Soon, another message came in. A beam of sword light split the roof tiles, condensed, and spoke with Oswald’s hard, distant tone. “Jared, the situation has changed. Witherbone Demon from the northwest of level twelve, Great Elder Bloodsea from the southeast, and three other reclusive old elites have all emerged. They are headed for Malevolent Path Hall.”
The reports fell like iron hammers, each blow smashing deeper into every heart present, ringing with the promise of a storm none of them could yet see a path through. The Five-Element Grand Hall, which moments ago pulsed with the soaring energy of the Five Elements, now lay under a blanket of dread. Columns of colored light still flickered overhead, yet every flicker only sharpened the silence below.
Across the pentagonal room, the Five-Branch Elders exchanged uneasy glances. Resolve had barely taken root, and already the world seemed bent on crushing it in one ruthless twist of fate. Aurelian turned first, his steel-gray eyes settling on Jared. He waited, breath held, to see how the sect’s newly anointed Elder Guardian would answer doom knocking at their doors.
“Immortality? Resurrection? What a load of rubbish!” Vermilion Demon Lord shouted, every crimson rune on his armor flaring. “We know very well that the Door of Reincarnation is nothing but a trap that devours your divine soul!”
“We know, but the others do not,” Gerald replied calmly. “Or perhaps they refuse to know… When your final hour approaches, even a one-in-ten-thousand gamble feels worth every chip on the table.”
Winslow let out a weary sigh. “Such is human nature—promise eternal life, whisper the return of lost loved ones, and you pierce every armor a cultivator owns.”
Jared said nothing. He walked to the latticed window and stared toward the Wailing Soul Plains. Mountains and rivers lay between, yet he could almost see the storm of power gathering there, black as night and hungry as winter.
How mad will the withered monsters become for that sliver of hope? What carnage will a sect like the Ninefold Nether Palace unleash once it believes it can attain immortality? And of course, only someone like Malcolm can toss out bait so poisonous that armies march to swallow it of their own accord…
Well played, Malcolm… Well played…
The Anti-Demon Alliance, barely born, now faced collapse from within while fiends circled outside. Aurelian drew a slow breath, words catching in his throat. “Jared…”
Jared turned back. There was no panic in his gaze, no despair, only a calm that looked as if he had watched the board ten moves farther than anyone else. “Mr. Metalhart and fellow Five-Branch Elders, if any of you choose to quit this alliance, I will hold no grudge. The battlefield has shifted. Pressing on may very well spell utter ruin for the Five-Element Sect,” he said, his voice clear enough to slice marble.
The elders jolted as though struck by unseen thunder.
Ferrum squared his shoulders, his gold-thread cloak snapping. “Elder Jared, do you take us for fence-sitters? Since we have performed the Five-Element Ceremonial Salute, it means we have acknowledged you as our Elder Guardian. From that moment, we’re on the same front! We rise and fall together!”
Pyre slammed his palm on the jade table, sparks leaping from his sleeve. “Exactly! Malevolent Path Hall’s lies might trick those foolish old geezers, but the Five-Element Sect upholds righteousness! We will never yield or do the bidding of a monster!”
The three other elders nodded in fierce harmony. Aurelian let out a laugh, grim and determined. “See, Jared? The Five-Element Sect has made its choice; we will not retreat. At worst… we will go down with our enemies.”
Jared looked at everyone with deep regard and bowed. “Thank you…” He strode to the center of the hall, his voice ringing from pillar to pillar. “In that case, let us plan, coldly and completely, how to carve a path through impossible odds and come out alive.”
***
Meanwhile, before the Door of Reincarnation at Malevolent Path Hall, Malcolm and Morven faced one another beneath the towering bone arch, smiles warm as spring on the surface, eyes colder than the steel hidden behind their backs. Countless petitioners packed the clearing, necks craned toward the two sovereigns who lorded over the summit of level twelve.
“Morven, for you to march the entire Ninefold Nether Palace here yourself is Malevolent Path Hall’s greatest blessing,” Malcolm said. “With your strength beside mine, the so-called Anti-Demon Alliance will soon be reduced to a circus of petty clowns.”
Morven’s onyx eyes flicked past Malcolm to the cyclopean Door of Reincarnation that loomed behind him, then drifted back, calm and unreadable. “You’re too kind, Mr. Vayne. The mysteries of the Door of Reincarnation are endless. If your hall is willing to share the promise of eternal life it guards, the gain shall be ours no less than yours.”
Their gazes met. Two thin smiles—one venomous, one icy—curved in unison. Bone cups touched with a brittle chime, and both drank deeply. The instant bone met bone, a tremor rolled out of the door.
Hum!
A tidal shockwave, immense and primordial, burst from the Door of Reincarnation’s abyss. It was nothing like the greedy suction or the gray odor of death that had seeped from it before; it was the breath of creation itself, a power older than every written law.
The next second, Malcolm’s goblet exploded in his fist, and the liquor vanished as vapor before it reached the ground. Malcolm spun. His gray-white pupils locked on the Door of Reincarnation, and for the first time, he looked afraid.
Morven’s pupils contracted to pinpoints. His Ninefold Nether Demonic Aura writhed around him, then shrank inward as if it had met its natural predator. Every follower in the field felt it too—an invisible gaze sweeping through their souls, as cold and indifferent as the heavens regarding ants.
Someone’s voice broke on a whisper. “W-What is happening?”
“It’s the Door of Reincarnation… I-It’s shaking!”
Before them rose the towering black Bone Gate, impossibly tall. Gray flames inside every skull-eye erupted, weaving in midair until they drew a titanic human outline, eyes shut, suspended against the sky. Then, the outline opened its “eyes.”
Twin vortices of spinning gray void—no pupils, no whites, only depth without end—stared outward. Light bled from the heavens. Day itself seemed eaten by those eyes.
A voice spoke inside every soul: “I am… The Lord of Reincarnation…”
The declaration did not travel through the air. It was as though a billion beings whispered at once, and the foundation of the world replied: ancient, majestic, and unquestionable.
