Kishor paused, realization sparking in his eyes, then roared with laughter. “Fine! If Mr. Chance wants sport, I’ll watch. But if that old ghoul cheats, I’ll smash his skull!”
Varek trembled with rage. A mere Wandering immortal junior dared treat me as target practice?!
The insult burned hotter than his demonic aura. With a furious howl quickened his claw strikes, razor wind screaming toward Jared.
Jared, utterly unruffled, slipped into an intricate footwork. His body flickered like a phantom, weaving between the rushing claws. Rather than counterattack, studied the rhythm of Varek’s power and the flow of his pestilent energy.
Fifth tier Earthly immortal Realm aura, dense, yet riddled with gaps…
At the last instant blurred aside, a claw grazing empty air. His wrist snapped, and the Demon Flogger lashed out like a golden serpent, crackling with righteous lightning toward Varek’s wrist.
The whip struck with a thunderous crack. Pure, upright energy surged up Varek’s arm, shattering the black miasma had gathered. Fire flared beneath his papery skin, and even his consciousness faltered for a heartbeat.
His eyes widened. “That whip…”
Terror mingled with wrath, had never expected the young man to wield a relic made to scour the demonic path.
Jared let out a cold chuckle.
“Hurts, doesn’t it, old man?” He accelerated. One breath drifted like a spring breeze, the next exploded like rolling thunder, the signature Blazing Stride.
The Demon Fiogger sang in sweeping arcs, tagging Varek again and again, shredding his black robe and exposing desiccated flesh.
Varek bellowed, “You little wretch! Stop dodging if you dare! If I don’t kill you today, the world will laugh at me!”
He flashed through a flurry of seals; the surrounding gloom condensed into a colossal obsidian spear. “Taste the Blackshade Spear!”
The weapon hurtled toward Jared with world-shattering force, carrying seventy percent of Varek’s strength, so swift no sidestep could save him.
Jared’s eyes flashed with a savage light. Instead of retreating, charged straight at the spear. The Power of Dragons roared inside him, molten gold surfaced across his skin, layering into shimmering scales.
“Golem Body!” Obsidian met gold in an explosion that shook the mountains. The collision birthed a deafening boom, cracks raced across the golden shield, yet it held.
The impact hurled Jared backward. He staggered several paces, fresh blood staining his lips, but his gaze only burned sharper.
Varek stared in disbelief. “He caught my Blackshade Spear?”
For a heartbeat the cavernous hall seemed to hold its breath. A Wandering immortal Realm Level Seven cultivator should have been vaporized, yet Jared still stood, bloodied but unbowed.
“Old man, warm-up’s over!” Jared swiped the blood from his lips and let a wild grin split his face. “Now it’s time you sampled my full combo!”
The promise in his voice crackled like storm-charged wire.
He vanished-one sharp ripple of air, nothing more.
“Nine Shadows!” Eight spectral Jareds flared into being around the throne room, each brandishing the gleaming Dragonslayer Sword.
Steel howled in unison, slicing toward Varek. He thrust up walls of demonic aura, but half the phantoms were solid, half illusion, an impossible storm of edges. One clone’s blade opened Varek’s arm. Black blood spattered the marble like night-ink.
“Petty skills!” Varek roared. A pulse of corrupted power exploded outward, shredding every remaining shadow.
