“Rowena, your Nethergate Sect must be the crown of level nine,” Jared said, admiration dripping from every syllable. Rowena laughed again.
“Maybe not the crown these days,” she conceded, “But we still rank among the top three. Back in our prime, ah, then we truly ruled the sky.”
“Back then, our disciples strode through level nine unchecked,” she added, pride glinting in her eyes. “Other sects scattered when they saw our colors.”
Her confidence swelled. Behind her, fellow Nethergate disciples straightened their spines, faces glowing with collective pride.
“Fantastic,” Jared said, broad smile returning. “With the Nethergate Sect at my back I’ll fear nothing in these realms, not Soul Devourer, not the Fire Demon Lord, not even the Malevolent Path Hall itself.”
Rowena’s laugh caught in her throat. The earlier pride froze upon her features.
“Wait… Soul Devourer? The Fire Demon Lord?” she asked, brow creasing. “I thought you had trouble only with the Malevolent Path Hall. The Soul Devourer vanished a millennium ago, and the Fire Demon Lord, he’s pure legend. How could you possibly know them?”
To her knowledge, both figures belonged to history’s deepest vaults, the Soul Devourer sealed away ten thousand years, the Fire Demon Lord a myth from ages even older.
Jared raised an eyebrow, brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, and said in a tone so casual it felt almost insulting, “I wouldn’t claim we’re acquainted, but the Soul Devourer and the Fire Demon Lord? Let’s just say we‘ve crossed blades once or twice.”
“That’s impossible, stop bluffing!” Rowena snapped, the disbelief bursting out of her like sparks from flint. “Those two were titans of level nine long before any of us were born and have been gone for millennia. Someone at your measly second level of the Human Immortal Realm wouldn’t even appear on their radar, let alone offend them.”
She swept her gaze over him, head to toe, and the verdict in her eyes was clear: Jared had to be spinning a grandiose tale.
Jared chuckled. “The Soul Devourer nearly died under my palm. The old brute spent ten thousand years suppressed on level six, survived only as a shred of soul, and even though he’s rebuilt a body, he’s nowhere near full strength…”
“One clean strike from me and he’d crumble to ash. If the Fire Demon Lord hadn’t swooped in at the last second, hauling him away like some tattered trophy, the Soul Devourer would already be dust riding the wind.”
He deliberately left out any mention of the Fire Spirit Lord, the detail that might expose his bravado for the fragile thing it was.
Rowena’s eyes narrowed. The more she studied him, the more certain she became, Jared was bragging, perhaps even trying to comfort himself with his own exaggerations.
“So the Soul Devourer and the Fire Demon Lord… Are they back on level nine already?” she asked, voice dipping to an anxious whisper.
Jared shrughed. “Feels that way. The Devourer’s licking his wounds somewhere, but whether the Fire Demon Lord is still on level nine, I couldn’t say.”
He knew the truth all too well: the Soul Devourer’s injuries, nearly fatal from the Fire Spirit Lord’s assault, would take ages to mend. As for the Fire Demon Lord, those ancient fiends had long since transcended level nine. Whether they intended to linger there again was a mystery Jared had no answer to.
Rowena’s face drained of color. Mid-stride, she halted, boots grinding against the gravel road.
“Rowena, what is it? Why stop now?” Jared asked, turning back when he realized she was no longer beside him.
She parted her lips, then closed them again, words crumbling before they reached daylight.
“Don’t tell me the mighty Nethergate Sect is frightened of the Soul Devourer and the Fire Demon Lord,” he prodded, half-teasing, half-challenging.
Rowena said nothing, but her wide eyes and tightened jaw confessed the answer, fear, raw and unvarnished.
The Nethergate Sect could afford to spar with the remote Malevolent Path Hall, after all, the Hall’s true power lay far from level nine. But the Soul Devourer and the Fire Demon Lord were born of level nine’s soil, legends etched into its bedrock.
Jared pressed on, his voice like a finger poking an open wound. “Your Nethergate Sect is one of the oldest orders in existence, its weight on level nine is supposed to be immeasurable.”
