light.
He glanced east—and froze in shock.
Amid the swirling river mist, a vast world of white bones was speeding by, overlapping with the central Great Ruins!
“You stepped on me...” came a weak voice from beneath the box.
Startled, the box leapt up. When it saw the speaker was just a pile of bones, it happily opened up and ‘swallowed’ the talking bones inside.
After Quinn awakened it, the box developed a real taste for collecting weird odds and ends.
"Ghost—!"
Every hair and scale on Bruno the Dragon-Qilin stood on end. He froze, and when he saw the hills covered in bones, the big guy flopped over with all four legs stiff in the air.
The box, seeing him 'dead,' tried to swallow him up, starting from his tail. When it reached his rump, Bruno twitched and growled, "Quit fooling around, I'm playing dead..."
"Nether City—this is the outer world of Nether City..."
Quinn watched the world speeding by, overlapping reality so that mountains and rivers seemed to vanish into thin air—a truly uncanny sight.
He nudged Bruno, thinking, 'Get up, Dragon Fatty—your playing-dead skills can't compare to Ling'er from our village. If you don't move, these skeletons will come eat your meat.'
"Meat! Meat!" A skeleton beneath Bruno caught the scent of flesh, grinned, and bit down on Bruno's leg.
"Meat! Meat!"
The skeleton sea erupted—countless bones surged toward them, a frenzy of undead, forming a hundred-zhang-high wave of skeletons crashing down.
Crash!
The skeleton wave collapsed, and then countless bones rolled together, merging into a rampaging bone giant, all eager to eat meat.
"I don't have any meat—give me yours!"
"Leave me some skin! Mine's all rotten!"
Bruno quickly rolled over, crushing the skeletons on top of him to pieces. But seeing this, he almost fainted again from fright.
Quinn burst forth with Buddha light, a giant white jade Buddha phantom appearing behind him. The charging bone giant instantly crumbled, and the skeletons scattered in terror.
"Bleh, not tasty—it's that bald brat from last time! Run for it—"
Quinn was speechless. He fished out a Nether City Coin and flashed it at the misty sea. A lone skiff was gliding out of the fog toward him.
"Out of the way, all of you!"
Aiden Starr's voice came from the distance. He'd already retrieved his eyes and, following the noise, broke into the area, hurtling toward them and shattering any skeletons in his way.