The Dawn of the New World

'The voice stops when she touches me?' Hao Xuan lowered his mental barrier again and listened in to Ma Jiang's thoughts and just like she said the voice was completely gone.

If she was something like a radio that was picking up random signals, then Hao Xuan would be akin to a faraday cage that could block them out. But why?

Hao Xuan was lost in thought trying to come up with an explanation.

'It could be because of my physique. Maybe it is absorbing the signals without my knowledge? But...that doesn't make much sense. I would have still felt something. Then...wait, if it only happens when she makes physical contact then it should be the Chaos Law right!?'

'Since mine is only at mastery level one I have to touch someone to use it effectively but...what that voice was saying is probably related to these 'spirits' in one way or another. Is it a type of summoning thing? There is only one way to find out I guess.'

'Now what were the words again.."As you are, so were WE," Wait a minute, I have read something like this before once.'

Hao Xuan racked his brain and finally remembered where. It was back on earth, he saw it in an old painting from the middle ages and after a quick search found out that it was used as a way to prepare oneself for death and birthed an entire culture where death was seen as a gateway to something "more".

"What you are, so once were we," the dead said to the living; "what we are, so you shall be."

Unfortunately, Hao Xuan made the mistake of uttering the words aloud. It was but a quiet whisper yet the words need only be spoken out loud once for the spell to take effect.

There is power in words, even when spoken by the faithless and the ignorant.

*Tremmmmmble*

A minor earthquake rattled the bridge and every person on it including Hao Xuan fell to his knees trying to hold onto the solid ground for dear life.

It happened as soon as Hao Xuan said the words so he knew it was because of that. He looked behind but the shadowy figure was gone. He looked to the front and couldn't see any of the other two either.

'So it wasn't a summon then?'

But just as abruptly as it arrived, all the shaking stopped without a warning.

Princess Helena stood up unsteadily looking all around them for anything out of ordinary. When she couldn't find anything she checked each of her fingers and upon seeing the cracked jewel in three of the rings her expression became ugly.

"Get up," she turned around and shouted at the others, "we must leave this place NOW! RUN!"

But she started sprinting without even waiting for them. Hao Xuan helped Ma Jiang up and took away his hand, "Can you hear the voice now?"

"Eh? Oh, let me check."

Ma Jiang closed her eyes for a moment and muttered a few obscure and unintelligible words that Hao Xuan couldn't make sense of. Being so close to her allowed him to feel the movement of her mana which was leaving the top of her body.

It was a similar 'skill' to Hao Xuan's mental barrier, although instead of redirecting a portion of his consciousness like him, she simply uttered an incantation that did all the work in her stead. When she was done Ma Jiang moved her head left and right as if listening for something before shaking it, "I can't hear anythin-"

But before she could even finish the sentence her eyes rolled back into their sockets and she lost consciousness and her body went limp. She almost fell over but Hao Xuan managed to reach out and grab onto her just in time.

"Oi, what the hell happened? Are you okay?!"

He felt for a pulse and found it relatively quickly. It was quite slow to the point of making him think she was asleep. But no matter how hard he tried to wake her up she didn't budge an inch.

Just then Princess Helena shouted towards him again from two bridges away.

"LORD HAO XUAN! PLEASE HURRY! THEY ARE ALMOST HERE!" she shouted while pointing somewhere below him.

Hao Xuan hunched over the side to see what she was trying to show him. At first he didn't see anything but when his eyes adjusted and the majority of the darkness was pushed aside, a wriggling swarm of various blackened bodies came into view.

They were crawling up from the depths, too many to even count. Every single hair on Hao Xuan's body stood up when he caught a glimpse of their appearances.

Deformed and disjointed bodies held together by decaying and rotting flesh that fell from their bones as they scaled the towers and bridges alike trying to get out.

"Motherfucker."

Although the majority of them were humanoid, there were countless larger ones that were beastly in shape and form.