Throughout those three days Jared remained rooted beside the tower, muscles taut, senses flaring at every gust. He knew Soul Devourer’s assassins could descend without warning.
On the third evening the tower flared, white fire blossoming along its runes, painting the surrounding trees in ghost-bright strokes.
Figures spilled out. Onneas, Aurelius, Artemis, Yuliana, and the others. Their auras pulsed, brighter, steadier. Wounds had vanished, eyes shone clear, and new strength coiled beneath their skins.
“We’re whole again!” they cried, triumphant voices echoing through the dusk. Yuliana’s amethyst eyes sparkled as tightened the ribbon around sword hilt, unable to contain the bounce in step. “And my strength has grown so much!”
Beside her, Aurelius’ grin widened, pride spreading across his dust-streaked face. “That’s right. I’ve already stepped into Human Immortal Realm Level Three!”
The circle of survivors erupted, each voice tumbling over the next as they compared fresh scars and newfound abilities.
Three hundred hard days inside the Pentacarna Tower had forged them in relentless, otherworldly fire, tempering every vein of power they possessed.
Onneas brushed a palm across ribs, testing old wounds, then allowed a relieved smile. Her injuries had vanished, and nine-tenths of peak strength pulsed again within her.
The jubilation shattered when the sky itself detonated, a thunderous boom that seemed to peel the clouds inside out.
From that rupture rolled a pressure so immense the valley floor quaked, stone ridges shivering like frightened animals.
Every head snapped upward.
Overhead, storm-colored clouds swirled into a living vortex. Legions of ink-black souls and demon cultivators poured forth, countless as locusts, sealing off the sky and hemming the valley in darkness.
At their spearhead floated a single figure in midnight robes, Soul Devourer, restored to unholy perfection and savoring his return.
“Hahaha! Did you really think crouching in this forgotten ravine would spare you from my gaze? Today, let us see where you plan to run!”
Hope drained from the gathered faces as they watched the swarm blot out the heavens.
Yes, wounds had mended and strength had risen, yet before Soul Devourer and his hundreds of thousands, their odds were smoke.
Aurelius exhaled a dry laugh. “Looks like this really is where we die…”
Artemis nodded, serenity settling over sharp features. “If the last breath I take is with all of you in battle, I’ll leave no regrets behind.”
Yuliana’s knuckles whitened around longsword. “Even if it kills me, I’m cutting through them first!” Onneas met the descending darkness with fierce calm. “Do not surrender yet. There is still a sliver of light.”
Yet every soul felt the hollowness beneath those words, a gentle lie offered for courage. Against power of that magnitude, hope itself seemed a fairy tale.
They formed a ring, backs pressed together, weapons lifted in unanimous resolve. The air between them congealed into a silence so heavy it threatened to crush thought itself.
Someone muttered through clenched teeth, “If death is certain, we’ll take with us!”
Infinides, sleeves flaring, started forward to trade life for life. He froze mid-stride. An invisible force hammered down, locking every joint as though chains of air had solidified around him. The same crushing aura pinned the rest; moving even a fingertip became impossible, let alone raising a blade.
Above them Soul Devourer hovered, black robes rippling despite the still air, exuding a suffocating nightmare heat.
“In the end, ants remain ants. I gave you time to grow, yet you still cannot touch me!”
They fought the unseen shackles, muscles straining until veins bulged, but the bonds would not yield. Inside each body, spiritual energy lay frozen, a river turned to ice.
“Hahaha! Can you taste the despair yet?” Soul Devourer’s laughter rolled across the ravine like thunder, raw and merciless. The jet-black mist coiling around his frame writhed with every cackle.
“That, whelps, is the gulf between absolute power and your pitiful scraps of strength. Before me, you’re not even worthy of struggling!”
