Thousands of ivory spires punched through the ground, knitting a bone labyrinth ten kilometers wide. Inside the ghastly maze, death reeked; skeletal soldiers clawed their way up. mandibles snapping in a chorus of dread.
“Annihilum! Path of the Netherworld!” Annihilum’s form shot skyward as a gray spear of light, ripping a wound in the heavens itself.
From that jagged rent poured foul, turbid waters of the underworld, every drop hissed, corroding even space into ragged black holes.
The stench of absolute death rode the current, a promise that nothing living, flesh or spirit, could escape its dissolving touch.
Three forbidden arts collided with the sky, daylight fled, and the world lurched into bruised twilight.
For a hundred kilometers around Earthfire Pavilion, blood-red, bone-white, and ash-gray light interwove. Mountains cracked, rivers reversed, and the ground itself shivered beneath the crushing weight. Creatures great and small collapsed, trembling on their knees before the gathering storm of power.
“Be careful, Jared!” Ignatius shouted. His excitement drained in an instant. Horror seized his throat, and the cry that tore free sounded ragged, hopeless.
The onrushing strike no longer belonged to the Heavenly Immortal Realm. Its savage might flirted with the threshold of the High Immortal Realm.
Against that edge, even a High Immortal Realm Level One cultivator would have had to yield and retreat.
Faces inside Earthfire Pavilion turned ashen. The fragile ember of hope they had kindled was snuffed out once more.
Across the field, Malevolent Path Hall members bared their teeth in cruel delight, already picturing Jared‘s body ripped into bleeding ribbons. Yet, standing at the heart of the coming cataclysm, Jared drew a long, steadying breath, somber light smoldering in his eyes. He knew very well that this was no time for restraint.
Since it has come to this, I suppose it’s time to let you all witness the true extent of my power…
He lifted the Dragonslayer Sword high, and in the same heartbeat, chaotic celestial energy, Golden Dragon Bloodline, and the searing creed of Earthfire True Scripture erupted from every pore of his being.
The three forces collided, screamed, then knitted together, becoming a newborn energy, murky and primeval, heavy with the weight of creation.
“Chaos… Golden Dragon… Earth fire… Triple convergence! Slash!”
The towering blade-light materialized again, no longer burnished gold and gray but a shifting haze of embryonic dusk, pure, unformed chaos honed into a hundred-yard edge.
Within that vaporous sword, a five-clawed golden dragon coiled and lunged, its rear shaking the void, while Earthfire True Flame’s molten flames raced along the surface, eager to incinerate all they touched.
This was the stroke Jared had tempered across three centuries of solitude, every insight and every scar hammered into one perfect out. It thrummed with the very force that once split light from darkness at the dawn of creation.
The instant it fell, sky and earth bled of color, as though the world itself forgot how to breathe. Space cracked, time staggered, and even the lofty laws of heaven fled before that blade.
The Ghost King shrieked, a sound like tomb doors slamming, before the sword split the specter in two, scattering it as crimson rain.
The alabaster pillars of White Bone Hell shattered and toppled, skeletal legions collapsed into fine, drifting dust.
The Path of the Netherworld hissed into steam, and every rift it had gouged in space sealed as if they had never been.
Just like that, three powerful forbidden divine powers burst like delicate soap bubbles.
“No!”
The three deputy leaders, dark champions of their sect, howled together, terror strangling every note of defiance.
The chaos-forged sword energy did not slow; it swept onward, ravenous.
Pfft!
Soulbane’s boundless sea of blood vanished in a single heartbeat, not a droplet spared.
Pfft!
Bonefiend’s skeletal frame crumbled into dust, swirling away on an unseen wind.
Pfft!
Annihilum’s divine soul burst beneath the whirling sword energy, shattering so completely that even the cycle of rebirth could no longer find him.
Three strokes, three dead.
Seeing this, silence fell over the mountainside. A hush so deep a pin could have struck stone and been heard by every trembling heart.
Every gaze tilted skyward, stunned and unblinking.
There stood Jared, snow-white robes untouched by dust, sword angled across his shoulder like a line of living light.
At his feet lay three drifting heaps of ash, all that remained of the deputy leaders who had challenged him. Behind stretched the routed legions of Malevolent Path Hall, now a tangle of broken banners and scattered weapons.
Sunlight speared through the lingering blood-mist and wrapped in a gold corona, as though a god had stepped out of legend onto the battlefield.
An instant later, Earthfire Pavilion erupted, cheers thundered from the inner court, rolling upward like a tidal roar.
“Mr. Chance is amazing!”
“Mr. Chance is the best!”
“Long live Earthfire Pavilion!”
Disciples wept with joy, clasping one another in tear-streaked celebration.
Ignatius’ aged eyes overflowed. He knelt, voice breaking. “Jared, my dear son-in-law, it’s all thanks to you that Earthfire Pavilion remains standing. We owe you our lives!”
Jared slid Dragonslayer Sword into its scabbard, drifted to the ground, and lifted Ignatius upright. “You flatter me, Father. I merely did what had to be done…”
Then, his gaze swept the fleeing enemy ranks. “Lucky, Mr. Vermilion… Please help clean up the battlefield.”
A triumphant roar ripped the air. Lucky flashed forward as a streak of red-gold lightning, tearing into the panic-stricken cultivators.
Vermilion Demon Lord bellowed laughter, three heads, six arms, and endless blades carving paths through armor like paper.
Heartened, every Earthfire disciple surged from the gate, hot on the heels of the broken invaders.
Half an hour later, the last scream faded. Malevolent Path Hall’s army lay annihilated, only a handful who fled early escaped judgment.
Though Earthfire Pavilion bled, its legacy still stood.
Ignatius bowed once more. “Jared, what now?”
His tone made it plain, Jared was now the pillar holding Earthfire Pavilion aloft.
Jared’s eyes drifted toward the forbidden grounds, a shadow of purpose glinting within.
“Malevolent Path Hall won’t let this rest. Next time, Malcolm Vayne might come himself. I must restore Great Elder Earthfire’s physical body as soon as possible. Only when he returns at full strength will we be able to face Malcolm head-on.”
Jared paused beneath the still-roiling sky, the taste of ash lingering on his tongue.
He turned to Ignatius and dipped his head in quiet gratitude. “Father, I’ll leave Earthfire Pavilion in your hands for now. Fortify the walls, count every shattered stone, and see that our people are cared for. I need time in solitude, time to steady my blade and my heart.”
Ignatius straightened, the orange glow of nearby embers reflecting in his eyes as though he were carved from living flame. “Understood!”
Jared pivoted toward the forbidden grounds. His cloak billowed in the furnace-scented wind, shoulders squared like a pillar propping up the firmament.
Behind him smoldered the battered Earthfire Pavilion, and with it rose countless gazes-awed, grateful, still trembling at their brush with death.
