Jared nodded once, slow and grave. “All the more reason to dig out the truth before the rot spreads past us and infects every realm below level four.”
The farther they traveled, the thicker the vapor grew, twisting into ghostly tendrils that throttled sight and strangled spiritual sense.
A sudden scuff of boots on damp stone drifted through the fog ahead. Shapes emerged-first a hulking figure whose aura pulsed at the fourth tier of the Earthly Immortal Realm, then a squad of hardened fighters bristling with identical ferocity.
Behind the tree, Jared and Flaxseed scarcely dared exhale. Just then the giant halted, nostrils flaring. He pivoted toward the cedar.
“Who’s there? Show yourself!”
Jared’s and Flaxseed‘s hearts lurched, they had been found. Jared’s gaze sharpened into steel. He had been moments from staking his life on one desperate blow when the ground convulsed beneath his boots. in the distance a serrated peak ripped free and toppled with a scream of stone.
The whole of Fallen immortal Valley shuddered like a living beast. Dormant runes, older than any scripture, flared awake, sending spears of light raking into the storm-black sky.
“Fall back, now! We’ve tripped the valley’s restriction!” the burly cultivator shouted, color draining from his face.
His words barely left his mouth before the air tore apart, and jagged rifts gulped down several of his comrades without even granting them a cry.
Farther off, Lunaria’s shadow-clad disciples and Seraphina’s crimson retinue fared no better, many died where they stood, erased by raw spatial fury.
Jared and Flaxseed stood rooted, their hearts hammering. Neither had imagined that Fallen immortal Valley’s defenses could manifest with such ruthless grandeur.
“Move!” Jared snapped, seizing Flaxseed’s sleeve and sprinting toward the valley’s darkened depths. He knew the chaos behind them was also their lone path to survival.
Amid collapsing ruins and fissures that yawned like hungry maws, the two men fought forward.
More than once a ripping vortex opened at their heels, but Jared‘s reflexes dragged them clear by little more than a breath.
At last the trembling subsided. Jared and Flaxseed collapsed onto the debris-strewn ground, drawing ragged lungfuls of dusty air.
“W-We‘re still alive?” Flaxseed whispered, disbelief trembling in his voice. Jared gave a single nod, then let his gaze roam the unfamiliar surroundings.
There was no mist, no crumbling architecture, only a monumental altar carved with runes that pulsed like embers in the dark. Flaxseed circled the platform, wonder eclipsing fear. “What is this place?”
Jared stepped to the center, where a solitary stone tablet stood. Its ancient script outlined a method, a path to level five.
