A torrent of divine arts, treasures, and array light slammed toward Jared, blotting out the sky. The summit drowned beneath riotous color; the air shook with power heavy enough to warp space.
Jared stood inside the maelstrom, strangely calm. He had waited for exactly this surge.
“Chaos Trueform!”
“Golden Dragon Bloodline!”
“Twin Essence Convergence Art! Triune Convergence!”
All three apex forces erupted together, and Jared’s aura shot to its summit. One half of his flesh blazed gold like a newborn sun; the other half swirled with gray chaos. A ribbon of black mist wound through his core, welding the halves into one. The Dragonslayer Sword spat tri-hued light, its blade humming with impatient delight.
“Break!” Jared swung once; the fan of three-colored sword light spread outward to meet every incoming strike.
Boom! Boom!
Thunderous detonations rolled across the summit. The blast blossomed across the summit before Jared could draw another breath. Heat and scarlet glare slammed into his back, flipping loose stones into the air. Protective sigils on the eight altars flickered wild red. Hairline cracks spidered over the stone platform, and several altars leaned off-center, groaning under their own weight.
More than thirty celestial cultivators were hurled outward like tossed straw. The weaker ones struck rock, folded over, and coughed blood that misted in the blast-lit air. The shock did not spare him. Even wrapped in the Triune Convergence, his chest rattled as unseen force hammered organs against bone. A copper tang rose in his throat; he swallowed it down and tightened his grip on the Dragonslayer Sword.
He refused the pause. While the celestials reeled, his figure smeared into three gray afterimages that streaked toward the marked altars. Each shade carried the same lethal intent.
A panicked shout tore across the summit: “No! He’s aiming for the altar!”
Another voice roared, “Block him! Now!”
Startled, the celestials jolted back to themselves and lunged after him, spiritual lights flaring as they scrambled to cut off his charge. Speed stole the breath from the mountaintop. The three afterimages touched down before their altars almost together, and the real Jared swept the Dragonslayer Sword in a full arc.
Jared’s voice cracked through the air, “Chaos Genesis!”
Three threads of dusk-gray sword light burst from the blade, diving into the stone bases of the altars in perfect unison. The defensive array around each altar folded like wet parchment the instant the Chaos Sword Light touched it, sigils sputtering out with a brittle pop. The beams did not stop. They bored deeper, carving straight into the heart of the stone and leaving searing afterglow in their wake.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The splitting echoes overlapped, loud enough to punch through the roar still ringing in Jared’s ears. Jagged fissures webbed across the three altars, widening by the heartbeat. Each fresh split raced outward, hunting for weak joints until the structures teetered on broken ankles.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each altar erupted in a fountain of rubble and red light, the shockwave folding Jared’s cloak tight against his back. The trio of altars collapsed inward, then burst apart, chunks of blood-stained stone hurtling skyward before raining across the shattered platform.
The moment the altars blew, the Grand Blood Sacrifice Array convulsed. Scarlet circuits flashed, dimmed, and flickered like a dying heartbeat all around the summit. The eight crimson pillars that had speared into the clouds faded to a sickly dusk. Between them, the lattice of blood-red chains snapped link by link, curling away into ash.
Suspended over the ritual nexus, the enormous crimson heart let out a shrill, living screech. Its rhythm faltered, lurching from steady thunder to erratic stutters. Then, silence.
The Sacred Mountain’s long tremor eased, and the ground under Jared’s boots finally stilled. Blood threads that had been streaking upward snapped mid-flight, their severed ends flickering out. Across the slopes, pilgrims sagged as the draining force vanished; precious blood essence remained safely inside their veins. Deep in the cavern, the nearly awakened Mournwright Sovereign statue shuddered once, then went still. The crawling cracks on its surface froze, and the crimson glow bleeding from them pulled back like an ebbing tide.
The word burst from Jared’s throat before he could swallow it back: “It worked!”
The Grand Blood Sacrifice Array had been severed, utterly and completely. A howl of pure denial ripped from a celestial elder: “No!” All around the summit, celestials answered with desperate, furious shouts that rattled the fractured air. Three hundred years of secret labor, gone. The realization tore at every celestial face as they stared at the lone swordsman who had undone it all.
Voices overlapped into a murderous chant: “Kill him! Kill him!”
Lucian’s irises burned crimson; veins stood out along his temples as rage swallowed the last of his composure. Beside him, Lyria ground her teeth, her voice icy and sharp: “Jared, I will cut you into pieces!”
The remaining twenty-five celestials surged forward. This time they held nothing back; each flared their strongest techniques, filling the broken platform with lethal, overlapping light. Jared tipped his chin and let a faint smile curve his lips—a smile that carried the ease of a man who had already won. The array lay in ruins, and the corpse-birth had failed; the mission he came for was complete. Now came the part where he stayed alive long enough to leave.
Jared sent a sharp mental pulse, “Luther, fall back!”
The command crossed the distance, threading straight into the mountainside cavern where Luther fought. Luther answered at once, “Mr. Chance, I’ve freed more than half the captives here, and the Soulbinding Bell is broken. But the celestials have the mouth of the cave sealed. I’m forcing a breakout as we speak.”
Jared’s answer rang out clean and steady: “Hold on. I’m coming to cover you.”
He stopped trading blows and swept the Dragonslayer Sword in a wide ring of gray light that drove the nearest celestials backward. Then his body streaked into a beam and shot toward the mountainside.
“Stop him! Don’t let him escape!” a celestial officer screeched.
A cascade of celestial auras burst after him, refusing to let the trail of gray light slip away. In the span of a few breaths, Jared landed outside the cavern halfway down the slope. A dozen celestials blocked the mouth of the cave, weapons raised. Inside, steel and spell light clashed in a chaos of echoes.
Jared barked, “Out of my way!”
The Dragonslayer Sword spat a crescent of gray light; the guardians scattered like broken dolls, hurled clear of the entrance. He rushed in. Luther was shielding several dozen rescued cultivators while trading vicious blows with more than twenty celestials. The freed cultivators lacked cultivation, yet under Luther’s shouted directions they locked into a crude battle formation, barely managing to hold the enemy at bay.
Spotting Jared, Luther’s eyes brightened. “Mr. Chance!”
Jared answered with steel, driving a gray arc through the crowd to carve an escape corridor. “Move!” he snapped.
Luther herded the freed cultivators toward the mouth of the cavern. Robes snapped around their ankles as they sprinted for daylight. Behind them Jared wheeled, planting his boots in the dust. The Dragonslayer Sword rose to shoulder height, its edge guarding the retreat.
Outside, two waves of celestials merged. Those who had pursued from within linked up with their waiting kin until more than 40 shining figures ringed the cave mouth, closing every gap around Jared’s party. Lucian and Lyria broke through the cordon next, boots grinding stone. Their faces held the same iron-gray fury, the kind that came from plans unraveling before witnesses.
Lucian bared his teeth. “Jared, even wings wouldn’t save you today!”
Jared let his gaze travel the circle. Celestials kept pouring in until the count topped 50, and six of them carried the crushing aura of High Immortal Realm Level Nine. A straight fight would only end one way, and not in his favor. He nodded to Luther. “How many people can you move at once?”
Luther managed a rueful smile. “At my level, ten, no more, and the jump can’t be far.”
Jared dipped his chin. “That’s enough… Take them and go. I’ll cover the exit.”
“N-No, Mr. Chance… We leave together!” Luther’s protest came sharp and quick.
“That’s an order.” Jared’s tone allowed no argument. “Staying only drags me down. Relax… When I decide to leave, they won’t stop me.”
Luther’s jaw flexed, then he gave a single, hard nod. “Mr. Chance, take care!”
Fingers blurred through seals as he unleashed a Ghost Clan Secret Art. Black mist ballooned, swallowing ten cultivators in one breath. When the vapor thinned, the eleven figures were simply gone.
