A jagged cry tore from Jared’s throat—half agony, half exultation. The surface of his skin split like glass under a hammer, scarlet fissures racing across every inch. Before blood could spill, the chaotic force flooding him knit the wounds shut, only to rip them open again with the next pulse.
Deep inside the power well of his abdomen, pressure swelled until it felt ready to burst. The Four-Colored Origin Star that hovered there vanished beneath a tide of raw chaos, every hue drowned, every contour scoured.
Nothing about the invasion felt gentle. The new power chewed through the old, then hammered the fragments into unfamiliar shapes. His awareness drifted, unmoored, in a shoreless dark. Jared was a single mote at the dawn of everything, watching nebulae billow, galaxies flare and die, feeling the first currents of creation brush past. Every muscle, vein, and bone drank that current. Cells burst apart, reformed, and rose brighter, as though the blueprint of his body were being redrawn line by luminous line.
Within him, his chaotic celestial energy recognized a sovereign. It rushed to kneel, then merged, swelling with borrowed majesty. Five-element power, Earthfire True Essence, even the proud Golden Dragon Bloodline had kept their distance until now. The absolute pressure of chaos crushed their walls and forced them inward, turning hesitation into eager convergence.
Buried beneath that flood, the Four-Colored Origin Star did not shatter. It drank and swelled, its radiance growing so fierce the original four hues thinned to translucent veils. Color bled away, leaving a hazy gray that felt neither light nor shadow. Inside, shifting layers of runes and currents hinted at a pocket-sized Chaos World taking shape.
The cultivation wall he had leaned against for so long now tore like wet paper under the torrent. Jared surged into the Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Six. Momentum carried him through the realm’s early layers and straight into its middle phase. The pressure refused to relent, compressing him until he cracked the advanced phase wide open.
A final roar inside his veins slung him across the threshold of the Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven. At last the tide receded, leaving him at the realm’s opening step—Level Seven—newborn yet vast. Yet Jared sensed this was only the surface measure, numbers on a chart, not the real miracle. The true change hissed deeper, rewriting the recipe of his life, his strength, and his view of the grand path.
Time lost its grip; when awareness returned, the glow of the Chaos Source Seed had folded inward and vanished into his marrow. The cracks of light dancing over his skin dimmed, then slipped away like retreating tide foam. Jared remained where he was, eyes still shut, as though listening for echoes only he could hear.
Something in the air around him had turned over. The edge that once advertised every ambition now lay hidden beneath fathomless calm. Where sharpness had flashed, stillness pooled, like a bottomless pond reflecting nothing. His skin gleamed translucent and jade-like, with subtle threads of shifting gray light wandering beneath. The fiery five-element tattoo on the back of his hand had vanished. In his palm, a nearly invisible vortex rotated—chaos distilled into the simplest of signatures.
He sensed no breeze, yet the ends of his dark hair lifted and drifted upward, as though some invisible tide had begun at his scalp and drawn every strand toward it. Jared opened his eyes. For a heartbeat, galaxies ignited, worlds collapsed, and dawn and apocalypse chased each other across his pupils; then all of it folded away, leaving only a calm, bottomless black.
Jared curled his fingers into a loose fist. He used no spiritual force at all, yet the surrounding air trembled and the stone floor sang with a thin, metallic hum, as if space itself found his strength too heavy to carry. Within his core, the newly forged Chaos Star revolved with unhurried dignity, each rotation pushing out a tide of power so vast it seemed incapable of discord—a perfect circle that swallowed every stray ripple.
The forces of chaos, the Five Elements, earth-fire, and the golden dragon essence no longer jostled for room inside him; they layered over one another like clear panes of glass—seamless, obedient, and wholly his. An unfamiliar fullness pressed against his skin from the inside, as if his very bones had been replaced with something brighter and vastly more dangerous.
A low breath slipped from his lips, long and steady, carrying away the last static crackle of transformation. The ribbon of vapor he released shimmered with faint motes of grey-white chaos, lingering in front of him before it thinned and vanished. The realization settled quietly: this venture had yielded far more than he had dared to imagine. He had secured the straight-to-the-Dao legacy of an ancient Qi refiner, fused the elusive Chaos Source Seed, and leapt two full tiers in cultivation—each of those alone worth a lifetime of risk.
Footsteps shuffled through the settling silence. The Vermilion Demon Lord crept forward, both hands cradling a tiny herb that glowed with gentle soul-light.
“I have it… Truly have it! With this, I can finally save her!” The older man’s elation faltered when his gaze climbed to Jared‘s face. “You… Kid, you look like someone else entirely. And that aura… Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven? What in the skies was that orb?”
Power still hummed beneath Jared’s skin, but he let his shoulders soften and offered a small, steady smile that felt both gentle and somehow commanding. “A stroke of fortune, nothing more. Senior, congratulations, you found what you needed. We should leave. The legacy is claimed, and this place will soon turn unstable.”
The words had barely cooled in the air when the entire cavern shuddered. Dust sifted from the ceiling and the murals carved into the stone walls bled their light until only drab outlines remained. On the far dais, the skeleton that had once been Grant’s broke apart in a hush of gleaming powder and drifted away, leaving only a faint depression on the platform.
“Move!”
Both of them sprang into motion, retracing their earlier path at reckless speed. The deadly trials that had tormented them on the way in remained silent now; corridors they had crawled through opened wide and let them pass without protest. When they burst from the tunnel into Peach Blossom Haven, the idyllic valley was already unraveling. Cracks spidered across the sky, grass yellowed in seconds, and spirit beasts dissolved into drifting sparks.
Relying on the sharpened sense that now tingled against Jared’s skin, they located the unstable spatial seam that had served as their doorway. It flickered like torn cloth. Without hesitation, they jumped.
The world inverted; colors smeared into spirals and sound folded in on itself until there was only the roar of blood in Jared’s ears. Solid ground caught their boots. Chaotic winds skittered along the border of the void belt nearby—familiar and strangely comforting. Both men exhaled in relief.
Jared turned. The twisted region that had housed the Eye of the Return-to-Void was gone, erased so cleanly the empty space looked ordinary.
“It’s over…” The Vermilion Demon Lord cupped the Nine-Orifice Herb as if it were spun glass, awe and gratitude pooling in his eyes.
Raw power coursed through Jared’s limbs, bright and restless, as though the marrow in his bones had caught fire. Deep in his core, the Chaos Star turned in slow, deliberate arcs, grinding out constellations of heat and gravity he could scarcely name. Jared fixed his gaze toward the ridge where Malevolent Path Hall hid behind clouds; the look in his eyes felt as sharp as a newly forged blade.
“Time to head home,” he murmured, the promise tasting like iron. “After that… Malevolent Path Hall settles its debt.”
The Vermilion Demon Lord caught the edge of his grin and answered with one of his own. In the next breath, both bodies blurred into twin ribbons of light, pitching south across the sky. Wind peeled tears from Jared’s lashes, but the hush in his chest felt steadier than stone. Confidence pooled inside him, wide and calm. Malcolm and Morven, two names once coiled with dread, now looked small—as if someone had scratched them on sand too close to the tide.
One strike, he told himself, maybe two, and their darkness would scatter.
