Clara’s temper snapped. Scarlet anger flared in her eyes. “Demon-spawn, you court death!” With a metallic hiss, her long red sword flashed free, its blade igniting a ribbon of searing heat that leapt straight toward the leering elder.
“Clara, be careful!” a fellow swordsman cried from the rear. Steel rang throughout the squad as every disciple drew swords and formed a tight, hastily arranged battle array.
Both sides’ numbers were even, yet the enemy boasted a Level Five Heavenly Immortal Elder, a nearly equal boar-headed brute, and a pack of Berserk warriors who knew no fear.
“Kill them! Leave no one breathing!” the Demon Sect elder bellowed. He and the boar-tusked giant lunged together, their murderous intent locked squarely on Clara.
Behind them, Demon Sect disciples and Melded Beastkin warriors shrieked and rushed the Mystic Sky Sword Sect disciples, eager for slaughter.
Battle exploded in a single heartbeat. Clara soared like a fire-phoenix, every stroke of her blade shedding molten feathers that hissed through the air toward the elder’s throat. Her form was flawless, true inheritance of the sect.
For a moment, she held her own against the Demon Sect elder. Elsewhere, the boar-tusked leader fought like a living avalanche. Bone hammers whirled without pattern, powered solely by monstrous force.
He crashed into the Mystic Sky Sword Sect’s formation. The ground quaked, their coordinated lights flickered.
Two Level Three Heavenly Immortal disciples spat blood, reeling from the shock.
The Sword Sect’s field-captain, blood on his sleeve, hair plastered to his brow, thundered, “Form the Ursa Sword Array, now! Lock him down before he rips us apart!”
A Level Four Heavenly Immortal captain pivoted, signaling new vectors. Blades shifted like migrating stars, lines of silver light knitting themselves into a hastily redrawn constellation.
Yet the beast-fused warriors slammed against the forming pattern, every strike a landslide, every roar a battering ram that made the luminous lattice tremble.
Those creatures fought as though pain were myth. Flesh tore, bones cracked, some even detonated in geysers of gore—anything to trade injury for injury.
Precision-trained swordsmen, used to orderly choreography, faltered. Screams followed.
Clara caught the mounting chaos in her peripheral vision. Panic flickered across her eyes. Her next stroke came a breath too fast, a note of desperation bleeding into the rhythm.
The Demon Sect elder, smile thin as razor wire, spotted the opening instantly. His forefinger, blackened by dark rites, thrust forward. A thread of demon force hissed toward Clara’s exposed ribs.
Several younger disciples cried out together, “Clara!”
Their voices cracked with dread.
She jerked sideways, blade half-raised. Too slow. Midnight venom raced toward her—certain, merciless!
And then, at that very moment, time itself seemed to cinch tight. An emerald blur slipped between Clara and the killing finger, as silent as a ghost spilling from a dream.
It was Jared.
No one had seen when he vanished from view; now he stood there, calm as dusk.
He lifted one casual forefinger. A pinpoint of chaotic energy glimmered at the tip, soft candlelight against night, then kissed the incoming jet of demonic power.
A sound no louder than a bubble bursting at the surface of a pond. The lethal strand unraveled, melted, died—snowflake meeting noon.
No thunderclap, no blinding collision. One heartbeat it existed, the next, nothing. Stillness spread, eerie, absolute!
The Demon Sect elder’s grin froze. Confusion swamped his eyes, as though the sky had forgotten to be blue.
That strike, feared by peers, deadly to equals, had been snuffed out like a guttering match.
Clara remained frozen, staring at the broad back shielding her, disbelief widening her gaze.
Jared did not pause. The same finger drifted on, deceptively languid, then tapped the elder’s brow—faster than thought, gentler than a moth’s wing.
Ugh…
A short, wet syllable barely escaped. The elder stiffened. Light fled his pupils. Encircling demon energy deflated like a punctured skin.
A look of dumb astonishment lacquered his face as he toppled, lifeless. He was killed just like that. A Level Five Heavenly Immortal of the Infinite Soul Demon Sect perished without even time to scream!
Everyone froze in utter shock, including the Melded Beastkin warriors and their leader. Jared exhaled as though he had brushed dust from a sleeve, nothing more. He turned, serene, meeting the stunned eyes of the Melded Beastkin leader with a gaze as calm and deep as mountain lakes.
The leader met Jared’s eyes and, in that one still moment, a cold wind seemed to pour straight into his bones. Terror rose not from wounds or pain but from someplace far deeper—his very soul. He had never felt so small.
