Blades collided, gold light tangled with midnight haze. Spathe’s arms numbed, the jolt drove back two paces, and pain blossomed across his palms. Anepan slid in beside his brother, twin swords darting like fanged vipers toward Jared’s flanks.
Their synchronized art wove black lines into a suffocating lattice, a cage of wind and steel that closed around him. Yet Dragonslayer Sword seemed alive in his grip-slashing crosswise, stabbing upward, spinning in flashes so bright they seared the eyes.
He flowed through the net’s gaps, footwork light as flame, hunting for the single strand whose break would unravel it all. Jared twisted at the final heartbeat.
The old man on the enemy’s right drove his longsword straight for Jared’s heart, but steel met air as Jared slipped sideways. In the same fluid beat, chopped at the attacker’s wrist, forcing the blade off-line.
Before the elder could recover, Jared’s boot hammered into the man’s chest. Armor rang. The elder staggered back several paces, ribs shuddering under the impact, disbelief widening the folds around his eyes.
Across the churned earth, Aurelius seized the opening Jared had carved.
He sprinted at the mounted Soul Devourer, golden soul energy flooding his sword until it reared into a towering arc of light. The phantom blade cracked the air, descending with the weight of a falling sky.
High upon a snarling lion-steed, the Soul Devourer merely smiled. One careless flick of his gloved hand birthed a thick obsidian shield, pure demonic vapor hardened into stone-black armor.
The collision shook the plain. Golden sword shadow exploded like shattered glass. A cannon blast of recoil slammed Aurelius backward, boots skidded, blood surged, a metallic taste bloomed in his tongue.
“Is that truly all you’ve learned?” Soul Devourer taunted, sweeping his own blade.
A ribbon of night-black sword energy hissed away from the tip, sinuous as a viper, hungry for Aurelius’s unprotected gut.
Aurelius threw himself aside. The black lash licked across his battle robe, ripping a long scar down the cloth and revealing the dull gleam of the breastplate beneath.
Infinides tried to rush to Aurelius’s aid. The elder on the left hounded him instead, sword strokes sharp as fangs, each thrust aimed at throat, heart, or belly.
Infinides parried, wheeled, but found no seam through which to break free. He watched Aurelius’s peril mount, frustration boiling in his chest, yet no path opened.
Farther off, Stebarin had chosen a different battlefield. He stood upon a rise, a plain black pouch dangling from one hand. The bag looked ordinary, until one felt the eerie suction oozing from its mouth.
Every time a human or beast cultivator crashed lifeless to the dirt, Stebarin murmured an ancient chant and raised the pouch. Released souls jerked as if on hooked lines, then streamed toward the opening, vanishing inside.
With every capture, the pouch swelled, black vapor seeping through the fabric like oil through gauze.
“Stebarin, what are you waiting for? Get down here and fight!” Soul Devourer’s roar rolled over the din like thunder across broken walls.
The demon lord spared no further glance at his subordinate, funneling all ferocity back toward Aurelius.
“A moment more, My Lord!” Stebarin called, voice light, practiced, never slowing the graceful motion of his soul-snaring hand.
His chant continued, each syllable tightening the unseen tether, drawing another wandering soul into the swelling sack.
Soul Devourer snorted, ice on iron, and let the matter drop.
Aurelius fought hard, but against an enemy who had tasted ten millennia, the gap was chasm-wide.
Within only a handful of exchanges, fresh cuts scored his arms. thighs, and flank. Blood soaked the red of his robe a deeper crimson, and most of his spiritual reserves lay spent.
Minute by minute, the free-for-all descended into carnage, screams, and steel, weaving a ragged tapestry of ruin.
Human and beast cultivators collapsed in heaps. The disciplined formations of the Imperial Guard shattered, soldiers fighting alone or dying alone while waves of demonic souls flooded the field.
Leonel and Yuliana, skin coated in grime and gore, swung weapons now powered more by stubborn instinct than remaining energy. Gashes striped their bodies, blood dripped from blade and spear in slow, steady rhythm, pooling at their feet.
