Dominic’s arm stayed frozen, fingers still hooked around the shattered collar. Color had drained past pale into bone-deep gray, his teeth knocked together with a dry clack.
Jared stood motionless, eyes roaming over the gathered pursuers. The calm on his face held no ripple, like someone idly watching ants crawl underfoot.
That lack of ripple sliced straight through Dominic’s nerves. He could have handled Jared screaming, Jared charging headlong, even Jared flailing wildly. A raging man was still human, openings could be found.
But the Jared before him was too silent. Silent like someone who had not just watched his woman violated. Silent like something no longer bound to breath and pulse.
“J-Jared, p-please, don’t do anything crazy!” Dominic stumbled back a step, his voice breaking as he sputtered, “M-My family is House of Wagner, the Celestial Palace backs me! If you lay a finger on me, the entire Fourteenth Firmament will hunt you down!”
Jared finally moved. He tilted his head, letting his eyes lock onto Dominic’s face. It took only that single glance. Just one look.
A chill shot up from Dominic’s heels to the crown of his skull, his limbs locked as if an ancient beast had fixed him in its sights, and in that heartbeat even the blood in his veins seemed to ice over. He gaped, but no sound escaped. His throat strained, muscles quivering, as though an unseen fist clamped around his windpipe.
Jared withdrew his gaze and turned it on the guards pinning Vivian.
Those guards had already lost what nerve they had. The instant Jared’s eyes swept over them, they recoiled like cats with their tails stepped on, letting go in panic and scrambling backward, tripping over one another in their rush to get away.
Freed, Vivian no longer had the strength to stand. She collapsed where she was, clothes in tatters, hair a disheveled curtain, tears clouding her sight as she lifted her head to stare blankly at the tall figure before her.
That straight back looked exactly the same as it had three days ago inside the House of Chance Manor. No there was a difference now.
A few days earlier he had left the manor bloodied and hounded, fleeing for his life. Now he stood here with no aura leaking, yet an unspoken authority pressed outward, the kind that made knees want to fold on their own.
Jared finally turned. He lowered his eyes to Vivian, taking in her torn clothes, the drying tracks of tears on her cheeks, and the crimson print Dominic had left on her neck.
His gaze stayed as quiet as ever. Yet Vivian clearly caught a razor-thin shard of chill spark deep inside those still waters. That glint carried nothing earthly. It was the frost of the Ninefold Hells.
Without a word, Jared slipped the outer layer of his robe from his shoulders and draped it gently over Vivian, hiding the ruined cloth and her exposed skin. Every motion was light, almost cautious, as though the slightest force might hurt her. Fresh tears welled in Vivian’s eyes.
“Jared…” She breathed, the scratch in her voice carrying everything she had kept buried.
Jared raised a hand and brushed a thumb across her cheek, wiping the moisture away; the tenderness of that touch erased all trace of the earlier chill.
“Miss Chance, you have suffered enough,” he said softly. “From here on, I will handle the rest.”
He straightened and turned away from her. The warmth on his face faded, breath by breath.
In its place settled an absolute calm. He faced the gathered pursuers, and the Dominic now cowering at the very rear, and spoke in a level tone. “Every one of you deserves to die.”
Those words, plain, unhurried, entirely flat. The syllables had barely fallen when an unseen weight slammed down from the sky, squeezing the air ottt of every chest on the hillside. One of the Wagner guards finally snapped.
“Kill him! Finish him!” he shrieked. “He’s only one man-look how many we are. Forward! Cut him down!”
Spurred by the shout, a dozen guards and soldiers finally scraped together enough nerve to charge, roaring as they rushed Jared.
Sword arcs flashed, spell-light tangled into the charge. Watching them advance, Jared’s mouth curved, half smile, half something unreadable. Then he raised one hand.
He lifted it casually, no incantation, no wind-up, not even the ripple of aura. He simply raised his hand.
Boom! A dull concussion ripped through the field. The front rank collided with an invisible mountain, bodies catapulting backward; blood fountained mid-air as breastbones caved, tendons snapped, and weapons flew.
They hit the ground already lifeless. One move. No, what just happened could not even be called a single move. It did not qualify as an exchange at all. It was nothing more than Jared lifting his hand.
In that instant, more than a dozen men were wiped out, every last one of them gone. The pursuers still standing stared ahead, bodies rigid, minds blank.
What kind of power were they facing?
What kind of method could do this?
They had not seen Jared swing a fist or sense a hint of leaking energy, yet their companions lay on the ground, lifeless, beyond saving.
“Top Level High Immortal Realm Level Three… No, that’s wrong… The aura on him… This is…” A Celestial Palace soldier blurted the words, the edges of his voice quivering.
He was no master himself, but years of service inside the Celestial Palace had shown him plenty of formidable figures. Yet what pressed on him now felt nothing like normal strength, it clamped down on his chest and refused to let him breathe.
It was a pressure that seemed to rise from the very fabric of life, from deep within the blood. It felt as if the being in front of them was not a man at all, but a dragon. No, something even more dreadful than a dragon.
An Emperor Deragon!
Jared allowed them no time to gather their thoughts. He took a single step forward. The step looked unhurried, yet when his foot touched the earth he was already standing in the middle of the crowd.
