The Green-Flame Skulls spewed viscous Netherworld Ghostfire. Anything it touched erupted; flesh blistered, spirits sizzled.
Garrick fought both leaders alone. Tiger-claw strikes tore open space, forcing them back. Yet coordinated assaults and cursed relics steadily closed around him. Ghostfire grazed his left arm. It hissed, chewing flesh and spirit alike, drawing a snarl of pain.
Blood streamed from gouges cut clear to the bone. Nearby, Gavin and Yvette stood back-to-back, still nursing old wounds, trading desperate blows with several demon cultivators. A chain coiled round Gavin’s axe. Another assailant darted in, a poisoned dagger aimed at his exposed spine.
Yvette’s twin blades blurred, but a sudden Soul Spike pierced her shoulder. She gasped, her rhythm faltered, death rushing in.
Rockhold Gorge had become hell. Huts collapsed, flames roared skyward, and mangled bodies of friend and foe painted the ground crimson.
Though the beast warriors were fierce, superior power and soul-reaving sorcery foretold only one conclusion.
Garrick’s eyes widened as disciple after disciple fell. Despair, bitter and regretful, gnawed his heart.
Is this the night Rockhold Gorge falls?
As Gavin and Yvette braced for the final strike and even Garrick felt hope gutter out, a clear, glacial sword cry ripped across the gorge, louder than battle, bright as dawn.
The brilliance arrived like a comet, dazzling, unstoppable. Five colors braided into a single blade that seemed to gather every glimmer the universe could muster. It carved through darkness and silence alike, announcing, without words, that salvation had come.
A streak of steel leapt through the night like a meteor, tearing open black silk. It traveled faster than thought, crossing the ravaged gorge in a single flash before anyone understood what they had seen.
With a wet hiss, like a blade driven through ripe fruit, the sword light bored straight through the skull of the demonic cultivator who had been poised to plunge his dagger into Gavin Stone’s back.
His protective demonic aura folded as easily as damp paper, and a neat tunnel of blood opened from brow to nape.
The grin carved across the man’s face froze in mid-snarl, then collapsed into slack horror. His body sagged, boneless, and fell to the ground without another sound.
For one breath, the battlefield—screams, steel, and sorcery—fell utterly still. Every eye snapped toward the mouth of Rockhold Gorge, searching for the source of that impossible strike.
Under cold moonlight, where the shattered illusion array still bled motes of silver, Jared stood in plain azure robes, hands folded behind his back.
The night breeze teased the fabric so he seemed to drift rather than stand, his expression calm, almost bored, as though he had merely stepped out for an evening stroll.
Behind him, the small Fire Unicorn planted its claws, mane blazing scarlet and gold. Holy flames whorled around the beast, painting it with the grandeur of a legend dragged into mortal night.
Jared had never truly left. He had waited in the surrounding forest, nursing his strength. The instant he felt the violent surge of demonic essence rolling out of Rockhold Gorge, he turned back, arriving with a sword stroke that split darkness from sky.
“It’s him!” Gavin Stone’s voice shook, gratitude and shock tangling in his throat as he stared at the lone figure who had saved his life.
Yvette’s wide eyes shimmered, disbelief giving way to radiant relief.
Garrick, who earlier had dismissed the young outsider with barely veiled contempt, felt his entire body jolt.
Jared stood there like their savior, easily defeating the enemy that had threatened Gavin and Yvette’s life. The elder’s cheek twitched, heat flooding his face.
How can this be? That boy?
“Who dares meddle in the affairs of the Infinite Soul Demon Sect?!” bellowed the commander, his Mourning Bone Staff clattering with skulls as he stomped forward, anger and fear wrestling for his tongue.
Jared did not so much as glance at the outburst. His eyes traveled slowly over the littered bodies, the splintered stones, the black-robed marauders still dripping gore across the valley floor.
When his gaze finally settled on the surviving demons, winter lived in his stare.
“Touch anyone under my protection, and you die…”
The words were soft, almost courteous, yet carried a finality that left no room for argument.
He moved. One effortless step, and the spot he had occupied was empty. In the same heartbeat, he materialized at the center of the densest knot of demonic cultivators, a whisper of wind where a man should have been.
