Each of Jared’s words landed like a thorn, needling deeper into Rowena’s heart until her composure threatened to shatter. Moments ago, she herself had boasted of the Nethergate Sect’s unassailable might. Now that pride felt as fragile as frost under morning sun.
Never had she imagined Jared would make enemies of demons of such terrifying pedigree. Suddenly, Rowena’s brow furrowed. The disciples trailing them froze, blood draining from their faces. Even Jared felt the ripple in the aura around them, a chill crept along his spine.
“Someone’s closing in…” Rowena murmured, drawing a shaky breath. “Several powerful cultivators… And they’re almost on top of us.”
Jared stared at his lone ally, tension rippling through every muscle, and forced a brittle laugh that sounded far braver than he felt. “So what now… What’s our next move?”
Rowena’s eyes, cold as rain-slicked steel, flicked toward the empty sky.
“Whoever’s closing in is here for you,” she said, her voice low, urgent, final. “Find a place, any place, and vanish. We’re pulling out. Maybe, if the stars line up later, I’ll ferry you to the Nethergate Sect. For now, survive on your own.”
With that, Rowena lifted two fingers, carved a ragged tear in the air, and stepped through. Her retinue followed like ghosts into fog, the rift knitting shut behind them before Jared could draw breath.
He stood alone in the sudden hush, staring at the place where allies had been a heartbeat earlier. The silence felt like an echo chamber amplifying his disbelief.
“Bloody wonderful!” The curse escaped on a ragged breath, then rose to a frustrated roar. “Are you kidding me? Sir, what’s with that? Your friend disappears the moment things get ugly and just leaves me to rot?”
“I am as baffled as you are,” the Vermilion Demon Lord answered, his voice reverberating through the mind-link they shared. “Perhaps the mere mention of Soul Devourer and the Fire Demon Lord rattled her courage. Either way, you must hide, immediately, and you must grow stronger. Your current power won’t keep you breathing for long here.”
The old demon’s warning vibrated in Jared’s skull like a struck gong, leaving no room for doubt.
He nodded, grim and wordless. Even without the reminder, he knew the truth: on this level, he was a lamb straying among wolves.
A lone opponent he might outwit, outrun, or out-bleed. A cluster of veterans, though, then he was nothing more than warm meat waiting for the butcher’s block. The cold calculus of that thought drove a needle of fear straight through his heart.
Suddenly, murderous auras hammered down, pinning him like glare pins a moth.
Jared’s pulse spiked. Instinct took the wheel, space folded, and he blinked out of sight an instant before blades of energy could carve him apart.
The moment he vanished, four silhouettes slipped from the clouds, sniffed at the empty air, and dissolved into pursuit, leaving the sky to shiver in their wake. Jared raced across level nine, every breath a frantic search for shadows deep enough to cloak him.
The realm was a labyrinth he barely understood; even the horizons looked unfamiliar, stitched from lands and ley-lines he’d never studied.
Luckily, the Vermilion Demon Lord had been born under these very suns. The ancient demon guided Jared by thought alone, steering him through canyons and storm clouds, always a heartbeat ahead of the hunters.
“One thousand and five hundred kilometers northeast,” the demon urged, “Lies Breakheaven Range. At its foot, a waterfall hides a cavern, my old sanctum. The cataract is fed by Terrandya currents potent enough to smother spiritual probes. Slip behind that curtain of water and no one will track you, at least, not soon.”
The voice felt like a compass in Jared’s skull, tilting him toward the promised refuge.
He followed the direction until the roar of water drowned out the screams of the sky. A quick dash through silver spray, and he was inside the cavern’s throat, heartbeat echoing in the vast, damp gloom. Dust lay thick on the stone. No footprints, no camp-smoke, just the hush of a place forgotten by time.
Jared exhaled, summoned a flicker of power, and set Pentacarna Tower on the ground. Its bronze plates thrummed with contained storms, ready for any threat.
Within his mind, the Vermilion Demon Lord took in the cavern he once called home. Old memories hit him with bruising force, and the demon, war-forged, remorseless, actually began to weep.
“Jared… Let me out for a moment…” he pleaded, his voice wobbling between pride and heartbreak. The request rang through the cave like a faded hymn.
“Mr. Vermilion, you’re down to a single shred of soul. If I release you into open space and something goes wrong, you could scatter for good,” Jared spoke gently but firmly, the way one calms a fevered friend.
His warning hovered in the torch-less dark, warm with concern.
“I will be fine,” the demon insisted, stubborn as the mountains framing the cave mouth. “This was once my refuge. No harm will find me here, and I need only a breath of freedom.”
Longing surged through the Vermilion Demon Lord. More than anything, he wanted to lay eyes, and whatever remained of his spectral fingers, on the cave that had once been his home.
The impulse was so fierce it shivered through his ragged soul like an echo from a different lifetime.
Jared nodded in silent permission. A moment later, a thin, ember-red wisp drifted out of his mind and gathered beside him, the last sliver of the Vermilion Demon Lord’s soul. Once, that soul had blazed across the heavens. Now it was no thicker than morning mist.
Jared’s chest tightened. The demon lord had risked himself for him more times than he cared to count, and Jared had sworn he would rebuild the man’s body.
He had not yet kept that oath. With only a single thread of spirit left, the task had become almost impossibly hard.
