Han Bei sat on the tree he previously threw. uncharacteristically his breath was heavy and labored. " Damn you and your sudden sense of loyalty, " he cursed at the 4 dead bodies beside his feet as he pulled a broken bone blade out of his back. In the aftermath of his battle with Bo Fei, he thought to spare the remaining members of the skeleton manor. Not out of the goodness of his hearth, but rather self-preservation.

The battle against the vulture was more draining than Han Bei would have liked to admit, and since he mostly had a grudge against the man himself, he thought that killing Bo Fei's subordinates was a waste of effort. " Beneath my gaze, beneath my attention, until the lot of you plunged your Heaven damned weapons in my back, " he confessed his arrogance to a man whose skull he had crushed.

The rest of Bo Fei's cutthroats didn't fare any better. The battle was brief but fierce and despite only dealing damage at the very start of the battle, the fighters left an impression on Han Bei. " It was their eyes, " he remembered. " There was fear reflected in their eyes but not of me but something else, someone else. " He shook his head as there were better things for him to do yet what he felt from the members of the skeleton manor shook him up good, even if he told himself otherwise.

Han Bei took out a piece of fresh meat from his bag of holding, something he kept in arms reach ever since he arrived at the nameless ravine, and quickly devoured it so that his body started healing. Han Bei didn't want to tarry for too long since he tended to get weird around recently dead bodies, especially if he was injured.

Quickly, Han Bei gathered everything that was of worth and was ready to leave. He looked back at his own handy work and he honestly contemplated simply leaving. " Let them rot beneath the sunless sky and become food for worms or other things that wander in these plains. " Han Bei felt that the impulse to leave was strong indeed but he resisted it. He looked back at the dead bodies and wondered how long it would take for something else to rise back again. " Would my end look the same way as well, my guts for all to see and for crows to feast on? " Perhaps he held an iota of respect for the cultivators, Bo Fei and his henchmen were, but he quickly sensed the lie. " It's those eyes, " he admitted to himself. " There is something haunting in that look even now, something disgusting. "

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Han Bei took out a flame talisman from his bag of holding. He channeled qi into the rectangular piece of paper and after a short while it burst into flame and formed into a fist-sized fireball. He waved his hand and the projectile traveled from body to body, setting all of the dead flesh and everything in-between on fire.

The fireball then returned to Han Bei and transformed back into a talisman, its red color now a bit more faded. " It's probably more than you deserve, " Han Bei thought as he watched dead flesh turn into cinders. He turned around finally walked away amidst the fearful gaze of dead eyes that boiled and burst into nothing. He left, but Han Bei felt that there would be more accusatory stares haunting his dreams now.

As Han Bei carefully made his way through the scavenger plains and his body mended itself together his mind was somewhat preoccupied. As was expected after a battle he went over his own actions. He scrutinized his own decisions and judged the mistakes he made during the heat of battle, but a pair of questions hung over his head like a dark cloud.

" How and why? " Han Bei thought with increasing irritation or perhaps even a bit of desperation. " Did the old thing lie to me, is Skeleton manor not at the end of its day? " he questioned aloud. " Why is that dying beast so latched on to me? " His mood only darkened further as he looked back at his past encounters. " The wolf hunters, the necromancer with his mutant servant, and now Bo Fei with his posy. Every step that I took there was a dagger aimed at me, and each time it was plunged closer to my heart. " Han Bei took in a breath of cold air. " Then what about the next attack, will it strike me dead? "

He truly felt it now. With every step that he took a noose tightened around him held by a skeletal hand and soon it was gonna break his neck. Han Bei found it funny in a way. " I never thought of fighting the skeleton manor, not truly. I always expected them to die off before they had the time to deal with me. " It wasn't a mountain Han Bei wanted to cross, but the mountain had come to him instead." Now a single question remains. What should I do? "

There was resolute light in Han Bei's eyes that bordered on madness. There was but a single answer to that question. Only a single answer sufficed. " I shall endure, until that bastard Fang Ming is dead, I shall endure, " he promised to his dead martial siblings and to himself.