“Then… We go together! Kill him completely!” Morven rasped, voice serrated from rage and loss. Masks stripped away, Malcolm and Morven hurled themselves at Jared, unleashing every hidden reserve they still possessed. The move smelled of finality—no feint, no mercy, only a single, perfect checkmate speeding toward a dying opponent.
“Protect Jared!” Aurelian’s command burst out, raw enough to shred his throat. The name tore from his lips so violently that the very air warped around the phonemes. Urgency twisted his voice into something feral. At once, elders from all five branches of the Five-Element Sect leapt forward, forming a battered wall of bodies between Jared and the approaching titans.
“Disciples of Metal Branch, hear me! Celestial Metal Sword Array, Myriad Swords Return!” Ferrum thundered. His beard and hair stood on end as he flung out his life-bound treasure, the Celestial Metal Sword. The golden blade split once, then again, doubling and redoubling until the sky glittered with innumerable reflections, each locking into an airtight formation rushing for Morven. Every phantom sword carried an edge so acute it seemed to peel sound itself, carving faint scars in the atmosphere. The technique devoured a century of cultivation each time it was cast, yet Ferrum did not hesitate—consequence could wait, survival could not.
Woodric’s voice cut through the clangor: “Azurewood Cage! Everlasting Rebirth!” Ferrum watched the elder’s fingers weave faster than thought, his palms spilling emerald light that stung Ferrum’s eyes. Bar-thick vines punched out of the cracked earth, every barb tipped with a slick, poisonous gleam that made Ferrum’s stomach clench. He could almost feel the pulse inside the vines; Woodric was feeding them his own lifespan! Every whip of green cost the old man another heartbeat, and Ferrum hated how clearly he knew it.
Aquilus, Pyre, and Terran surged forward beside him, each gathering the power of their branch until the air trembled like a drumskin. From Aquilus’s sleeves burst nine serpentine torrents, scaled in liquid sapphire, their roars hammering at Ferrum’s ribs. Pyre let himself burn away; what remained was a walking pyre so bright the surrounding air caught fire in his footsteps. Terran sank into the ground; an instant later a colossus of rock rose, a hundred-yard silhouette that blocked out the sun.
Five elders at the pinnacle of the Heavenly Immortal Realm stood shoulder to shoulder. Their combined fury should have sent any ordinary High Immortal retreating into the clouds, Ferrum believed that a moment ago. But belief buckled when he lifted his gaze to Morven and Malcolm. The two stood as the highest devils of level twelve; legends whispered that heaven itself blinked when they moved.
Morven’s voice cracked like thunder: “Move!” He did not even spare Ferrum’s sword sea a glance; a lazy flick of his wrist said all the contempt words could not. A tide of Ninefold Nether Demonic Aura unfurled, a hundred yards wide, blacker than midnight ink, roaring straight at them. The wave met his thousand sword phantoms. Steel illusions shattered like brittle parchment. The real blade, his Celestial Metal Sword, caught the black tide, drank it, and went dim. A single crack ran down the spine, then another, until the hilt sagged in his grip. It snapped with a dry, mocking click.
Blood exploded from his lips before the sound even registered. The backlash of a broken life-bound weapon tore through his channels, hurling him backward. Rock faces rushed up like a closing door. Impact stole sound, sight, breath. For an instant he wasn’t sure if the mountain or his ribs shattered louder.
Through the red fog of pain, Ferrum felt rather than saw Malcolm’s answer—a brutality stripped of even theatrics. The devil did not lift a hand; an impatient snort was the only courtesy he spared Woodric’s vines. Gray-white blades of reincarnation aura spun around him, a quiet mill that minced the impossible vines to powder in a breath. Across the field, Woodric staggered, his hair drained from black to ash, skin folding into sudden centuries. Each snapped vine stole another year from the man.
Aquilus’, Pyre’s, and Terran’s assaults collapsed almost as quickly. Morven reached through mist and crushed the first water dragon; the other eight burst with it, drowning the sky in harmless spray. Malcolm’s aura smothered Pyre, flames snuffing out with a scream and the smell of burnt flesh. The stone giant tried to shield him; twin strikes from devil and demon turned it into an avalanche, and somewhere beneath the debris, Terran’s lungs failed.
Five pinnacle elders, Ferrum realized, had not lasted even the span of a single breath. He tasted iron on his tongue. The gulf between their power felt wider than the sky.
“An ant dares block my path?” Morven’s sneer cracked through the smoke and straight into Jared’s ringing ears.
A low hiss answered the insult as the air itself recoiled. In Morven’s outstretched palm, Ninefold Nether Demonic Aura thickened, folding into a black claw big enough to swallow the sun. Hooked fingers sprouted from that darkness, each tip burning with eerie green fire. The claw swung down, heavy with the promise of ruin, and Jared could only watch it fall. Even at his peak he doubted he could have met that blow head-on. Broken ribs and slick blood now made the thought almost laughable. Death drifted closer than his next breath, warm and certain.
Then, in the breath before impact, the world seemed to pause. Whoosh…
The air trembled like a plucked wire. A wall of crimson-gold fire erupted out of nothing, planting itself between Jared and the descending claw. Only three feet thick, the barrier looked solid as crystal and twice as merciless. Ancient flame sigils flowed across its surface, and the heat bent the air into ripples. The claw crashed into the wall with a shriek of metal on metal. Sparks burst, but the barrier did not give.
Through the rolling embers, Gerald stepped forward, as though walking out of the fire’s own heart. Usually mute, the old master now blazed from hair to robe, a living statue of flame and resolve. His eyes held no fear, no doubt, only the calm of a man who had already crossed the line between life and death.
“If you want him, you go through me first…”
The words were soft, yet each syllable landed in Jared’s chest like a hammer.
“Gerald, you’re courting death!” Malcolm’s snarl slashed across the battlefield. Numb gray light pooled in Malcolm’s grip, shaping itself into a spear three stories long. Faces twisted in agony writhed along its shaft while the tip gleamed with chill intent. The weapon moved without sound, like a thought made iron. Jared felt it cage Gerald’s very spirit, leaving the older man nowhere to step, nowhere to hide.
“Then… We die together!” Gerald’s laugh surfaced, low and sudden, as though the choice had lightened him. The smile that followed held release, acceptance, and a quiet hope he aimed toward the bleeding youth behind him. His fingers wove an archaic seal few alive could name, forming the mark before his chest.
Flames burst outward, crimson-gold giving way to pure gold, then to a searing white that swallowed every other hue. Heat climbed in vicious, breath-snatching waves. The air thickened until every breath rasped like glass dust. Jared blinked and the world burst into color: scarlet sky, white-orange pillars, stone floors melting into crawling streams of lava. Even space warped, warbling with brittle pops that reminded him of ice cracking under a spring thaw—only now the cracking came from overheated air.
