Chapter 156: The Last Procession (3)

Slowly, the procession began to move again.

Hiiro reached the standing Husher first. Every muscle in his body had drawn tight, as though even his bones were bracing for the corpse to attack. For all his appetite for proving himself, at least he understood there were moments when strength meant knowing not to use it.

The Husher remained motionless as he passed. Its hands clasped together, its eyelids sealed over whatever horror waited beneath them.

One by one, the others followed Hiiro through the narrow space, close enough for their clothes to brush the corpse but careful enough not to touch it.

Misha exhaled very carefully once she was safely beyond it. Apparently, this Floor had rules tucked inside its rules, each one waiting for the survivors to misunderstand it. A broken sound stirred the dead, but the steady rhythm of the funeral drum held them still.

DUM.

They pressed deeper into the Walls of Death. The passage narrowed until the living were forced shoulder to shoulder, their warmth trapped between walls of cold stone. In the breathless interval between drumbeats, Misha could hear her own heart thudding hard enough to maker her wonder whether the Hushers could hear it too.

DUM.

Several paces ahead, a woman carried a sleeping boy against her chest. He had been asleep for nearly an hour, his cheek damp where his running nose had pressed against her shoulder. The woman kept shifting his weight with the stubborn care of someone whose arms had gone numb long ago but who refused to admit it.

The boy’s face twitched. His nose wrinkled once, then again. The mother noticed his movement and hurriedly raised a hand toward his face.

The child drew a sharp breath, his tiny chest swelled against hers, and the beginning of a sneeze escaped him.

"Hn–"

His mother clamped her palm over his mouth. It was fast, desperate, and almost enough, but the muffled sneeze still slipped between her fingers.

"Hh’ksh!"

The boy jerked in her arms, and the little wooden toy he had been clutching tumbled from his hand, struck the stone, and bounced twice. Each sharp knock cut through the ground more cleanly than a scream.

For one long, merciless second, nothing happened.

Misha had just enough time to hope they had been spared once more, but then... every Husher opened its eyes.

There were no eyes beneath their lids. Only hollow sockets stared from the dead faces, black and depthless, as if someone had bored tunnels straight through their skulls. All along the passage, stiff fingers uncurled and gray hands separated from lifeless bodies.

DUM.

The nearest Husher lifted its head.

Misha did not wait for someone else to decide what to do. That was how people died–straing at danger while their minds begged it to become someone else’ problem. She had no intention of letting these things tear through the procession while Dorian and the others argued about following the plan.

"Gramps," she whispered.

「 Constellation Soul within the Cancer Chamber Requesting Authorization. 」

"Come."

「 Authorization Accepted. 」

「 Possession Initializing... 」

「 Control Transfer Complete.

Possession Time Remaining: 00:15:00 」

Misha hated this part, no matter how many times it happened. There was something deeply offensive about watching someone else stand behind her eyes as though her body were a coat they had borrowed. But this was the skill she got so she had no choice but to let them.

The first Husher lunged behind the procession. Its feet barely touched the floor before the wall beside it exploded outward, stone folding over the alcove like the jaws of some buried beast. The corpse vanished behind crushing slabs.

「 You have killed a Husher!

EXP +90 」

CRACK.

Tobias stamped Misha’s foot once. The sound rolled through the passage, and every alcove sealed at the same time. Stone surged across the recesses in interlocking plates, trapping the awakened Hushers before most could take a single step.

Tobias turned her body toward the rear and folded her hands neatly behind her back. The gesture was so calm, so unmistakable his. Behind them, the ground heaved upward and a wall slammed across the passage.

The first Hushers struck the other side almost immediately. The impact shook dust from the ceiling and sent a tremor through the survivors’ legs. Several people cried out and stumbled away.

BOOM.

Tobias raised a second barrier behind the first, then thickened both until the stone filled several paces of the corridor. The pounding continued from beyond it, muffled now but no less furious. Hairline cracks appeared across the outer face and spread like dark veins.

"We must move," Tobias said through Misha’s mouth.

No one reacted. Misha could hardly blame them since a moment ago, she had been a tired girl trying not to breathe too loudly; now amber light blazed from her eyes, and a composed voice emerged from her throat.

Tobias glanced toward Caius. The boy’s confusion lasted only a second before understanding sharpened his expression.

"You heard her!" Caius shouted. "Move! All of you!"

Tobias strode toward the front, hands still clasped behind Misha’s back as though he were taking a leisurely walk through a garden.

Misha drifted beside him, glaring at the profile of her own face. He was wearing her body with entirely too much dignity.

"You always have to make an entrance, don’t you?" she muttered.

The corner of Tobias’ mouth lifted. "How can I not, young lady? You insist on summoning me only when the occasion deserves one."

Ahead, the Hushers that had been standing in the open charged. They moved with none of the stiffness their corpses should have possessed. Their limbs snapped forward in violent bursts, carrying them faster than the Vestiges could run.

Tobias lifted one foot and pressed it gently to the floor. The road beneath the Hushers rolled backward in a sudden wave, stone flowing like an enormous conveyor belt. The corpses lost their footing, crashed into one another, and were swept around the bend in a tangle of gray limbs.

"From this point onward," Tobias announced, "everyone runs."

The survivors stared at him in disbelief. After four hours of being taught that a misplaced breath could kill them, the command must have sounded like an invitation to madness. Even Alaric;s drum fell silent, leaving the corridor filled with panting breaths and the distant hammering of the trapped dead.

Dorian recovered first. His gaze moved from Misha’s glowing eyes to the fractured wall behind them. "Running will awaken everything ahead."

A gray hand punched through the first barrier. Stone fragments sprayed across the passage, and fingers clawed at the opening. A second hand followed, widening the crack.

"Then it is fortunate they are already awake," Tobias replied. He raised one finger, his expression almost offensively serene beneath the mask. "I have fifteen minutes. That is how long I can keep enough of them contained for the rest of you to survive."

The stone beneath Misha’s feet shifted before anyone could argue. A flat slab detached itself from the floor and shot forward, carrying her body toward the far end of the Walls of Death. Tobias did not even bend her knees to balance,which Misha suspected he was doing purely to show off .

Dorian watched them disappear down the passage. Whatever hesitation remained in him hardened into command. He turned toward the survivors and drew a breath.

"RUN!" His voice thundered through the corridor.

The funeral procession broke into a stampede, boots pounding the stone with all the noise they had spent hours trying to suppress. Fear tore discipline apart for a moment, but Dorian’s next command dragged it back into place.

"Keep the body raised!" he shouted. "The corpse should not touch the ground before the Bell House!"

The six bearers surged forward with the funeral cart. The shrouded king bounced once atop it, and the carriers adjusted their grip without slowing.

Astrid ran beside them with one hand beneath a lifting pole, ready to catch it if exhaustion robbed anyone of their strength.

Dorian stayed near the rear, shouting until his voice scraped raw. He shoved the faltering forward, hauled the injured away from the walls, and kept the frightened from crushing one another.

"Hold formation!" he roared. "If you fall, call out! Do not stop for anything!"

DUM.

The drum began again.

Misha looked back and saw Alaric ran with the drum still strapped to him, striking it in time.

She could not decide whether he was honoring the procession, steadying the survivors, or simply enjoying the chance to make as much noise as he pleased after hours of restraint.

DUM.

Tobias reached the far end of the Walls of Death first. The enclosing cliffs abruptly gave way to an open ceremonial road lined with skeletal trees, but the Bell House was nowhere in sight. The path stretched onward beneath the colorless sky and vanished around a distant curve.

Misha’s nonexistent stomach sank. Dorian had estimated five hours under favorable conditions. The Bell House was still nearly an hour away so even running, they would not cover the distance in fifteen minutes. The carriers could move only as fast as the weakest hands supporting the funeral cart.

Worse, Hushers were already descending the slopes on either side of the road.

Tobias saw the problem as quickly as she did. His expression did not change under the mask, but Misha noticed the tightening of her own fingers behind her back. That tiny movement frightened her more than panic would have.

"We can’t leave them," she said.

"No, we can’t," he replied before he brought her hands together.

The Mountain Walker did not waste time wishing the terrain were different, he made it different.

The earth convulsed. Both sides of the ceremonial path erupted in showers of dirt and fractured rock as long ridges climbed from the ground. They extended forward with a roar, racing beside the road for hundreds of meters and transforming the exposed route into a narrow corridor.

Hushers charging down the slopes slammed into the new barriers. Others dug their fingers into the rising stone and began climbing, so Tobias lifted her hands, and the walls surged higher, carrying the grasping corpses with them.