Chapter 108

His entire body blazed with roaring soulfire; filthy soil fell away in the flames, and his eye sockets burned with bright blue fire, making him look like a death emissary crawling from some ancient abyss—when his gaze fixed on him, Old John felt his whole body freeze.

What the hell did I pick up? Should I be dead by now? Old John muttered blankly.

His legs felt weak, but not from fear—from shock. Deep inside, Old John was strangely unafraid.

Death is death, after all. He was already so old, his leg crippled, his later years holding no hope. Death wasn’t so terrible—only that he wished his soul might rest in peace.

You could only say that a fifty-year-old youth had no experience. Someone like Silver Coin, ninety years old, would know that falling into the hands of an undead wasn’t just “death is death.”

But what puzzled Old John was that the risen bone skeleton didn’t kill him—only tilted its head at him, then suddenly produced a sack of grain and placed it before him.

Huh? What’s this? Payment for my life? Old John had already decided this skeleton would kill him, so any action from it could only mean something sinister.

Trading grain for my life? I’m not stupid. If I agree, I’m dead—and the dead don’t eat, so the grain gets taken back anyway.

Back when he was a mercenary, he’d heard similar legends: demons would turn into beautiful women to tempt men, trading beauty for one of their possessions. If you agreed, the demon would take away what lay between your legs, leaving you able to see but unable to use it.

Old John wasn’t falling for that trick. He shook his head firmly: “I don’t want the grain.”

Ang was stunned. No grain? Then what now?

Normally, when believers offered soulfire, he returned grain in exchange. Though this believer’s faith was weak and his soulfire faint, along the way he’d slowly gathered a few strands.

No grain? Then no equal exchange. What should he do?

“What do you want?”

What do I want? I want food and shelter, a hundred acres of land, herds of cattle and sheep, noble status, the kind where I can step on the constable’s face and he still has to smile.

After thinking it over, Old John felt that was too much. He casually said: “I want my crippled leg healed, then become a mercenary and live to ninety.”

He said it all in one breath—meaning, healing the leg, becoming a mercenary, living to ninety—all linked together. He feared that if his leg healed and he became a mercenary, he’d die the next day.

Of course, this was just idle talk. He didn’t believe the bone pile he’d picked up could heal his leg. In fact, just not killing him on the spot and giving him a sack of grain had already shocked him.

Heal the leg? Ang crouched down and poked Old John’s crippled leg.

It was a leg bent outward. From Ang’s experience replacing over a dozen bones, he knew it had been caused by a fracture that wasn’t reset in time, leading to bone overgrowth and a permanent curve at the break.

Easy. Just replace the bone.

He looked around. Hmm. Where to find a suitable bone?

There were other corpses buried in the ground, but they were all rotted away—useless if dug up.

“Why not cut it off, straighten it, and reattach it?” Negrilis suggested, projecting into Ang’s mind.

“Oh.” Ang summoned his scythe and prepared to cut off Old John’s leg.

“Wait! If you cut him like that, he’ll faint from pain and bleed out. First seal his senses, make him lose feeling, then cut fast and seal the wound immediately to prevent excessive bleeding. Oh, and hold him so he doesn’t run.”

Before Negrilis finished, Old John scrambled to his feet and hobbled away as fast as he could.

He wasn’t afraid of death—he was afraid of being cut. Seeing the gleaming blade of the scythe, he instantly had the urge to flee. How much pain would that cut cause?

Too late. Ang took one step and caught up to him. Before Old John could scream, he sealed his soul.

Instantly, Old John lost control of his body. He watched helplessly as Ang laid him aside, severed his leg, sliced open the outer flesh, snapped the curved part of the shinbone, shaved off the overgrown bone, made it straight, dripped a few drops of unknown liquid onto it, then released holy light.

Seeing this, Old John lost the ability to think. A skeleton releasing holy light? This was definitely holy light—because as the light shone, the severed and shaved shinbone began to fuse back together.

Not just the shinbone—the sliced flesh also slowly healed, becoming a straight, flawless lower leg.

He compared the new leg to the thigh. Trimmed off the excess. The half-shin in the skeleton’s hand was like a melon—he weighed it, uneven. Trimmed a bit more. Weighed again. Still uneven? Trimmed a bit more.

Once perfectly aligned, the skeleton summoned holy light, shining it on both the thigh and shin junction, then joined them together and bathed the seam in holy light.

The two severed parts of the leg visibly healed into one.

Done. Skeletons were better—just swap a bone. Humans made bone replacement too complicated. Ang thought to himself.

When Old John regained bodily sensation, he sat stunned for a long while, holding his leg up in the air, staring at it until it went numb. Only then did he half-believe, half-doubt, stand up, and repeatedly stamp his formerly crippled leg on the ground.

“Really healed? No pain? No curve? No limp?” Every word was a question. To an ordinary person, this was a soul-shaking miracle.

But if he’d seen Ang slowly restore an angelic skeleton into a dazed little girl, he’d probably have found this level of healing unimpressive.

Negrilis was unimpressed. He urged inside Ang’s soul: “Enough, enough. Ask if he’s better? If he is, let’s leave. Put on your hat. Your bones are too conspicuous.”

Old John said hesitantly: “It feels a bit short.”

Short? Easy. Cut it, drip some essence fluid, and let it grow faster. Ang summoned his great scythe.

“No no no, not short, not short! I’m just used to being crippled, I haven’t adjusted yet. Not short, not short!” Old John turned pale, waved his hands frantically, and even jumped a few times to show off his leg.

What he’d just witnessed had shattered his mind. To Ang, this was ordinary—but to an ordinary person, cutting off, straightening, and reattaching a limb was enough to paralyze them with terror.

The fact that Old John could even speak clearly now was thanks to the overwhelming joy of his leg being healed. Another round? He’d rather have his leg half an inch shorter than endure that again.

But it was just that he’d grown used to his limp—he hadn’t adjusted yet. Like someone who suddenly lost a tooth and kept poking at the gap with their tongue.

Now that the “equal exchange” was done, Ang was satisfied. He put on his hat and prepared to leave.

The habit of “equal exchange” wasn’t binding, but it had formed during his early confusion. Not doing it left him uneasy, as if something vital had been left undone.

But the moment he put on the scarecrow hat, a commotion erupted outside: “This is it, this is it, Reverend! This is the house where they worship the undead and keep many skeletons—definitely trying to summon a skeleton. No one knows where those bones came from. Maybe they’re carved from living people!”

A crippled old man who helped bury unclaimed corpses was now falsely accused of killing living people to carve bones and summon skeletons.