Momentum flipped in a heartbeat. The duel that had begun as a test was now a rout. After a whirlwind hundred rounds, Venerable Glacier found himself cornered, guard high, breath shallow. The Ice Crystal Longsword dulled under spreading grey veins, chains snapping in midair.
Three deep wounds carved across his torso refused to close. Jared spared a thread of mind to keep the microcosm whole; that leash kept the fight alive, barely.
“Impossible! Impossible!” The venerable’s shout cracked, half plea, half denial. A wild tremor ran through him, and the chill that once ruled the hall now tasted of panic. Jared caught the flicker of that question in the man’s eyes: how could a seventh-tier elder be forced back by a ninth-ranked wanderer?
“Frostbound Seal!” The shout rang like cracking ice. Blue flames licked from his pores as he burned blood and soul, stacking every shred of power into the spell. His form blurred into a lance of radiant blue, intent on ramming straight through Jared and freezing the world around him.
Jared let a quiet laugh slip. “A firefly pretending to rival the moon?”
He dismissed the Chaotic Longsword, palms meeting before his chest. As they drifted apart, darkness sliced the air between them. A newborn chaotic fissure yawned, thin as a hair yet carrying the hush of endings.
“Return to the Void!” Jared’s shout cracked through the clotted haze of his pocket world.
The hairline chaotic fissure between his palms ripped open. It ballooned into a starving black maw and lunged to gulp down the ice-blue sealing beam streaking toward him. Not a hiss, not a spark. The collision landed in perfect silence, like two ghosts brushing past one another inside a dream. The ice-blue sealing beam, packed with Venerable Glacier’s last fury, kissed the darkness and unraveled. Color melted first, then shape—flakes of drained light drawn inward without a trace.
A cool rush answered Jared, threading through muscle and marrow before sinking into his core. The swirls of gray mist around him thickened, the small world pulsing, stronger than a breath ago. A wet crack echoed. Jared glimpsed golden droplets arcing from Venerable Glacier’s lips as the elder doubled over.
Backlash slammed into Venerable Glacier like a falling mountain. His aura shrank to a thin, shuddering shell while another mouthful of pale gold blood splattered across the shifting air.
Jared stepped once. Space bent, and he reappeared in front of the crippled venerable, iron fingers clamping around the man’s throat and lifting him off the ground. His free hand pressed to the crown of the man’s skull. A flood of chaotic force poured inside, snuffing every thread of divine power and locking the soul in a gray vise.
“Urgh… Ugh…” A broken rattle leaked past the crushed airway. Venerable Glacier’s limbs twitched uselessly. His wide eyes found Jared’s, terror blooming like frost across a windowpane.
Jared’s gaze stayed flat, colder than the oldest ice. “Now I ask, you answer… One lie, and I’ll show you a pain a thousand times worse than soul-refining.”
A shiver ran through the captive. Gray motes skimmed the edge of his soul, each pass nibbling at existence and promising oblivion.
“You… Who are you, really?” Venerable Glacier rasped, voice thin as cracked ice.
“Who I am doesn’t matter… Tell me this: why did the celestials execute Sidney and Cadence and forge their souls into crystals? Was it only because they uncovered secrets and tried to resist?”
Hearing the question, Venerable Glacier’s gaze darted, but the tightening gray vise left no refuge. “Yes… And not entirely. They were digging into where soul crystals ultimately go. That alone breaks taboos! More than that,” he gasped, eyes rolling, “their bodies carried a trace of Primal Origin Breath. The Grand Venerable decreed that any such stain must be erased.”
“Primal Origin Breath?” The words tasted sharp on Jared’s tongue. His pupils tightened. The revelation slammed against half-formed suspicions swirling in his mind. “Keep talking. You harvest mountains of soul crystals—why? What are they truly for?”
His grip on the man’s crown hardened. Terror stretched the venerable’s face thin.
“Soul crystals are keys… and sacrifices. They keep the Heaven-Ascending Path open—a tribute for those above.”
“Above? What sits above us? And what exactly is this Heaven-Ascending Path?” The questions hammered outward before Jared could rein them in.
“I… I can’t speak it. The moment I do, my essence will shatter. Even my true spirit would be…” He shook, soul-light flickering. Raw panic rippled off him. The restraints hidden inside his soul stirred like chains ready to tear him apart from the inside.
Jared eased the pressure a hair, calculating. One wrong word, and the man would vanish before he learned anything useful. “Fine… Other question. Outside you five, what celestial bases hide in the eastern region? What is your true aim in level thirteen? Where is the Grand Venerable?”
“Outposts… scattered across five lands,” the venerable wheezed. “The core sits on the Central Heaven-Origin Sacred Continent. The purpose… harvesting. The Grand Venerable, he…” The words tangled, his soul-light stuttering.
Cracks of golden lightning skittered across his essence. The hidden geas had noticed the breach and was tightening the noose. Jared’s voice dropped to a deadly calm. “One last thing: the A11-73 Soul Crystal from the Morse couple. Besides being a key or tribute, can it still awaken or preserve any shred of their spirits?”
“Once a soul crystal is forged, it’s pure fuel… Their remnants are long gone, unless Primal Origin could reverse it, but that’s forbidden… Impossible…” The venerable’s reply frayed into whispers.
A blinding gold rune flared deep inside his eyes. It detonated without warning. Jared released the throat and threw up a shell of chaotic force between them. Golden brilliance washed over the world, not to scorch but to cleanse. Everything it kissed began to disintegrate, edges smoothing into nothing.
Venerable Glacier’s body and tattered soul melted like frost under the sun. When the light faded, only a wisp of pure ice-aligned power and a handful of ownerless treasures drifted in the air. Jared flicked his wrist, scattering the lingering glow. His expression stayed storm-dark.
Venerable Glacier was gone—body, soul, even echo. The fail-safe had erased him utterly. Fragments of answers whirled in Jared’s mind, jagged and incomplete, yet every shard felt explosive.
Primal Origin Breath… Heaven-Ascending Path… Those above… Harvesting… The Grand Venerable…
Each term pounded like a war drum inside his skull. The Morse couple had drawn attention by touching Primal Origin Breath; their remnants inside the soul crystal were likely erased unless Primal Origin Force could reverse the damage.
A cold new path opened before Jared. The last of the golden haze drifted away. Jared’s throat felt raw, yet the words broke free, softer than a whisper. “Hmm… Primal Origin…”
Heat rolled beneath his skin. Streams of chaotic force coursed along his veins, pressing against bone and muscle until every heartbeat thudded like a hammer. He steadied his breath. Each inhale drew that wild power higher, swirling up his spine, edging toward his crown—eager, almost jubilant.
The thought stirred before he could stop it. The lines he had carved into memory from the Chaotic Scripture flared, one after another, matching the rhythm inside him.
Was this throbbing surge nothing less than Primal Origin Force wearing a different name? If so, what had I really been shaping within myself all this time?
Phrases dangled in the silence the way broken chains swing in a storm: “Heaven-Ascending Path, the ones above, the harvest.” He saw again the celestials’ cold halls sprawled across level thirteen, their vaults heaped with soul crystals that pulsed like trapped hearts.
The picture knit itself together, ugly and relentless. Every shard of stolen life fed a tunnel that clawed upward, or worse, lined an altar meant for something higher.
The realization crawled under his ribs. The war wasn’t only for territory; it was a long, grinding sacrifice, and the victims never even knew the name of the thing they were nourishing.
