As they descended the mountain, Shard realized where he was.
This was the woodland where he and Mia hid on the night the True God Church besieged the Truth Society. If his guess was correct, their destination should be the frozen lake—Bena Lake.
Passing through the misty woodland and following the blood-colored shadows of the two girls, they indeed reached the shallow beach by the lake again.
The edge of the woodland was close to the lake. On the slightly narrow mudflat, hundreds of black-robed figures lay prostrate on the ground. Thin wooden stakes stood by the lake, each with various sizes of mummified corpses. The corpses on the stakes closest to the center embraced eight relics, and the Blood Thorn Scepter in Shard's hand was the ninth one.
