The black water around the ironwood raft suddenly stopped bubbling, freezing into an eerie stillness that swallowed the sound of the sulfur geysers.
Ye Chen extended his hand to pull Senior Brother Bai up from the wet logs, but before their fingers could meet, the muddy floor of the Sunken Bog convulsed violently beneath their boots.
SCREEECH!
A high-pitched, wailing screech of ten thousand trapped spirits erupted from the depths of the marsh, vibrating against the stone ground with enough raw force to send sharp cracks running through the petrified timber raft.
Twelve massive pillars carved from polished black human bone shot up from the boiling mire, circling the raft in a sixty-foot perimeter.
From the hollow eye sockets and fractured joints of the bone pillars, thick rivers of dar
