That single mass of dragon‘s power weighed upon every member of the Skyfiend Sect like an ocean forged of stone. Spiritual energy locked in their veins, lungs shrank, and dread pooled thick as tar inside their chests. “Mr. Chance! Mr. Chance has returned!”
“The Draconians are with him! So many of them!”
“We’re saved! The Nethergate Sect is saved!” Despair detonated into euphoria. Wounded disciples of the Nethergate Sect wept, laughed, and clutched one another as sunlight of hope broke through their terror.
Rowena, bloody, shaking, braced against her silver spear, felt tears flood her vision. She nearly collapsed from relief, yet forced trembling knees to hold so she could cry out, “Mr. Chance, you finally came back!”
Jared’s gaze swept the torn earth, bodies of Nethergate disciples who would never rise again, friends butchered beneath Skyfiend blades.
He saw Rowena‘s torn armor, the gore matting her hair. Ice flared behind his calm eyes, and the very air cooled in fearful response.
He landed before Rowena with a soft thrum of displaced wind and poured a ribbon of pure life-energy into her chest.
Her ragged breathing evened, blood slowed, bones knit.
“You’ve done enough… From here on, it’s my fight.”
The words were spoken quietly, yet they carried the certainty of law. Every surviving member of Nethergate felt their terror dissolve, replaced by an unshakable conviction that, while Jared was around, nothing could harm them again.
Fury knifed through Jared the instant he pictured Rowena’s bruised wrists and tear-streaked face. To him, they were no casual lovers. She was blood, bone, a part of his own skin, and whoever laid a hand on her would pay.
Across the rubble-strewn courtyard, Gideon and the Skyfiend Sect disciples stood frozen.
A thousand-foot tide of Draconian might pressed down on them, hundreds of scarlet eyes, implacable and cold, promising to grind every last intruder into dust.
“Y-You… You’re Jared Chance?” Gideon forced the words past a sand-dry throat. “W-What do you intend? I am Gideon Marrow, an elder of the Skyfiend Sect! Harm us, and my sect will never spare you!”
“Skyfiend Sect?” Jared turned slowly.
His gaze was twin rapiers of light that stabbed straight through Gideon. “Who gave you the courage to storm Nethergate Sect?”
Pinned beneath that stare, Gideon felt like prey beneath a primordial predator. Cold sweat drenched his robes.
“D-Don’t be arrogant, Jared Chance!” he sputtered, fighting to steady his voice. “You have already offended Lord Soul Devourer. We act under his command to seize Nethergate while your people lie wounded… So if you’re smart…”
“Soul Devourer?” Jared’s lip curled into an icy crescent. “That mongrel? Too scared to show his own face, so he sends gnats like you to die in his stead.”
“How dare you slander our lord!” Gideon roared, but panic chewed the edges of every syllable.
Rowena leaned close, her whisper urgent. “Mr. Chance, the Skyfiend Sect has swallowed half the demonic world these past years; they’re nearly the strongest force on the Seventh Heaven now.”
“Strongest?” Jared answered with a low, mirthless chuckle, nothing but scorn ringing in it. “Those clowns? Laughable…”
“Draconians, hear me!” Jared’s voice cracked like winter ice, carrying to every corner of the sky.
The Draconians answered with a single, earth-shaking bellow. Lightning split the clouds as their collective power surged.
“Leave the leader,” Jared said, each word a blade of frost. “Every single member of the Skyfiend Sect—wipe it out!”
“Kill!” the Draconian ranks roared, battle lust igniting the heavens.
Coall dove first, an obsidian comet hurtling from the clouds and smashing into the densest knot of Skyfiend cultivators, the ground exploding beneath his impact.
A single sweep of a taloned claw churned the sky into a scarlet storm.
Blood spattered in broad, arcing sheets before the droplets ever touched the ground. A whip-crack of a tail followed. Dozens of black-robed Skyfiend cultivators sailed through the air like ragdolls, limbs snapping beneath the blow.
“Kill!” The battlefield rang with the guttural roar, a rolling thunder of bloodthirst that made the very stones vibrate.
Cyanna raised one slender arm and let the Azure Dragon Aura erupt from her body. In a heartbeat, that aura fragmented into thousands of emerald blades.
They fell in a driving, swirling rain, each razor-thin shard burying itself flawlessly between a Skyfiend warrior’s brows or into the seat of a frightened heart.
