That same chain ran all the way back to the Spirit Temple. The moment the man’s spirit completely left his body, the chain pulled him away at a speed no mortal could travel, leaving the reaper that had come for him empty-handed. He left the woods and entered infertile plains where serfs worked themselves to the bone. Their sweaty, dirty figures brought up painful memories of the things he’d done to leave such a life in the first place. He traveled quickly, so the plains soon gave way to rocky hills, which then became the foothills that led up to the capital of the Ji Kingdom, Bastion. It lay just south of a canyon that led deep into the mountains, the Shattered Lands filled with life-leaching death.
The distance between the spirit and the city shrank quickly. Though Bastion was covered in a thick shield of soul-repelling runes, the spirit passed through them without a hint of difficulty. He bore the mark of their temple, after all, and the temple welcomed its own. He zipped through the houses of rich and poor men alike, through markets, through bars, through gambling dens and inns, before finally arriving at his destination: the Bastion Spirit Temple. He was forcibly dragged in through the front door and brought across active traps, spying specters, and Spectral Assassins. Some new acolytes—those who weren’t yet aware of their impending doom—looked up as they performed their menial duties. The more senior ones ignored him, as they were too focused on their brutal competition with their peers.
The spirit passed a few priests, some mediums, and even a high priest. Eventually, his soul settled in a small pond in the temple’s deepest room. To his surprise, the Shepherd wasn’t there to welcome him as he’d feared. Instead, the leader of the temple was seated behind the pool at an elevated table with eleven empty seats.
No, not empty, he thought. They would have seemed empty if he were alive, but as a spirit, he could see them clearly. They were spectral substitutes, a disposable ghostly body used to facilitate communication between leaders. After all, why waste spirit stones on valuable core-transmission jades when souls were freely available?
He was safe, for the time being, at least. Maybe the Shepherd won’t notice me, he thought. Maybe I’ll get to roam the Pool of Souls until he needs a servant.
It was a feeble hope, but he clung to it like a drowning man clung to a piece of flotsam in a stormy sea. He wandered over to a corner of the pool and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, just in case. As he did so, the Shepherd spoke.
“Your failure in Gold Leaf City is inexcusable,” the Shepherd said. “The forces in our temple are spread thinly enough as it is. And now you’re expecting reinforcements?”
“It’s truly not my fault,” one of the spectral substitutes said. “We’re a branch temple, not a main temple. Even so, we had mediums and spirits monitoring everything. We had all our servants bound by enforcement specters so as not to leak out our activities. Yet somehow, the fledgling Red Dust Mistress managed to pry information from their captured members, thwart a very important deal, and kill dozens of Spectral Assassins. The first and last of these things should have been impossible for her to accomplish.”
The Shepherd sighed. “How did they even manage to locate their old members?”
“You know full well how they did,” the figure huffed.
“It was the Greenwind Pavilion,” another figure said. Unlike the other spirit, his soul body was almost tangible, a testament to the strength of his soul. Only another Shepherd could achieve such a thing. “I spoke to Elder Zhong. He admitted to selling the information.”
“Likely as a reminder,” a third Shepherd at the table said wryly. “They’re always telling us we’ll regret not buying confidentiality on our own information.”
“The cost is too high,” the Shepherd of the Bastion Temple said. “And it continues to be too high.” He sighed again. “Did you at least manage to wriggle out how they extracted the information from our contracted servants?”
“He didn’t know,” the second Shepherd said. “As an apology, he let us know how the Red Dust Mistress killed all those assassins. It was Wang Jun from the Wang family who helped her. He speculated she was able to pry information from their former members using that man’s unique abilities.”
The Shepherd of Bastion Temple cursed loudly. Then, he stood up, calming himself before speaking again. “You’ll get your reinforcements, but not as many as you’d like. Your quota will remain the same.”
“I’ll… try to fill it,” Gold Leaf City’s spectral substitute said.
“Failure is not an option,” the Shepherd of Bastion Temple said. “I also want the Red Dust Pavilion eliminated, and Wang Jun along with it. His family won’t care, and very few people will miss him.” He gestured to the pool, and the spirit, who’d just arrived, floated into his hand. The soul shivered as it lay there naked, unprotected by a fleshly shell. “If you let me down, you won’t fare any better than this acolyte.”
“Acolyte?” Gold Leaf City’s spectral substitute asked.
“He thought he could escape my grasp by leaving the temple,” the Shepherd of Bastion Temple said, “only to realize that his soul was mine. When he arrived at my spirit pool, he tried to hide in the hopes that I’d forget him. But I have a long memory, and I forget as often as I forgive.”
The Shepherd clenched his fist, and the spirit writhed in pain as, slowly but surely, it
