Lindsay, silent until now, darted forward and clutched Jared’s sleeve. “I’m going too!” “Nonsense!” Ignatius scolded. “Lindsay, your cultivation is far too low. Level twelve will swallow you whole!”
The princess lifted her chin, eyes bright with unshed tears. “Father, I’m already at Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Six, and the Earthfire True Scripture I practice restrains demonic techniques. I can help!”
Jared laid a gentle hand over hers. “No. You should stay… This path drips with peril. Earthfire Pavilion needs steady hands here just as badly as swords out there.”
Lindsay bit her lip, moisture shimmered across her lashes. Yet after a trembling breath, she let his sleeve slide free, knowing he spoke the hard truth. At her current level, she might end up being a burden if she went.
Winslow rose, robe sleeves brushing the floor as he bowed deeply. “Your courage humbles me, Jared. Though the Azure Firmament Sword Sect lies in ruins, these old bones retain some worth. I know every contour, faction, and hidden gate across level twelve. Permit me to act as your guide…”
Behind him, Leopold and Selina stepped forward, bodies folded in solemn salute. “We follow our master wherever he treads.”
Jared glanced toward Gerald.
The elder offered one slow nod, an ember of approval glowing in the wrinkles around his eyes. He dipped his chin, a thoughtful breath escaping his lungs.
After a heartbeat, he clasped his hands and spoke, each word steady as a temple bell. “Then we must trouble you, Mr. Walden. We entrust everything to your guidance.”
Jared brought his fists together in salute, the gesture both respectful and resolute. As he straightened, his gaze swept across the vaulted hall, lingering on the battered cultivators who had escaped level twelve and were now huddled beneath Earthfire Pavilion’s crimson banners.
His voice carried, warm yet commanding, echoing off pillars forged from living magma. “Friends, remain within Earthfire Pavilion as long as you must. Mend your wounds, hone your spirits. When we carve open a path back into level twelve, we may yet need your blades beside us.”
Elio and the others traded uncertain looks, torn cloaks, splinted arms, eyes rimmed in sleepless red. Then, as if seized by the same invisible chord, they bent at the waist. “We await your command!”
Fear still gnawed at their hearts, a cold animal refusing to loosen its jaws. Yet Jared’s words had struck flint against steel, within that darkness a single spark rekindled.
They were not fleeing. They were gathering strength, waiting for the hour to turn, and then they would storm back through the gates of ruin and make their enemy bleed.
Jared’s final murmur cut through the hall like the first crack of dawn. “There is no time to lose. We’ll set off in three days.”
During those three days, Jared cloistered himself with Lindsay in the deepest chamber, sharing breath and flame until exhaustion left her draped across his chest, heartbeat fluttering like a spent bird.
He knew that once he stepped onto level twelve, untold years might pass before their hands found each other again. So, he loved her with reckless abundance, as though trying to fill an hourglass to bursting before the sands were snatched away.
***
Three dawns later, they gathered before the stone arch that marked Earthfire Pavilion’s main gate.
Ignatius stood with the pavilion elders, sending them off.
Tears rimmed Lindsay’s eyes as she pressed a red-gold pendant into Jared’s palm.
“This is Earthfire Pavilion’s protective charm…” she whispered. “When danger closes in, crush it, and it will release an Earthfire True Flame Shield… Also… Promise me you will return alive.”
Jared closed his fingers over the warm pendant and nodded with solemn certainty. “I promise…”
Gerald had traded his ceremonial crimson for an unadorned gray robe, hands clasped behind his back, he masked his formidable aura until he seemed no more than a kindly traveler awaiting a carriage.
Vermilion Demon Lord, by contrast, lounged with irrepressible swagger, scarlet hair whipping in the wind, a grin promising mayhem to any realm foolish enough to bar their path.
At Jared’s heel frisked Lucky, the small fire unicorn, scales glimmering like hot coals and tail swishing in eager loops.
Across the courtyard, Winslow waited with Leopold and Selina, their travel cloaks billowing, swords and bells silent yet taut with readiness. His cane had been mended, his robe snow-white once more, his expression returned to placid calm, though grief and iron resolve still smoldered deep within his eyes.
“The teleportation array is ready,” Ignatius announced, voice echoing off the mountain walls. “It will deliver you to a hidden ravine skirting the Ancient Battlefield Ruins on level twelve. That area used to be the Ancient Battlefield, so the space is fractured and difficult to trace. That said, beware the ancient restrictions and wrathful spirits that haunt those ashes.”
Jared nodded. “Understood.”
Before stepping away, he let his gaze roam over the mountain range, over Ignatius’s proud face, over Lindsay’s trembling smile, and over every elder and disciple who had come to see them off. Then he turned, shoulders squared, and strode into the teleportation array.
Gerald, Vermilion Demon Lord, Lucky, Winslow, Leopold, and Selina followed one after another, forming a silent procession of seven.
Brilliant light blossomed, the ground rippled like water as reality bent around the sigils. In a single breath, the seven figures vanished inside a sky-piercing pillar of radiance.
Lindsay stared at the now-empty platform, tears finally broke free, tracing hot paths down her cheeks.
Ignatius laid a steadying hand on his daughter’s shoulder, his own gaze fixed on the distant heights of level twelve, features carved in grim concern.
“You have to return to us, Jared. The fate of level eleven itself may well ride on you…”
***
The scarred rim of the Ancient Battlefield Ruins unfurled into a jagged valley, its walls clawing at a sky the color of clotted rust.
A ripple shivered through space. Seven figures spilled from the distortion, boots skidding across ash-slick stone.
Jared steadied himself first. A pulse of spiritual sense fanned from his brow, sweeping the wasteland in a silent search for danger.
The valley lay barren, smothered beneath a suffocating red gloom. Iron-tainted wind carried the stale odor of blood and rot. Cliff faces loomed on every side, charred black as if scorched by an ancient furnace that had never cooled.
Across the cracked earth sprawled a litter of bones, some unmistakably human, others bestial, many shattered beyond recognition.
Farther out, broken buildings and toppled walls sagged against the haze, while pale gray wraiths drifted above the ruins, fading in and out like frayed memories.
“So this is the legendary Ancient Battlefield?” Jared muttered, brows knitting as the metallic air pressed against his lungs.
Even after untold millennia, murderous intent, resentment energy, and the chill of death still pulsed here so fiercely that each breath felt like swallowing needles.
Winslow flicked his cane. A cool emerald glow blossomed around the group, sealing out the valley’s decay with a hush of pristine air.
“That’s right. Legends claim titans at Top Level High Immortal Realm, and perhaps beings even higher, fell here. The spatial fabric hangs by threads, and shards of broken laws prowl the cracks. Few dare step deeper…” Winslow’s voice stayed calm, yet the glow around them tightened all the same.
He lifted the cane and pointed eastward. A pillar of gray-white light pierced the distant horizon, its sterile aura of reincarnation palpable even from here. “Three thousand kilometers that way once stood Skypivot City, brightest jewel of level twelve. Now, most likely, only ashes remain.”
Jared followed the gesture.
Across the blood-red sky, that ghostly beam rose like a frozen scream, radiating the dead silence branded upon it by Malevolent Path Hall. He knew the sign instantly; it was Malevolent Path Hall’s mark, cold and absolute.
“Let’s get out of this place first. Lingering here will do us no good,” Jared said, voice low but urgent. Just then, Gerald suddenly spoke, his clouded eyes sweeping across the surrounding void. “Something has been stirred…”
As if on cue, every drifting wraith snapped its head around. Empty sockets, black as tomb mouths, locked onto the seven intruders. A single shriek tore loose, then multiplied into a chorus so shrill it rattled stone and bone alike.
The swarm surged, wave after wave of starving phantoms racing in from every direction, eager as sharks at the first scent of blood.
