Boom! Endless, dark crimson demonic flames erupted from Soul Devourer’s palms. In midair, the flames twisted and warped, forming tens of thousands of ferocious, burning specters wreathed in dark red fire.
These flaming specters were more solid, more terrifying than the vengeful souls before. They shrieked, carrying the scorching heat that could burn a soul and the chilling cold that corroded life itself.
From every direction, they surged toward Jared like a torrential storm, each spirit locked onto the man’s divine soul. It was as if they would never rest until they had dragged him into a hell of demonic fire. Even before the attack reached him, the bizarre sensation—an unnatural mix of extreme heat and soul-freezing cold—already enveloped the space around Jared completely.
He drew a deep breath, his eyes instantly sharpening like a hawk’s. He no longer held back. His chaotic celestial energy surged and roared through his body at unprecedented speed. The Golden Dragon Bloodline in his elixir field swiftly let out an exalted dragon’s roar. The Earthfire True Scripture had reached the pinnacle of its circulation, and it felt as if a burning sun of crimson-gold raged in his chest.
Three powers, at this moment, were forcibly unified by his will and poured into the Dragonslayer Sword in his hands.
“Chaos as the base, Golden Dragon as the soul, earth fire as the blade… Three extremes as one! Slash!”
With that, the Dragonslayer Sword released a piercing, world-shaking sword cry. Sword energy, only a few meters wide but condensed beyond description, suddenly erupted. To everyone’s surprise, this sword energy was no longer a single color. At its core lay a deep gray of primordial chaos, as if containing the raw power of creation itself.
Within the energy beam, the ghostly image of a five-clawed golden dragon coiled and spiraled, issuing a majestic, resounding dragon roar. It granted unstoppable cutting power and protection that no technique could breach. On the surface of the sword energy, crimson-gold Earthfire True Flames burned like the most loyal guardians, radiating scorching heat capable of consuming all and purifying evil.
This sword, as it turned out, was the culmination of Jared’s three hundred years of training in seclusion, and also the strongest attack he could produce at his current cultivation level. It was, without a doubt, a perfect unification of skill, strength, will, and all Heavenly Laws.
When the sword struck, even heaven and earth seemed to pale. The chaotic energy of the abyss froze before this slash. The sword energy swept through, not with grandiose spectacle, but with an absolute, undeniable force of annihilation.
Hiss!
The sound was no louder than a hot knife through butter, yet as absolute as sunrise. Legions of soul-eating wraiths, birthed from demonic flames, rushed forward. The instant they touched the tri-colored sword energy, they found no purchase, no fight—only collapse, vapor, and oblivion. Unslowed, that comet of light ripped across the void, aimed straight at Soul Devourer’s body.
At last, terror cracked his mask. He could not have imagined that one of his mightiest techniques, fused with the demonic flames, would be so effortlessly shattered by Jared. The instant the sword energy tore toward him, Soul Devourer felt layered forces—chaos, draconic edge, and subterranean fire—stacked like grinding millstones. A chill recognition flickered through his mind: this strike could end him outright.
A roar burst from his throat, half fury, half desperation. “Soul-Devouring Demonic Armor! Protect!”
The dark-crimson scales plating his giant frame flared, each one pulsing with baleful light as demonic power surged to the surface. A breath later, that power hardened in front of him, shaping itself into a massive shield—a slab of living metal studded with backward barbs, its surface wrapped in roaring black-purple hellfire. Even as the shield solidified, the demon staggered backward, boots scoring trenches through shattered stone, desperate to steal any distance he could.
Clang!
The sword energy crashed right into the shield. Metal shrieked like torn heaven-steel. Sparks and embers whirled between the clashing lights, strobing the tunnel in blinding flashes. Yet beneath the clangor rose another sound—thin, despairing, like thousands of ghosts howling the moment cleansing fire erased their sins forever.
Less than a tenth of a heartbeat later, the shield detonated. Shrapnel became shooting stars, then guttered out as the residual sword intent scoured every ember from existence. Though the sword energy was partially blocked and weakened, its remaining power was still unmatched, streaking past Soul Devourer as he retreated at full speed!
A wet, vicious splatter followed, one that was sharp enough to cut through the echoing boom. Dark-red demon blood geysered from Soul Devourer’s right shoulder, spraying the air with steaming arcs. His entire arm, together with half the adjoining shoulder, sheared away at the root, pulverized into a drifting mist of gore by the sword energy riding the strike.
That mist lasted an instant. Sword intent spiraled after it like hungry wind, shredding, then vaporizing every crimson mote until nothing remained.
His scream ripped across the cavern. The massive figure pinwheeled backward, slammed into the distant cliff, and left a human-shaped crater veined with spidery fractures. His aura dimmed violently. Demonic flames licked at the ragged stump, trying to regrow flesh, but gray chaotic threads coiled tighter, eating new tissue the moment it appeared.
Jared, for his part, fared no better. Even as the sword stroke landed, the maimed fiend had flung a last counterattack.
“Soul-Devouring Demonic Palm!” he roared, voice shredding stone.
A dark red palm imprint, solid and tangible as if it were real, tore through space and slammed into Jared’s left chest at the precise instant when his old strength had faded and his new power had not yet surged. Blood sprayed from his lips, an ugly, copper-bright fountain. Lightning pain exploded through him. Hot blood flooded his mouth and vaporized in the heated air.
The impact catapulted him backward; stone shattered when his body hit, dust pluming outward like dull thunder. Shredded fabric revealed a charred, fist-shaped hollow that reached bone. Around the palmprint, demonic flames writhed like maggots on bone, chewing through skin and muscle, clawing for a path into meridians and soul. Worse still, a venomous, icy soul-gnawing force speared along the wound, racing straight toward his consciousness field.
Cough, cough…
Harsh hacks tore from his throat, each one spraying crimson foam. Jared sank to one knee, propping himself up with the Dragonslayer Sword, barely managing to stay on his feet. He stood there, his complexion bleached the color of old parchment. Every cough ripped loose another spray of blood-flecked foam, and the agony boring through the left side of his chest nearly stole his sight. Yet the hand that clutched the sword remained rock-steady.
His gaze, still needle-sharp, sliced through drifting cinders as though they were silk. Inside his chest, chaotic celestial energy vaulted with unprecedented fury, racing toward the ragged wound beneath his left breast where Soul-Devouring Demonic Flames gnawed like a starving beast.
His Golden Dragon Bloodline answered, flooding his ruined organs and splintered ribs with torrents of life force energy. At the same time, Earthfire True Flames swelled outward, incinerating every strand of the invading shadow-soul energy from within.
Jared had not imagined Soul Devourer, freshly risen to Top Level High Immortal Realm Level One, could drive a claw so deep. The miscalculation stung almost more than the wound. Or perhaps it was because Soul Devourer was a centuries-old demon, so his Top Level High Immortal Realm Level One cultivation level far surpassed that of other cultivators at the same level.
Still, the notion that a mere High Immortal Realm Level One cultivator could scar a Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Three cultivator offended Jared to the bone.
