“No!” A fear of death seized him. Mordain screamed, his voice breaking. He let out a shriek so sharp it nearly tore his voice apart.
He stopped caring about dignity, about status, about being a legendary figure of the demonic path, and unleashed everything he had. The Bone Sceptre in his hand exploded, forming a ghastly white shield made of countless screaming skulls.
Netherworld Ghostfire surged around him in layers of protection, while twisted black, gray chains infused with curses and death itself burst from the void, lunging toward the sword strike.
All of it was meaningless. That chaotic sword energy was like divine judgment—inevitable, absolute.
The skull shield disintegrated on contact. The Netherworld Ghostfire vanished like snow under the sun. The death chains shattered before they even drew close.
The sword energy pierced through every defense, and in the reflection of his terror-stricken eyes, gently tapped his forehead.
A light noise sounded. Time itself seemed to freeze, caught between one heartbeat and the next. Every motion, every breath, every twitch of resistance inside Mordain was locked in place like an insect trapped in amber.
He remained standing in that last defensive stance, green flame eyes already guttering, the light within them snuffed out almost before it dimmed. At the center of his brow, a pin-sized hole appeared—bloodless, perfect, impossibly precise.
From that single wound, tiny cracks of swirling grey spread outward in a spiderweb, racing across bone, robe, and shriveled flesh. Cracks sounded like glass shattering. The sound felt louder than thunder.
The stooped body, the tattered black robe, even the splinters of his once-feared Bone Sceptre dissolved into glittering motes of chaotic light, drifting away on a breath of wind.
Nothing—no body, no soul, not a sliver of marrow—remained.
The final cornerstone of the Infinite Soul Demon Sect, their Supreme Elder at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven, had been felled by one stroke of Jared’s sword.
Silence followed. It was a deeper, longer silence than any that had come before. Wind halted. Clouds congealed. Even lungs forgot the art of breathing.
Every living soul became a wooden figurine, staring at the spot where the old fiend had vanished, watching the last motes of chaos dust drift apart.
Sheldon Soulsby’s face froze in a mask of horror, eyes hollow, mind vacant, as though his spirit had fled ahead of his body.
My greatest trump card… The sect’s final pillar gone… Slain by a single sword?
Thud! Someone‘s knees buckled first, crashing to the ground.
A chain reaction followed; disciples of the Infinite Soul Demon Sect and Melded Beastkin warriors collapsed in spreading waves, faces bloodless, bodies shaking before the figure in the sky. None found courage enough even to beg.
Across the field, members of Mystic Sky Sword Sect broke free of numb shock and erupted into wild, survivor’s celebration.
“Mr. Chance, unmatched might!”
“We’re saved! The sect is saved!”
“He slew the supreme elder! One sword steadies the world! Sir Chance is invincible!”
Their shouts rolled through the Myriad Sword Mountains like a tidal wave of thunderous joy.
Jared lowered the Dragonslayer Sword, the blade’s crimson glow shrinking to a single ember before vanishing entirely. Around him, the swirling haze of ultimate energy and the curling phantom petals of a fire-lotus folded inward and melted into still air.
From the shattered ridge, he stared down at the plain where the Infinite Soul Demon Sect and the Melded Beastkin army knelt like lambs awaiting the cleaver.
In the distance, Garth Thornscale hung in chains, and near him shuffled Sheldon, hollow-eyed. Yet Jared lifted the blade no further. His voice, cool as night water, drifted across the valley—not a shout, merely a statement everyone heard as clearly as thunder.
“Begone… Gather what remains of your legion, leave the Myriad Sword Mountains, and crawl back to the Blood-Scar Plains you came from. Tell Soul Devourer to wait… I, Jared Chance, will come for his head soon.”
His eyes swept over Sheldon as though studying refuse left to rot beside the road. “Set one foot back on this soil or scheme against the Mystic Sky Sword Sect or the shattered remains of the Myriad Beast Sect and… the fate that befell that old geezer moments ago will become your lesson.”
Having delivered his decree, Jared turned away from the crawling mass.
In a single stride, he vanished and reappeared inside the shattered gate of the Mystic Sky Sword Sect, stopping before Linden Cloudridge. Behind him remained a battlefield of broken invaders and a holy mountain erupting in thunderous, tear-soaked cheers.
Only after Jared’s silhouette had long dissolved did Sheldon shudder, as though he had just bolted awake from a nightmare.
He cast a venomous yet frightened glance at the sect gate, at the smear of Garth’s blood, at the drifting ash that had once been Mordain.
“Retreat…” The single word rasped from a throat scraped raw by terror, humiliation, and unspent rage.
The Infinite Soul Demon Sect and Melded Beastkin Sacred Sect warriors broke like a tide sucked suddenly back to sea.
Helmets, banners, and even sect robes were flung aside as warriors trampled one another in their haste to escape the Myriad Sword Mountains.
They had arrived beneath choking storm-clouds, beasts roaring at their heels; now they fled in thin, scattered knots, each soldier praying the butcher behind them lacked an extra pair of legs.
Jared had spared Sheldon for a reason; the man would be his living message, a trembling courier sent to promise Soul Devourer that Jared himself would soon claim that infamous head.
With the Dragonslayer Sword humming at his waist, Jared felt the universe bend outward once more; confidence swelled inside him like a fresh sun, and he thought, almost laughing.
Yes… I can do it again…
