“Abomination, yield to judgment now!” Jared’s voice cracked like lightning, each syllable propelled through the tower heart until it filled the ninth tier with rolling thunder.
His will became the tower’s will. Chains of pure space erupted from the walls, runic nets blooming beside them until the chamber resembled a celestial dragnet.
The Devourer Dragon struggled, roared, tore at the bindings, yet against a fully awakened Beast-Subduing Tower, it was a storm in a bottle.
The chains tightened, the runes blazed; and the monster was driven back into the deepest pit of its prison, where silence closed over it like a lid. The upheaval was over. Stillness, reluctant but final, settled across every tier.
Another thought, gentler this time, rippled outward. Cyanna, Coall, Thousand Faces, and every Draconian who had chosen submission and committed no unforgivable crime felt space fold around them. A velvet current carried them beyond the tower walls and set them down in distant Nullrift Gorge.
First breath of open sky, joy split the air as hundreds of long-captured Draconians trumpeted their freedom, their gazes turning to Jared with mingled gratitude and awe.
He raised his palm. The once-monumental tower shrank in a shimmer, becoming a translucent, palm-sized miniature that rested against his lifeline, radiating warm spatial ripples.
One of the legendary Three Towers, the Beast-Subduing Tower, now belonged to him!
He weighed the tiny spire, then swept his eyes over Cyanna, Coall, and the others whose excitement quivered like arrows in flight. Pride expanded in his chest, wild and unstoppable.
With the tower in hand, his strength and hidden reserves soared once more. And behind him stood several hundred Draconians, no longer prisoners, but Jared’s own army.
Jared stepped out of the gorge, his left hand holding the exquisite tower, its crystalline walls iridescent beneath the gloom. Behind him uncoiled a storm of silhouettes, hundreds of Draconians whose dragon power billowed like distant thunder.
Cultivators from every faction, weary from their stalemate inside Nullrift Gorge, froze mid-breath.
Eyes widened, weapons lowered. Disbelief rippled through the ranks like wind across tall grass.
*The tower‘s gone?!*
*No—he took it into his own hand!*
*That kid, only Human Immortal Realm Level Five, walked in alive and came out the tower’s master?*
*And the figures behind him, those are the Draconians the tower had sealed away… And he released them all?!*
Shock tangled with envy, dread, and raw greed, until the canyon rang with a single, rising roar of emotion.
“T-The tower obeys him now!”
“Impossible! How did he manage that?”
“Look, Draconians! Hundreds of them, heavens above!”
“What kind of fortune did that boy dig out in there?”
For a heartbeat, the gorge lay mute, then frenzy erupted like a volcano venting its heart. Blades hummed free of scabbards. Breaths turned ragged.
Every gaze locked on the little tower glittering in Jared’s hand, pupils blazing crimson with covetous heat.
Beast-Subduing Tower, an innate treasure of legend, a pocket universe whose depths hide unfathomable power. To claim it was to found an immortal dynasty, to plant one’s banner atop Level Nine itself. That promise of dominion crushed reason in an instant.
Greed rolled across the crowd like dark tide.
The elder from the Sunfire Sect, his robe the color of midday flame, took the first deliberate step forward. Hands clasped, voice steady yet brooking no refusal, he addressed Jared.
“Young friend, congratulations on earning the tower’s allegiance. Yet such a treasure concerns every realm across Level Nine and the entire world. No single house may monopolize it… For the greater good, surrender the tower to us. Let the great sects guard it together; only thus do we walk the righteous path.”
“He speaks true! A treasure of that weight cannot rest in one person’s pocket!”
“Hand over the Beast-Subduing Tower, boy, or we’ll scatter your ashes across this gorge!”
“And those Draconians behind you, rare resources every one, must also be shared!”
“They belong to all of us!”
The leader of Blackwater Grotto spoke again, his voice slick and cold, curdling the air between the two camps. His hungry gaze swept over the Draconian ranks behind Jared, as though he were cataloging walking treasure—scales, bones, and breath already sold in his mind.
