The skeletal figures kept coming.
Not just a few—dozens. Maybe even hundreds.
They weren't simply standing there, but walking, moving in a slow yet unrelenting march through the clearing. Their bones were not fully solid—each figure shimmered with a ghostly translucence, as if caught between this world and the next. Their hollow eye sockets, vast and empty, seemed far too aware for something that should be long dead.
And they were walking right through them.
Literally.
The ghost-like creatures passed through their bodies as they moved, the sensation sending an unbearable, freezing chill through anyone they touched. It wasn't like normal cold—it was a deep, soul-numbing frost that made it feel like their very life force was being drained.
Mizuki's voice, low and sharp, broke through the horror.
"Don't move. Don't do anything."
No one argued.
No one even breathed too hard.
