Rockhold Gorge, once a disciplined garrison hollowed from living stone, now resembled the jaw of some ancient beast, its teeth knocked out and scattered. Fewer than a third of the disciples still breathed, and each of them bled somewhere.
Garrick leaned on a war-blade snapped clean in half. He managed to stay upright, but shame pressed on him harder than the wound in his side.
When he saw Jared walking toward him, the elder’s gaze became a storm of emotions: relief at surviving, awe at Jared’s power, and, above all, a venomous, self-devouring regret.
He remembered his own arrogance: tossing a few low-grade celestial gems at Jared’s feet, ordering him off as though shooing a stray dog.
Each memory slapped him harder than any enemy’s blade, welting both flesh and soul.
Had I not judged by appearances… had I greeted this unfathomable young man with courtesy… would Rockhold Gorge have suffered such ruin?
Would so many bright disciples have died for nothing?
“S-Sir…” Garrick’s throat rasped like dry parchment. The hauteur that once braced his spine now fell away, leaving only a cringing plea.
“Thank you… Thank you for saving us. I was blind, unforgivably blind… Please… Cleanse the Netherworld Ghostfire inside me. I will pay any price, anything!” he croaked.
He could feel the ghostfire burrowing deeper with every heartbeat, devouring his meridians and drinking his life.
Without a true powerhouse to purge it, death would claim him within moments. The youth before him, Jared, was his final, flickering hope.
Jared halted. His eyes, cool and clear, met the elder’s and remained unmoved. In those depths, Garrick saw his own terror, his own remorse, reflected but not pitied.
A man who bows only at death’s door earns no mercy, Jared thought, and the idea stirred not a ripple on his face.
He had saved Gavin and Yvette because he had given his word, and because his heart allowed no other choice. He had cut down the demon cultists for an old, festering grudge.
But Garrick Flint’s fate? That was no concern of his.
Without a word, without even the courtesy of disdain, Jared turned his gaze past the elder and lifted a hand in silent greeting to Gavin and Yvette hurrying across the ruined courtyard.
That quiet dismissal pierced Garrick deeper than any insult. Despair wrapped him like chains of ice.
A wet burst erupted from his lips.
Garrick coughed out a geyser of black-red blood laced with ragged bits of lung. His battered frame shuddered, shoulders jerking as if yanked by invisible hooks.
One trembling hand reached toward Jared, grasping for a lifeline already gone. His eyes blazed with refusal—refusal to accept this ending, refusal to forgive his earlier pride.
The hand fell slack. Vast shoulders sagged. Garrick’s body crashed onto the broken flagstones, and his breath fled forever.
Even in death, his eyes stayed wide, twin mirrors etched with a single word: regret.
Thus perished a Level Five Heavenly Immortal elder, not by a blade, but by the arrogance that blinded him. All who witnessed it felt the chill of that lesson crawl along their spines.
Garrick’s lifeless body lay sprawled at Jared’s feet, the rocky ground drinking in the final warmth of a man who had doubted him.
Garrick’s eyes, still frozen wide, brimmed with regret and despair, a silent scream that clashed with the surrounding carnage, turning the valley into a macabre painting no beast-clan disciple would soon forget.
Those few disciples who survived the assault stood rooted to the blood-soaked earth.
Grief for their fallen elder wrestled with a deeper, uneasy awe, for the newcomer’s power was unfathomable, his judgment as cold and absolute as a falling guillotine.
Gavin and Yvette knelt beside Garrick’s corpse only long enough to whisper a farewell. Then they turned, their expressions a tangle of sorrow and reverence that settled, at last, into gratitude aimed squarely at Jared.
“Sir, you have saved us yet again.” Gavin’s voice trembled. Yvette echoed the bow beside him. “Had you not returned when you did… We… We would already be dead.”
Jared waved off the thanks, his gaze sweeping the shattered gorge and the handful of battered survivors. “We cannot linger. The Infinite Soul Demon Sect deployed real force tonight. Their next wave will be stronger.”
