“Ghost Clan Escape Art! After them!” a Level Nine elder barked, his voice splitting the air. He started forward, but Jared stepped into his path, sword point leveled. “Your opponent is me.”
The Dragonslayer Sword hovered steady in his hands while more than 50 celestials glowered back. No tremor touched his stance.
Lucian let out a laugh too tight for humor. “Jared, arrogance won’t save you! You think we can’t break you?!”
“Find out,” Jared said, his voice flat. The celestials answered by hurling every art they knew in one converging wave. Jared refused to meet that tide head-on this time. His figure flickered into dozens of afterimages, weaving through the crowd like blown ash.
Each time the Dragonslayer Sword lashed out, one celestial crumpled, armor ringing against stone. He spread the Chaos Sword Domain. Gray light rolled out roughly one thousand ninety feet, turning the ground to dragging mire for his foes and quick water for him.
“Form up! Don’t let him split us!” an elder roared. Lines tried to lock, but Jared struck every thin joint before it settled. He kept the entire force spinning, fifty-plus warriors unable to free themselves for pursuit. For a moment, more than fifty celestials found themselves pinned by a single man, unable to break free.
Lucian trembled with fury. “Damn it!”
Cold light flashed in Lyria’s eyes. “Use that move!” She drew a gold talisman, bit her tongue, and spat bright blood across the runes. Radiance flared, shaping into a golden chain that snapped toward Jared.
“Divine King Immortal-Binding Chain!” someone gasped. The talisman was a Celestial Palace treasure; anything weaker than a True Immortal rarely slipped its coils.
Jared felt the threat surge and twisted aside. The chain chased him like a living thing, refusing every feint. Meanwhile other celestials hurled their hidden treasures—nets, seals, cages—until restraints rained down like pellets in a storm. Pressure crashed over Jared from all sides. Even his strength had limits; he could not outlast so many supreme tools together.
Well… Time to go…
Jared filled his lungs once, then burned every scrap of remaining power. “Chaos, Golden Dragon, Nether! Triune Convergence! Realm-Rending Slash!” Both hands locked on the hilt as he carved the air. Gray swordlight bit into space itself, tearing a jagged fissure open. Whirling currents boiled beyond, yet Jared stepped through without pausing.
“Run?! In your dreams!” Lucian snarled. He drove his own blade forward, a silver arc chasing into the closing rift. Lyria flicked her wrist, and the Divine King Immortal-Binding Chain lashed out, its golden links writhing through the air toward Jared like a hungry serpent.
Unfortunately, she released a fraction of a breath too late. Jared’s outline slipped into the torn pocket of space, and the ragged fissure snapped shut behind him. Lucian’s silver blade-light and the chain’s golden coils slammed against the freshly sealed void, throwing off a blinding glare that failed to pierce the barrier. The spot where Jared had vanished remained whole; he was gone.
“Hah!” Lucian threw his head back and howled, the sound raw enough to scrape stone. Beside him, Lyria’s face darkened until it looked wet with shadow. The six High Immortal ninth-rank elders traded uneasy looks, shock widening every eye.
Within the Sacred Mountain Grand Array, more than fifty celestials had pressed him from every side, yet Jared still shattered the Grand Blood Sacrifice Array, freed the captives, and walked away alive. Power, nerve, method—each quality hit them harder than the last. Left alive, this man would become the Celestial Palace’s deadliest thorn.
“After him!” One elder ground out the words. “He forced space open; he has to be badly wounded and won’t get far! Mobilize everyone. Search ten thousand miles around the Sacred Mountain. Bring him back, dead or alive!”
Beams of celestial light burst outward as the cultivators scattered in every direction.
A hundred miles from the mountain, a ragged slit tore open above a quiet valley, and Jared spilled out, barely catching himself on one knee. His skin had turned paper-white, and a sword gash deep enough to show bone split his chest—Lucian’s parting gift. Across his back, the chain’s mark cut so deep it seemed meant to sever his spine. And inside, worse damage churned.
Forcing a Triune Convergence tear in space had drained the last of his strength; both his Chaos Genesis Seed and Golden Dragon Bloodline glimmered only faintly. Still, he was breathing. He tipped the final pills from his pouch and swallowed them, then folded his legs and drew his breath inward.
Half an hour later, Luther rose from a swirl of black mist and landed nearby. “Mr. Chance!” Seeing the wounds, Luther’s composure cracked into alarm.
“It’s nothing fatal…” Jared opened his eyes. “The rescued cultivators?”
“I hid them in a cave a hundred miles north and masked the entrance. They’re safe for now,” Luther said, then faltered. “But your injuries…”
“Need time, that’s all.” Jared pushed to his feet. “The celestials will sweep this valley soon. We move.”
“Where to?” Luther asked.
Jared stared toward the horizon, resolve hardening behind his gaze. “The Celestial Basilica… If the Celestial Palace wants me dead, I’ll find their enemies, and the Basilica is our only hope of freeing Senior Morse’s soul.”
Twin streaks of light shot into the sky, leaving the valley empty.
