A colossal, gold dragon illusory shadow, no more than a blazing echo forged from raw sword intent, erupted out of Jared’s strike.
It loosed a thunderous bellow that seemed to rattle the heavens, then hurled itself headlong into Jayson’s spatial rift of sword shadows.
Boom! The Impact that followed dwarfed every clash that had come before. For one breathless instant, fury, heat, and roaring light fused into a single, deafening detonation.
The arena bucked like a ship in a storm. Pillars of light from the surrounding Spiritual Barricade Array guttered, dulled, then cracked apart in a spiderweb of glowing fissures.
A murderous shock wave burst outward. Even with the Spiritual Barricade Array caging most of the force, the watching cultivators felt their blood churn. Many staggered back several dozen paces, faces blanching as they fought to steady their breathing.
When the rolling dust at last drifted away, the arena resolved into grim focus, every shard of wreckage limned in the faint, ghostly glow of dying spiritual light.
Jayson had fallen to one knee. His once-proud Sky Havoc Sword lay scattered around in pitiful, glittering fragments. Blood slicked his clothes, and his aura flickered like a candle whipped by the wind.
Across his chest gaped a wound so deep the bone itself glimmered beneath torn flesh, an unmistakable mark left by Jared’s Dragon Soarer.
Moments earlier, during that earth-shattering collision, Jayson had misjudged a single line of intent, and that solitary mistake had spelled his defeat.
Silence spilled over the scene, heavy as a burial shroud.
Not one spectator dared breathe a word. They simply stared, eyes wide, each face carved with disbelief. After all, Jared, a Wandering Immortal Realm Level Eight, had just toppled someone in Level Six of the Earthly Immortal Realm. However narrow the margin, a victory was still a victory.
Jared leaned on the Dragonslayer Sword, his complexion ghost-pale, his chest heaving from the exertion. Yet his eyes, keen as a hunting hawk, never wavered from the beaten man before him.
He had relied solely on sword techniques, no talismans, no secret techniques. For that, silently thanked Corin, whose teachings had turned raw talent Into razor certainty.
Jayson watched Jared advance, inch by unforgiving inch. Terror warred with smoldering resentment in his gaze. He understood with aching clarity that no longer possessed even the strength to lift a blade.
“I… I concede!” rasped, forcing the words past the Iron taste of blood.
That final cry emptied the last scrap of power from his lungs. He wished for nothing but breath and time, time enough to nurse vengeance in the dark.
Jared halted, studying the broken swordsman the way one might regard a loser. Something unreadable flickered across his eyes.
He lifted his Dragonslayer Sword, intent for a heartbeat on finishing what had begun. Then, with visible effort, allowed his murderous intent to fade.
A man who had publicly surrendered was, after all, a foe best left for the Judgment of witnesses, lest the victor invite whispers of cruelty.
Jared turned his wrist to sheath the blade.
“Die!” A flash of malice sparked in Jayson’s eyes. Summoning every last drop of spiritual power, whipped a dagger, its edge lacquered in virulent poison-from his sleeve and lunged for Jared’s unguarded back.
The strike struck faster than startled breaths, too swift for reason to catch.
“Watch out!” Lyra, Corin, and several others shouted in fractured unison, hearts vaulting into their throats.
Jared sensed the murderous wind behind him-but, this time, a fraction of a second too late.
He wrenched his torso aside at the last possible heartbeat, but the gleaming dagger still sank into his left shoulder.
A white-hot stab of agony, laced with numbing venom, shot through every nerve like forked lightning. A wet, metallic splatter burst Into the air.
Blood flooded his mouth. He hawked it out in a crimson arc, then staggered three unsteady steps before planting his boots, forcing his trembling body to hold upright.
Slowly, pivoted, eyes finding Jayson with a clarity colder than midwinter steel. The last trace of hesitation had vanished, leaving only murderous intent.
“You crave death. Allow me to oblige…” Jared hissed. The words rumbled from like a message delivered up from the depths of hell, each syllable rimed in frost.
“Ha! Jared, you never saw it coming. All is fair in war, and your wide-eyed innocence just condemned you!”
In his own mind, Jayson thought Jared was doomed. The victorious grin froze on his face, as though someone had turned to stone mid-laugh.
A sudden blaze of gold erupted from Jared’s torso, flooding the arena with blinding radiance. Rolling beneath it came the ancient authority of a dragon’s power, a tidal pressure that made the arena quake.
Around the dagger wound, that same golden light churned like liquid sun, purging the toxin In a single radiant heartbeat.
Jayson had never learned that Jared’s very flesh was immune to all poisons.
“The Power of Dragons…” Jared growled. His pupils momentarily elongated into illusory shadows of dragons. Every breath drew lifted his aura higher, edging toward a breakthrough that would tear the ceiling of the Wandering Immortal Realm.
