Hearing this, Vikrant's face changed in an instant. Audrey—the very person he had tricked into a death sentence—had somehow returned alive from that savage storm? And yet, even if she had survived, why would she betray the Legion? It didn't make sense. Frankly, she ought to be hunting him, not the other way around.
"How peculiar," Vikrant murmured. He didn't doubt the Undead; their minds held only the faintest awareness, incapable of falsehood. He turned to the Devotees and said, "Parishioners, I suspect that wretched Holy Cultivator Guild has meddled with our soldiers. Let them expend what remains of their strength."
To unleash the power of Ruse on such a grand scale could hardly have been for mere curiosity. Now these fallen soldiers were undead—cursed abominations rather than men—and sending them toward Riven would both evade the border guards and divert any suspicion from us.
