“Jared!” Ignatius shouted, his voice cracking with panic as he tried to push past a ring of black-robed killers from Malevolent Path Hall. Blades of corrupted light hemmed him in on every side, forcing him to watch the one thing he could not bear.
On the viewing platforms, every elder and disciple of Earthfire Pavilion held the same breath. Knuckles whitened on railings. One heartbeat more, and their collective fear might have toppled into despair.
Jared, by contrast, stood as still as a mountain in first light. A strange brightness flickered behind his eyes—excitement, almost boyish, reserved only for adversaries worthy of his full attention.
“Good…” he said, the single word light yet razor-sharp. His hands moved again, elegant and unhurried, as though he was playing a harp rather than summoning calamity.
“Chaotic Fire Domain… Skyshatter!”
Boom! The ground rocked as Jared’s domain surged outward—one thousand yards, two, then three—until a fiery cosmos swallowed the sky. Chaotic energy and Earthfire True Flame tangled together, birthing torrents of earth, water, wind, and fire. Mountains heaved up only to crumble into rivers that circled newborn suns. A pocket universe unfolded, complete with its own day, night, and glittering stars.
Seas of blood, bone lances, and soul spikes crashed into that world—and vanished. Chaotic energy dissolved the blood, and Earthfire seared it away. The Law of Water corroded the bone while the Law of Wind scattered the shards. The soul spikes themselves were first absorbed by chaotic energy, then cleansed by the Law of Fire. Within the Chaotic Fire Domain, the trio’s best killing techniques could scarcely crawl, let alone kill.
“Dragonslayer! Armybreaker!” Jared raised the Dragonslayer Sword in a gesture so casual it looked like the opening stroke of a painter’s brush.
A hundred-yard sword energy instantly tore open the heavens, colored gold shot through with storm-gray. Along its length, a five-clawed golden dragon writhed, roaring loud enough to rattle souls. That swing appeared almost simple. Yet inside it lurked power vast enough to split the forming cosmos in two. Where the blade passed, seas of blood parted, bone lances powdered, and soul spikes winked out of existence.
One sword strike was all it took to shatter all techniques!
“W-What?” “I-Impossible…”
The three deputy leaders blanched, instincts screaming. In the same heartbeat, they flung themselves aside. Yet the torrent of sword energy chased after them, too fast and too savage, erasing the very idea of distance.
“Argh!” The blade merely skimmed Soulbane’s left sleeve, yet it severed the arm flush at the shoulder. Blood geysered into the air. Worse, threads of chaotic energy and Earthfire True Flame clung to the stump, gnawing at flesh and spirit, refusing both clot and regrowth.
The same arc struck Bonefiend’s bone staff. A jagged fissure split the living weapon, stopping a breath from shattering it. Bonefiend staggered, coughing a ribbon of blood. Bound to his soul, the staff’s pain snapped back through their link, lancing his mind with needles of agony.
Annihilum fared worst. The invisible edge erased his soul spikes outright. The psionic recoil smashed into his consciousness. He folded with a strangled groan as blood seeped from every orifice, the gray mist about him shuddering on the brink of collapse.
Jared’s single sword strike had severely injured all three deputy leaders. Silence returned, heavier than before. Even breathing seemed forbidden. Mouths hung open, eyes rounded to full moons. The impossible had just been made casual.
Ignatius stood rooted in place, his mind scraped blank by awe. For a heartbeat, the Earthfire Pavilion disciples simply stared. Then the grandstand erupted; cheers boomed against the vaulted sky, some voices cracking into sobs of wild relief.
Across the field, the cultivators of Malevolent Path Hall turned corpse-gray, their eyes pools of terror and disbelief. “How is this possible? One slash injured all three deputy leaders?” “Just what sort of monster is he?” “Isn’t he only at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Two? This can’t be!”
Soulbane rasped, clamping the bleeding stump to his chest. “Y-You… Who the hell are you?”
Jared stayed where he was, sword humming softly. A mild, almost courteous smile quivered on his lips, and the wounded trio felt ice crawl down their spines.
“I’m the one who came to kill you…” The words were spoken softly, yet an iron finality rode beneath them.
Off to the side, Ignatius nearly drooled with envy. He couldn’t believe that Earthfire Pavilion‘s most guarded technique, the Earthfire Heavenburn Technique, had been handed by Gerald straight to Jared.
Thank goodness Jared is now my son-in-law… Ignatius thought. Otherwise, I doubt I can keep my position in Earthfire Pavilion… He cupped his rough, fire-scarred hands around his mouth, lungs straining with elation. “You’ve got this, Jared! I’m rooting for you!”
The three deputy leaders blanched an ugly shade of moss, humiliation curdling in their throats.
“All together now! Show no mercy!” Soulbane barked, every syllable cutting like broken glass. Bonefiend roared, a desperate gleam flaring behind his hollow eyes. “Then let’s use that move!”
The trio locked gazes, solemn nods sealing an unspoken pact. They knew too well that, one-on-one, none of them could touch Jared. Only their ultimate, combined gamble offered a whisper of victory.
Soulbane intoned, “With my blood essence, I consecrate the sea of blood!” “With my bones, I forge hell!” Bonefiend snarled. “And with my divine soul, I beckon the netherworld…” Annihilum whispered, his voice a rusted blade.
In the same heartbeat, they burned through their blood essence, shattered bone, and tore spirit from flesh—unleashing their forbidden arts in a single, horrifying bloom.
“Soulbane! Legion of Ghosts!” Soulbane screamed. His body detonated into a rolling crimson sea, as though his flesh had always been nothing but liquid malice. From that ocean rose a Ghost King a hundred yards tall—three heads, six arms, tusked and azure-skinned, each of its six eyes blazing carmine fire. Its aura had clearly reached Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine, even faintly touching the threshold of the High Immortal Realm.
“Bonefiend! White Bone Hell!” Bonefiend yelled. His frame fractured to dust; every splinter of bone shot into the earth and grew into a sky-piercing pillar of ivory.
