The silent crowd finally began to respond to him, the valley echoing with the men’s howls and cries.

The phantom suddenly vanished, Terra-Spike slowly rising from the ground, and Soulwarden extended a finger once more: “Water soul!”

Logan Sullivan stood motionless where he was, the dark reflection of Terra-Spike mirrored in his eyes. The biting wind made his eyes redden slightly. He reached out to press the dial of Soul Mirror, as if comforting the soul of the girl imprisoned within, soothing her eternal loneliness and unrest.

Just then, a sharp wail pierced the air, so shrill it could puncture eardrums. Logan Sullivan couldn’t help but turn his head to avoid it, feeling as if his barely recovered mind was stabbed into dizziness. But it didn’t stop there—the screams grew more frequent and louder, laced with a mournful sobbing, sounding as if sharp nails were scraping across his internal organs.

The wailing grew so intense that, in the end, it was almost uncontrollable. Logan Sullivan thought he was about to vomit.

Not far away, the robe on Soulwarden once again condensed into gray mist, instantly cutting off the sound. Terra-Spike also returned to its original state, slowly settling back to its place. Only then did Logan Sullivan taste a metallic tang in his mouth. He reached up and realized that, at some point, he had accidentally bitten his own tongue.

“What was that?” Logan Sullivan asked.

Soulwarden’s calm voice finally showed a hint of worry. He said, “That was reckless. We can’t force it. That was the wailing of ten thousand ghosts.”

Chapter 39 Terra-Spike …

Soulwarden sat down where he was. After a moment, he regained his usual composure: “Terra-Spike has stood here for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years. The young lady said Zane Shaw flattened the stone tablet on the altar, which should have released the wronged souls trapped inside and resolved this old case. But who would have thought… Dead souls have no tears. Such a commotion must be a shriek made at the cost of utter annihilation. When a million wronged souls cry out together, not only you and I can’t bear it—even a hundred thousand snowy mountains could be shaken to collapse.”

Logan Sullivan stood behind him with his hands behind his back, silent.

Soulwarden said, “That was unexpected.”

Before Logan Sullivan could reply, suddenly, his Soul Mirror watch flashed. A white shadow shot out at lightning speed, charging toward Terra-Spike with a look of utter resolve.

Yet she had barely rushed out a meter when her body hadn’t even fully left the watch face. Suddenly, transparent threads like spider silk “grew” from Logan Sullivan’s hand, binding Zach Warren firmly in place.

Zach Warren froze for a moment, then lowered her head. Human and ghost locked eyes in midair. There seemed to be a glimmer of tears in her eyes, but a talisman stuck to her forehead kept her from even crying. Logan Sullivan’s face remained expressionless, appearing especially unsympathetic.

“You ran away once right under my nose. If you manage it a second time, I’ll chop off my own head and let you use it as a ball,” Logan Sullivan said coldly.

Zach Warren shrank back a little in silence, the spider silk still binding her like a shadow.

Logan Sullivan’s eye twitched twice as he glared at her, his expression unfriendly. Zach Warren instinctively felt afraid, lowering her head and not daring to meet his gaze. In the end, it was Soulwarden who gently tugged at him and advised in a mild tone, “Commander, let’s talk things over. There’s no need to get angry.”

Logan Sullivan glanced at him—he could scold his subordinates as he pleased, but he couldn’t ignore Soulwarden’s face. So he tried to speak as calmly as possible to Zach Warren: “You think sacrificing yourself to Terra-Spike will appease the wailing of ten thousand ghosts, is that it? I just don’t get it—do you really believe ‘sincerity can move even metal and stone,’ or do you just see yourself as a dish to be served up?”

He started off restraining his tone, but the more he spoke, the angrier he got, until he was practically shouting at Zach Warren: “Are you out of your mind?!”

The thin red mark on Zach Warren’s neck became even more conspicuous. The talisman on her forehead rose and fell with her slight trembling, making her look like a third-rate zombie girl from a cheesy horror movie—an appearance that was almost comical, but no one present could laugh.

After shouting his last words, Logan Sullivan finally vented his feelings. His expression calmed a little. He found a spot beside Soulwarden and sat down on the ground, then jerked his chin at Zach Warren and said magnanimously, “You sit too.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the threads binding Zach Warren surged in the air, forming a silver-white chair just big enough for one person to sit on.

Perhaps her life and afterlife stories were too long; in Zach Warren, there was none of the unique passion and exuberance typical of ethnic minorities from frigid regions. She always seemed gloomy, silent, and filled with an untimely restraint.

The girl’s jet-black hair hung down on either side of her cheeks, floating motionless in midair.

After much effort, Logan Sullivan finally managed to soften his tone. He spoke slowly: “Some things, an outsider only needs to hear a bit to guess the whole story. Do you know why?”

Zach Warren quietly looked up.

Logan Sullivan sighed. “Because they’re bound to happen no matter what. It’s fate. It’s not something you alone can stop.”

Zach Warren murmured, “You know?”

“I just understand people like Zane Shaw better,” Logan Sullivan said. “Hundreds of generations of slaves—when the father died, the son still toiled like a beast, and no one ever dared rebel. He was the first to break that mold, so of course he had a huge grievance in his heart. A man so passionate and outstanding—if you wanted his life, he might even die willingly. But you can’t hurt his dignity. Not to mention fame and fortune, or promotion and wealth—those are distant things. The most basic dignity for a man is to have a wife and children, and to keep the ones he cares about safe and sound, isn’t it?”

After hearing this, Soulwarden couldn’t help but softly ask, “Is the Commander the same way?”

“Fate can’t be forced,” Logan Sullivan couldn’t imagine why Soulwarden would want to chat about such trivial matters, so he replied offhandedly, “But if someone is willing to follow me wholeheartedly, take care of me, and look after me, and I can’t even bring myself to protect them—what kind of person would that make me? Would I even deserve to be called human?”

Soulwarden’s hand, resting on his knee, shrank into his sleeve. Where no one could see, he unconsciously clenched his fist. After a long while, he said quietly, “The Commander is deep and loyal—just, I wonder who could be lucky enough to have that.”

“Huh?” Logan Sullivan was stunned by the compliment, finding it a bit odd, and laughed. “Oh, come on, sir, don’t say that. You’re giving me goosebumps.”

Soulwarden chuckled softly, not responding to his words, only saying, “For his people, Zane Shaw bore such a heavy crime, risked everything, wanting everyone to live equally and prosperously. He personally made that seemingly impossible wish come true, but he could never have foreseen what happened afterward.”

Logan Sullivan: “If it were me, and the woman I loved died at the hands of these people, died because of the rules I set myself, I’d hate these people even more than the old chieftain.”

“More than that,” Soulwarden tilted his head back, gazing through the gray mist he’d conjured at the unmoving Terra-Spike, and said softly, “Even a thousand cuts wouldn’t be enough to ease that hatred.”

There was a chilling coldness in his tone. Zach Warren sensed it keenly and couldn’t help shrinking behind Logan Sullivan.

Logan Sullivan asked, “Did Zane Shaw watch you being executed?”

“They put him under house arrest,” Zach Warren shook her head. “That girl’s father said I’d bewitched him, and it was for his own good.”

Logan Sullivan was silent for a moment, then asked, “So it was Zane Shaw who gathered your remains?”

Zach Warren nodded.

Logan Sullivan: “So, when you said you wanted to come back to find your remains and be laid to rest, you were actually lying to me?”

Zach Warren lowered her head. After a long while, she nodded again.

Logan Sullivan frowned at her for a moment, then looked away, his tone a bit stiff: “Don’t do it again.”

Seeing his attitude soften, Soulwarden took the opportunity to ask, “So did Zane Shaw put the young lady’s remains into the water?”

Zach Warren took a deep breath and calmed herself: “Yes. Among our people, the mountain represents ‘detention and awe,’ while water means lanterns drifting for a thousand miles, unimpeded. Slaves and criminals, after death, would have their heads cut off and placed atop the mountain, while nobles or respected elders would be sent into the water for a water burial. He dug up my head at night, stole my body before it could be cremated, cut off the head of the girl who died accidentally, and swapped her body for mine. Then, by the river, he sewed my head and body together, put them in the burial shroud meant for that girl, and held me as he cried all night. The next day, he watched as others put me into the water.”

As she spoke, she gently raised her neck, her fingers lightly tracing the red line below it. The stitches were fine and close together. Normally, it would seem terrifying, but now, for no reason, it just made one feel sad.