Far above the horizon, a tide of murderous intent rolled west-northwest, thick and unbroken as storm surf.
Jared stood on Coall’s vast head, broad as a plain, while cold wind snapped his blue robe like a battle flag. His eyes were glacial wells. The blood spilled at Nethergate Sect—today it will be paid back.
This was not revenge alone. It was a declaration. Every force across Level Nine that coveted him or the Draconians would learn that: cross them, and nothing will save you.
Behind him flew hundreds of dragons, each shape unique, each aura savage. Still reeking of the battle at Nullrift Gorge, they now burned with fresh fury at Skyfiend Sect’s treachery.
Their united dragon’s power parted clouds and drove every creature below into silent, trembling refuge.
In Jared’s command, the Draconian army had become the keenest butcher’s blade. And in his chest, he felt it—strength so fearsome it bordered on myth.
“Coall, faster, drive the wind itself beneath your wings!” Jared’s command was quiet, almost conversational, yet it pressed straight into the great dragon’s mind like a sword tip.
“Hold tight, Mr. Chance! We’re almost there. I can already taste the stench of those mongrels in the air!” Coall’s basso growl shook Jared’s ribs.
The dragon’s titanic body coiled, muscles knotting, then snapped forward. He shot across the sky, leaving a shriek of torn air and a rolling boom in his wake.
All around him, the other Draconians hurled their own power into the chase. Dozens of armored leviathans streaked after Coall, scale-plates flashing like a river of black steel, a single, roaring flood of death surging between heaven and earth.
***
Skyfiend Sect’s Headquarters was located at Bonewither Cliff.
This place never knew sunlight. Grey-black energy clung to the air year-round, and sheer cliff faces had been mortared together with the bleached bones of beasts and men.
Every breath of wind ripped bonedust from the cracks and hurled it through the ravine, so the entire cliff moaned like ten thousand spirits mourning their own demise.
Buildings sprawled across that nightmare precipice, each structure nailed to the rock as if afraid to fall, each wall lacquered with skulls and femurs. The stink of evil and decay was so thick it seemed to press the sky downward.
Skyfiend Sect had risen swiftly, crushing or devouring every other demon sect for miles.
At this moment, its arrogance stood at full boil.
Patrols paced the outer tiers in identical black robes sewn with white-skull sigils. Their eyes glittered with the cruelty and hunger only dark cultivators could cherish.
Today, arrogance was shattered. A pressure, vast, nameless, unstoppable, poured from the distant horizon and rolled toward Bonewither Cliff like an avalanche carved from night itself.
“W-What… What in the void is that?” a sentry on the bone tower glanced eastward. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, and the scream that clawed out of his throat cracked halfway up the scale.
Far away, the sky turned to ink. An endless storm cloud raced forward, faster than thought. Yet that was no storm. Inside the darkness, titans rolled, mountain-sized silhouettes, plated in scales that caught the weak light and flicked back a ghostly sheen.
Dozens, hundreds, of dragon eyes blazed inside that living cloud, each orb a furnace of rage and bloodlust. Every gaze locked on Bonewither Cliff as though the cliff were prey already pinned beneath talons.
Ahead of them rode the dragon’s power, a continental tide that crushed the air itself. Stone groaned.
Cultivators’ hearts clenched, many skipped a beat. The demonic energy in their meridians, once proud, once smooth, stuttered and froze, as if confronted by its natural predator.
“Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Unprecedented power is upon us!” the shriek ripped through the headquarters, higher than any warning gong.
Alarms that had slept for decades burst alive, pounding across every hall and courtyard, shredding the usual brood-dark order into outright panic.
