“Time to move,” Jared murmured. “Staying here any longer will only invite trouble.” Together, he and Vermilion Demon Lord stripped every corpse of storage rings and useful gear, then destroyed the cavern walls until all traces of battle melted into dust. Without a backward glance, they left Darkwind Gorge and headed for Sandrock City.
What they didn’t know was that shortly after they left, a lone figure in onyx robes drifted into the cave, silent as dusk. Matty Quill had arrived. He surveyed the wreckage—the ruined Netherworld Triple-Slaughter Array, mangled corpses, splintered stone—until the air around him felt colder than the grave.
“Impressive, Jared Chance…” Matty rasped, his voice like poison sliding over steel. “You actually managed to break the Netherworld Triple-Slaughter Array. Seems like I’ve underestimated you.”
Crouching beside the Ghostshades’ bodies, Matty traced a severed wound and frowned in shock. “This sword intent can sever Heavenly Law, huh? Wait a minute… Could this be Maxwell’s legacy?”
As a high-ranking elder of Malevolent Path Hall, Matty was no stranger to the name Maxwell Sterling. After all, Maxwell was the sword prodigy who had once stunned all the celestials, only to be suppressed and sealed away in the end. A cold gleam flickered in Matty’s eyes. “So, Jared’s a successor of Maxwell… All the more reason he must not be allowed to live!”
With that, he produced a communication charm, its surface swirling with dark crimson mist, and breathed a command into it in a voice as thin as a razor’s edge.
“Relay my order to every branch in level eleven. Hunt down Jared Chance by any means necessary. Also, summon the elders Bennett Bloodwyn and Barnaby Bonegrave at once. They are to leave for Crimson Flame City in the Blaze Region immediately and wait for the target. I’m very sure Jared is headed toward Earthfire Pavilion!”
“Understood,” a ghost-soft reply drifted back through the communication charm before the glow inside the stone went dark. With that settled, Matty slipped the charm away, cast one final, measuring glance at the ruined cave around him, then stepped into a fold of shadow that swallowed his body like ink poured on parchment. In the next heartbeat, he was gone.
Three days had passed since the carnage in Darkwind Gorge. Jared’s wounds, though brutal, had mended well enough that fresh strength now stirred beneath the newly knit skin. After quietly sorting through the spoils stripped from Malevolent Path Hall cultivators, Jared and Vermilion Demon Lord left Sandrock City under the cover of predawn haze, their departure nothing more than two fleeting streaks of light that vanished into the open sky.
Before leaving, Jared paid one last visit to the Whisperwind House. Guided by information Dustin had provided, he located several dossiers detailing Malevolent Path Hall strongholds scattered across the northern half of level eleven, and helped himself to every scrap of intelligence and every useful supply he could carry.
“The Blaze Region lies in the far south of level eleven, well over one million kilometers from here,” Jared murmured, unfolding a star-specked map he had plucked from Whisperwind House. “Our route cuts through hundreds of towns of every size. According to Dustin’s information, at least three of those stops hide Malevolent Path Hall outposts.”
A dangerous gleam rippled behind Vermilion Demon Lord’s crimson pupils. “So what you’re saying…”
“Well, since they have marked me for death, we shall return the courtesy,” Jared answered in a voice as quiet as iron. “We travel south, and along the way, we erase every one of their dens we uncover. Doing so will weaken Malevolent Path Hall, fatten our own stores, and, who knows, may even shake loose new clues about Jadeheart Marrow or the lost souls of Flaxseed’s kin.”
“Sure!” Vermilion said with an eager nod. “Then let’s paint the road red!”
Without another word, the two lifted into the air. Azure wind howled over their shoulders as they arrowed toward the southern horizon. Level eleven stretched wider than mortal imagination. Even a Heavenly Immortal Realm cultivator could take months to cross it from one end to the other. Jared and Vermilion Demon Lord, both shackled by the realm’s suppressive force yet strong enough to defy it, still managed to cover ten thousand kilometers a day.
Town after town blurred beneath their feet, most the size of Sandrock City, some larger, ringed by towering walls and arrays that hissed with the presence of true immortals safeguarding the gates. The pair steered clear of those great cities, pausing only in lesser settlements to replenish food and rumors, quietly prying for any whisper of Malevolent Path Hall activity.
Dustin’s intel proved eerily precise, turning each hunt into a blade-sharp procession instead of a blind gamble. Their first target hid behind the facade of a humble medicinal herb shop in Bluestone Town. Under the cover of night, Jared and Vermilion Demon Lord infiltrated the area and, with lightning-swift methods, eliminated two Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Five cultivators from Malevolent Path Hall who were guarding the place, along with several of their subordinates. After that, the duo seized a batch of pills and materials and obtained some intelligence regarding Malevolent Path Hall’s activities in the surrounding region.
The second nest festered inside Blackwater Stronghold, a bandit haven already steeped in blood. Here, Malevolent Path Hall cultivators colluded openly with cut-throats, so Jared showed none of the mercy the guilty might have prayed for. By dawn, the stronghold lay flattened. Three Malevolent Path Hall elders were corpses cooling among smoking timbers, and dozens of shackled civilians staggered free, blinking at a sky suddenly wide and clean.
The third lair waited beneath a gambling hall in Ironrock City. Guarded more tightly than a king’s treasury and reinforced by a Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven cultivator, the place promised a fight worthy of legend. As such, Jared chose caution over bravado.
Before dawn, he slipped into the gambling den beneath a borrowed face, studying every corridor, counting every guard, and memorizing each hidden stair as though the blueprints were etched behind his eyes. When the weakest hour arrived, he signaled Vermilion Demon Lord from within.
The demon lord’s red mist seeped through the eaves, matching Jared’s silent blade. Together, they sprang the trap they had drawn, turning the sleeping warren into a killing field before anyone thought to scream. This fight proved nastier than the last two. Their target, a Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven enforcer, wielded a repertoire of poisons and black magic that could unravel flesh or spirit with a single gesture. Even so, Jared felt only excitement ripple through his veins.
He never offered the man a chance. The instant steel met shadow, he unleashed Void Severance, carving clean through the enforcer’s protective magical item. Vermilion Demon Lord’s crimson fog and the small fire unicorn’s golden blaze hit next, hammering from opposite fronts. In that searing onslaught, Jared thrust once, straight through the man’s heart, and the body folded without a word.
Of the twenty-odd Malevolent Path Hall cultivators quartered in the fortress, three escaped into the predawn haze. The rest lay strewn across the blood-slick corridors, their ambitions cut as short as their breaths.
Razing three nests in a row paid handsomely. Jared’s storage ring now rattled with spiritual stones, pills, rare ores, and even devices inscribed with mission rosters and assassination lists—evidence enough to choke the entire sect in court.
More valuable still was a leather-bound ledger he discovered in a hidden chamber beneath Ironrock City’s base. Its brittle pages mapped half the Malevolent Path Hall’s outposts across the southern region of level eleven and detailed exactly how to reach them.
