Clutching his mangled wrist, Scarface screamed, a single, ragged note of pain and fury. “Who’s out there?!”
Flaxseed jerked his head up. At the alley’s entrance stood a figure knew by heart, white shirt fluttering like a defiant banner in the breeze.
Black-White Flame coiled around Jared in quiet spirals, ancient charms of heat and shadow breathing power into the night. He had rushed over from the Cardinal Realm.
“Jared? What are you doing here?!” Joy and disbelief collided in Flaxseed’s eyes, turning into tears. A heartbeat ago, had pictured only death, the alley shrinking into the mouth of a grave. Now, as Jared stepped from the darkness, hope cut through despair like dawn through fog.
Jared answered nothing. His gaze slid across the three men circling Flaxseed, ice-hard, merciless. The look alone sent a visible shiver down their spines. The whiterobed cultivator snarled, tightened his grip, and lunged.
“Another meddler! Kill with me!”
His sword flashed like a silver snake, striking straight for Jared’s face. Halfway in, the blade stopped, caught between Jared’s fingers as though steel were soft clay. No matter how the attacker strained, the weapon refused to advance a single inch.
Jared’s mouth curved in mild contempt. “Is that all you can do?”
Pressure tightened. The sword snapped clean, severed like a dry twig. The broken halves traced forlorn arcs before ringing off the stones. A globe of internal flame blossomed in Jared’s palm, bright as a newborn sun, blistering hot.
He set that miniature star against the cultivator’s chest. Flame engulfed the man so quickly that no scream escaped, body, hope, and life curled inward, consumed. Moments later, nothing remained but acrid ash swirling in the heat-warped air.
Scarface and his subordinates went corpse-white, legs shuddering like saplings in a gale. Panic hurled them toward the far end of the alley.
Two chains of living flame snapped from Jared’s fingertips, twisting through the night like hunting serpents. They coiled around fleeing limbs, struggle only tightened the fiery noose, wringing out hopeless cries.
“Want to run? Did you bother asking me first?”
Jared stepped forward. His boot settled between Scarface’s shoulder blades, pinning the man to the dusty flagstones with a weight that felt as immovable as a mountain. Power rippled down Jared’s leg-silent, merciless. Scarface’s ribs creaked.
Air fled his lungs with a strangled cough. leaving squirming like a beetle under an iron heel. His face darkened to an ugly crimson. Wide, bloodshot eyes swam with terror and pain, reflecting the cold flame burning in Jared’s gaze.
“Talk… Why is the Celestial Palace conspiring with the Malevolent Path Hall? What filthy scheme have they hatched?” Jared’s voice out through the night air-ice sheathed in steel, each syllable a blade aimed straight at Scarface’s heart.
Crushed, breathless, and having tasted Jared’s overwhelming strength, the thug no longer dared hide a single secret.
“I-I’ll tell you!” Scarface sobbed, words tumbling out in a panicked rush. “The Celestial Palace gathers the souls, we harvest them, see? In exchange, we pay with celestial gems. That… That’s all I know, I swear!”
Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. Raw fear quavered in every word. as though the confession itself flayed open.
Jared’s stare hardened. A tide of fire erupted from his palm-white at the core, ringed in furious scarlet. In a single hungry rush, the flames devoured Scarface and the cronies beside him, leaving nothing but drifting ash.
A harsh, acrid stench hung in the stillness, the unmistakable perfume of death.
