Jared wove through the chaos, leaving only fading after-images in his wake. Every thrust and cut landed with surgeon precision, finding the tiniest seams in defenses too slow to matter.
At times, did not bother to raise the Dragonslayer Sword, a casual flick of his wrist sent compressed gold spiritual energy slicing open throats as easily as silk. Moments later, the camp lay silent, scores of bodies cooling in the dirt, and the skeletal altar still pulsing with sickly green light.
Jared stepped to the altar, gaze softening at the divine souls writhing inside. Fragmented, half-mad from pain, the divine souls clung to tattered spiritual intelligence and primal fear.
With a gentle wave, bled pure gold spiritual energy into the stone. Runes of demonic energy shattered like brittle glass, chains of demonic energy fell away. Freed, the divine souls drifted upward as argent motes, dissolving into the air like a final, grateful exhale.
“Rest now…” Jared murmured, compassion tempering the fire still smoldering in his eyes. He turned from the ruined altar and shot into the trees, racing toward the rendezvous had set with Flaxseed.
Beneath an ancient tree wide enough to swallow a house, Flaxseed waited, booted feet planted among two dozen fresh corpses. Charred charms still smoked on their robes, and fury etched hard lines into his face.
“How did it go?” Jared asked, glancing at the dead and already guessing the answer.
“Three camps,” Flaxseed growled. “Slaughtered a good hundred of the b*stards. Hauled a few in alive, none knew where the Flaxseed clan‘s divine souls were kept…”
“However, I got my hands on a captain of theirs. He was tough, but I eventually got to talk. The core of their branch lies deep in the mountains at Bloody Bones Gorge. Dioz and that other old ghoul, Varek, are holed up there.”
“Bloody Bones Gorge?” Jared’s eyes narrowed. The Dragonslayer Sword thrummed in agreement, eager for the coming reckoning. “It seems like they’re there…”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Flaxseed spat, already striding into the dark. “Let’s end this at Bloody Bones Gorge!”
Flaxseed could no longer leash the wildfire crackling in his chest.
The moment rage burst across his face, slapped half a dozen Wind Charms into the air. They burst open like emerald sails, carving a screaming wind that lifted from the ground and hurled toward the range’s shadow-choked heart.
Jared raced after him, the two streaking through ravines and across ridgelines as though the earth itself were an unraveling scroll beneath their feet. Any cultivator of Malevolent Path Hall who dared step in their path was cut down before a cry could form.
Charm after charm flared between Flaxseed’s fingers. One heartbeat, it was an Explosion Charm, the next it was a Binding Charm that locked an entire squad where they stood, eyes wide, limbs frozen, awaiting the blade.
A moment later, flicked a trio of Flame Charms that bloomed into molten flowers, scouring demonic energy from the air.
Jared was even starker, almost merciless in his clarity. Wherever the Dragonslayer Sword swept, golden light braided with scarlet flame. Resistance lasted no longer than the swords passing.
Just a burst of sword energy, and a score of cultivators collapsed into hissing charcoal. There was no pause, no pity, only the clean severing of threat from the world.
The nearer they drew to what locals whispered of as Bloody Bones Gorge, the thicker the reek of hemoglobin became. A rusty blood mist even started to drift low to the ground, staining the very light a dying red.
Soon, dark crimson runnels appeared beneath their boots. They were not streams, but rivers of blood long since congealed, every step on that brittle crust let out a glassy crunch that crawled beneath the skin.
Bloody Bones Gorge lived up to its name: the entire canyon was paved with bleached skeletons, a death-road of ivory stretching from the valley floor to either cliff. It was as though some lunatic god had flung a jawbone highway across the earth.
Along the opposing walls, mummified corpses dangled like macabre banners, mouths forever open, sockets forever wide, each posture a final scream etched in sinew.
And at the gorge’s black heart stood a palace of obsidian, its surface crawling with runes that pulsed, now and then, with a vein of crimson light.
