Lindsay’s fingers blurred through a complex seal from the Earthfire True Scripture. A crown of pure, auric earth fire flared in her palms, then unraveled into dozens of serpentine tongues of fire. Ordinary flame recoiled from that sovereign blaze. The fire-snakes drilled into lizard flesh, burning them from within. In mere heartbeats, the remaining beasts collapsed, scales cracking, internal organs reduced to glowing slag.
“Impressive,” Jared said, allowing genuine praise to color his voice. “Your control of Earthfire True Flame grows sharper by the hour, Lindsay.”
A pink flush crept into Lindsay’s cheeks. “Still kilometers behind you, Jared.” Her laugh, light and quick, barely masked the pride shimmering in her eyes.
“Onward,” Vermilion Demon Lord rumbled, eager for deeper challenges. With that, they resumed their descent.
Far below, at the heart of the middle layer, temperature clawed toward the unthinkable—heat so fierce even the lava shivered, and the very air shimmered like liquid glass.
The cavern no longer wore the simple shade of dark crimson. Veins of living fire pulsed through half-melted, translucent stone, as though they were the organs of a slumbering titan, flexing and writhing beneath a paper-thin skin. Sulfur weighted the air until it felt almost liquid. Every inhale scorched the throat; every exhale came out tasting of embers.
Somewhere in that reeking heat drifted a sour hint of rot. It slithered over the senses like clammy fingers and made it easy to imagine countless eyes blinking in the shadows. Jared, Lindsay, and Vermilion Demon Lord had just finished hacking apart the seventh wave of flame-venom spiders.
Each spider had been the size of a millstone, its shell lava-red and painted with crawling black sigils. Their silk hung in glittering ropes that refused to burn and carried a feverish poison. A single strand could drain a cultivator’s celestial energy in moments. Even Jared had needed every ounce of skill, and more than a little luck, to wipe the monsters out.
Now, the three paused on a rare flat ledge, an obsidian platform birthed when molten rivers cooled in mid-flow. Lindsay folded her legs beneath her, swallowed a sky-blue pill, and waited for its cool to chase the ash from her cheeks. Sweat pearled on her brow, only to hiss away to steam before it could fall.
“Jared, ever since the last fight, I keep feeling that something is watching us. That feeling is like cobwebs on skin, and it’s very uncomfortable,” Lindsay said, voice low and tight.
Vermilion Demon Lord refused to sit. His massive, coal-black frame turned in a slow circle, three eyes combing every fissure. Even his magma-forged body moved sluggishly in the stifling heat. He rumbled, “That’s right. I sense it as well. This aura is cold and greedy, something I have smelled before, like a viper hiding in the dark.”
Jared offered no reply. He stood at the ledge and stared into the dark river of magma surging below. Since breaking into Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Three, his spiritual sense had sharpened to a surgeon’s scalpel.
Quietly, he drew chaotic celestial energy through his veins. Invisible threads of perception unfurled from him like a net, drifting through the cavern walls and along every hidden seam. He sifted through the roar of molten rock, the tiny cracks of stone expanding under heat, even the distant howls of unseen beasts. Most of it, he discarded.
One ripple, however, caught the edge of his mind. Roughly three hundred yards ahead, behind what appeared to be an ordinary wall, an immense, frigid power was waking. Jared knew that flavor of energy far too well. It reeked of soul-deep hunger and spite.
“There is definitely something there,” he said, eyes snapping open. A blade-sharp glimmer flashed across his dark gaze as if he could cut straight through stone. “And it seems an old acquaintance has found us again…”
As if his words were a summons, the cavern answered with a distant, grinding roar.
Crack! Roar!
The sound—thin, metallic, and horribly alive—skittered through the depthless corridor ahead, as though some unseen hand were prying apart the very bones of the earth. The section of dark-red cliff Jared Chance had been tracking with his spirit sense writhed as if newborn flesh were struggling under stone.
Hardened magma warped, rose, then folded back upon itself. Veins in the rock contorted, deepening in color until they inked a living sketch: first a brow, then a ridge of nose, then the grotesque swell of jowls. Within seconds, an immense, twisted human face, half the height of the cliff, bulged from the wall. Its eye sockets gaped like bottomless wells. Inside those pits, twin wisps of emerald flame ignited and danced, lonely and hungry.
A mouth split wide in a smile too broad to be mortal, jagged stone teeth jutting like broken obelisks. There was no mistaking that visage. Soul Devourer had fashioned his own likeness in raw mountain.
“Hahaha!” The laugh scraped like rusted blades dragging across slate, every syllable shredding the air. The cackle ricocheted along the narrow abyss, leaving behind a chill that felt outright funeral. “Jared Chance… How quaint that fate draws us together once more. I had not expected our reunion so soon, yet even Heaven itself seems eager to deliver such a feast straight to my doorstep.”
In an instant, Lindsay and Vermilion Demon Lord’s hair bristled, and they snapped from a relaxed state into the highest state of vigilance. The princess whipped free her scarlet blade, and Earthfire True Flame roared along its edge, bathing the gloom in molten gold.
Beside her, Vermilion Demon Lord unleashed a guttural snarl. His demonic torso ballooned; three heads and six weapon-wielding arms erupted, each artifact thrumming with murderous intent and swirling black mist.
Jared alone remained still. He did not so much as loosen the sword at his waist. Instead, he tilted his head, studying the monstrous face with detached amusement, as if judging a vaudeville actor who had missed every cue.
“Hello, Soul Devourer,” Jared began, his calm voice slicing clean through the demon’s rasp. “Your ability to cling to life does rival a roach, though I confess even roaches show more dignity in their retreats… You scurried from level nine like a beaten cur, then tumbled into level ten, and at last crawled all the way down to this Chthonic Abyss. Then again, this place is quite fitting for a millennium-old stray soul such as yourself… There’s no sun, and only lava and toxic flames surround you. Toxicity breeds toxicity, eh? Your taste in lairs, I see, is as offensive as your face…”
