A chill, sharper than the razor-ash itself, settled over Tsongen. The construct on his back gave another low rumble, an impatient, wet sound. He moved closer to Jigmed, his gaze fixed on the Elder’s chest, where the golden skin pulsed faintly beneath the thin, silken tunic. It was a living web, interwoven with the Elder’s own flesh, a grotesque second skin. The coins continued their slow, rhythmic cascade from Jigmed’s ruined eye sockets, pinging against the marble floor, each fall a tiny chime of avarice. They caught the faint, metallic sheen of the wool, reflecting a distorted, yellow glow. Tsongen felt a tremor in his own hands, a mix of revulsion and a rising, dark glee. This was more intimate than he had anticipated, far more gruesome than simple amputation. His bone-needles, usually reserved for the delicate work of loom-weaving, felt like crude instruments of torture. But Chenzom’s face, pale and ashen, flickered behind his eyes. He had no choice. He knelt, ignoring the stink of old blood and fresh gold. Jigmed’s head lolled, unable to track Tsongen’s movements, but his lips parted, a wet, rattling sound escaping. “My… my adornment…” he repeated, a fading whisper. Tsongen’s fingers, calloused from years at the loom, traced the edge of the sacred hide where it met Jigmed’s throat, a seam of unnatural union. The skin felt warm, pliable, yet impossibly dense. It shimmered with an inner light, a divine hide desecrated. He took one of the longer, sharper bone-needles, its point honed to a razor’s edge. The spectral threads of the beast, invisible to the common eye, flared around Jigmed’s chest, a web of glowing, crimson lines marking the precise boundaries of the cursed flesh. These were the karmic sutures, the divine instructions. Tsongen pressed the needle’s tip against the gilded surface, just above the Elder’s sternum. The skin yielded with a soft sigh, not a tear, but a deliberate parting, as if recognizing the authority of the beast's will. A thin line of molten gold, not blood, welled up from the cut, shimmering before it congealed into a faintly glowing scar tissue. Jigmed’s body stiffened. A choked gasp tore from his lips, followed by a low, drawn-out wail that quickly escalated into a guttural scream. More discs erupted from his eyes, a torrential downpour, striking his face and neck with sharp, metallic clinks. They splattered, metal against hide, some bouncing onto Tsongen’s hands. The sheer volume of the precious metal was staggering, blinding the Elder completely, but Tsongen could see the terror in his ruined face, a fear that was finally pure, stripped of all earthly possessions. Tsongen ignored the screams, ignored the grotesque shower of coins. His focus narrowed to the crimson threads, his movements precise, methodical. He was not cutting; he was unravelling. Each pass of the bone-needle separated the gilded pelt from the underlying muscle, a painstaking divorce of divine and profane. It was a slow dance of pain and liberation, and Tsongen felt a dark satisfaction bloom in his chest, sour and potent. This was the purity Jigmed had preached, now rendered visible, tangible, and agonizingly extracted. The elder had wanted to wear divinity, to subsume it into his own corrupt flesh. Now, Tsongen was peeling back the layers of that hubris. “You wanted immortality, Elder,” Tsongen murmured, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, yet carrying a chilling resonance in the echoing chamber. His bone-needles continued their work, guided by the fiery strands of karmic intent. “Let me unspool it from your bones.” The construct on his back shifted again, its wet, ragged inhalations growing stronger, more insistent, as if feeding on the released energy from the flaying. A faint, acrid scent, like burnt offerings and old metals, began to fill the pristine hall, a stench of unravelled sin. Tsongen worked his way down Jigmed’s torso, the shining skin peeling back in sections, revealing not raw, bleeding flesh beneath, but a sickly pale, almost translucent dermis, devoid of the Elder’s natural pigment. The pelt wasn’t just skin; it was an entire layer of being, a physical manifestation of Jigmed’s stolen grace. The separation was excruciatingly slow, each inch a battle between the Elder’s dying will and the Orolang’s demands. Jigmed’s screams had devolved into a raw, ragged rasp, punctuated by wet coughs as he choked on his own gold. His frail body spasmed on the throne, his limbs thrashing uselessly. Tsongen felt a brief surge of nausea, a primal response to the sheer body horror of the act, but he pushed it down. This was not about him, not about his comfort. This was for Chenzom. This was for the Orolang. The village’s self-proclaimed purity, its rigidly enforced stratification, its very identity, was literally skin deep, bound to this stolen hide. The sacred coat, once a symbol of Jigmed’s supremacy and the community’s false piety, was now being torn away, revealing the rot beneath. Finally, with a soft, tearing sound, the last thread snapped. The entire fleece, shimmering and vibrant, detached from Jigmed’s inert body. It pulsed softly in Tsongen’s hands, impossibly light, yet radiating a profound, ancient energy. It was whole, perfect, a radiant shroud. The moment it was fully removed, Jigmed’s body, which had been thrashing moments before, stilled completely. The flow of gold coins from his eyes ceased, leaving only raw, empty sockets. His skin, once pale, now seemed to wither, collapsing inward. His silks hung loose, unsupported. With a faint sigh, almost inaudible above the distant groan of the mountain, the Elder’s body dissolved, not into blood or bone, but into a small, unremarkable heap of mundane, grey ash on his gilded throne. The ash was so fine it seemed to breathe, disturbed by the slightest current of air. At the same instant, a profound tremor shook the entire estate. Tsongen felt it in his teeth, a deep, resonating thrum that vibrated through the stone floor. A deafening roar echoed from outside, a sound of massive, ancient forces being unleashed. Through the archway leading to the balconies, he saw it: the dome of supernatural razor-ash, which had encased the Terraced settlement like a malevolent bell jar, was no longer a static barrier. It was contracting, churning violently, collapsing inward with terrifying speed, threatening to crush everything below.

The Flaying of the Patriarch