If a being like that wanted to make a move on Jared, then even if the Sky Dragon Clan threw in everything they had, it would make no difference. In their current ruined state, they did not have the slightest power to resist. They would only be crushed in an instant and reduced to ash.
What Roland could not make sense of, no matter how he turned it over, was this: Skylar clearly had the power to wipe out all of Cloudhaven City, yet he still had not made his move. He simply stood there in the sky, quiet and still.
He had not ordered the Demon Dragon host to attack, had not struck down the city lord mansion, and had not taken the chance to kill while Jared was still in seclusion. He was only waiting, patiently, for the moment Jared came out.
Roland could not understand what kind of hatred ran between this terrifying young man and Jared for it to be this deep. Why wait until Jared was fully healed and back at his top level before making a move? That fit none of the ways a cultivator was supposed to act. It looked far more like deliberate humiliation, stretched out into torture.
Roland did not dare ask, and he had no standing to ask. All he could do was use the last shred of strength left in him and hold the line on the city walls, turning himself into the final barrier. Again and again, he prayed in silence.
He prayed that Jared, inside the Pentacarna Tower, might turn disaster into fortune, that he might come out with his strength greatly increased, with enough power to stand against the terrifying being before them, to protect this city, and to protect everyone who had chosen to follow him.
Behind him, the surviving Cloudhaven garrison and the warriors of the Sky Dragon Clan were in just as bad a state. One after another, they leaned on their weapons, faces drained of color, yet their eyes stayed locked on the sky, and not a single one stepped back. They knew what they were guarding was not just the city lord mansion; it was the hope of all Cloudhaven City. It was the faith of Dragon Emperor Jared.
Outside the hidden chamber in the city lord mansion, Luther, Grace, Evelyn, and Vivian stood in front of the tightly shut door like four statues. They held their ground there and did not move an inch. The nonstop fighting had already wrung every last bit of strength out of them. Every one of them was badly wounded, their breathing faint, yet not one of them showed the slightest sign of backing down.
Luther’s left arm had been torn open by demonic aura. The wound was so deep the bone showed. He had wrapped it with strips of cloth in a rough bandage, but the black demonic poison still kept eating into his body, and blood soaked through the cloth and dripped to the floor.
His right hand stayed locked around the wraith-blade. The blade was smeared with blood, and the ghostly miasma around it had grown thin and dim, but he still kept himself ready to strike at any moment. If a Demon Dragon in the sky dared step even one foot into the city lord mansion, he would charge up without hesitation and fight to the death.
Grace’s face had gone white as paper, without a trace of color. Her lips were dry and split. The lively light that used to sit in her eyes had been replaced by a web of red veins, and her whole body had gone slack enough that she could only barely stay upright by leaning against the cold wall.
Her spiritual power was nearly spent, and the aura inside her body had fallen into complete disorder. Even each heartbeat came with a weak shiver. But her gaze stayed fixed on the door to the hidden chamber, and in her eyes, the strain never pushed out what was still holding there.
Evelyn had already reached the point of collapse. Her slender body swayed like it could give out at any second. She could barely keep hold of the longsword in her hand, yet she still clutched the hilt so hard her knuckles turned white.
Her dress was smeared with blood and dust until it looked filthy and torn up, and cold sweat kept beading on her forehead, but she still refused to retreat even half a step. She was Jared’s maid, and more than that, she was a warrior who followed the Dragon Emperor. Even if she were shattered to pieces, she would still stand in front of her master.
Vivian stood at the very front of the four. Her white dress, stained with blood, fluttered softly in the wind. She looked like the last candle in a hard wind, and somehow there was still something unbending in her. She lifted her head and looked toward the black-clad figure in the sky.
The weight on her stunning face had not eased for even a moment, and deep in her eyes, something tight stayed there without loosening. Among everyone present, she was one of the very few who had truly seen how terrifying Skylar’s strength was.
That was a kind of power that stood above everything, crushed everything, and left nothing that could stand against it. There was no luck in it, no borrowed force, no outside help at all. It was pure suppression from cultivation level and raw strength. In front of that kind of power, every struggle and every act of resistance looked thin and useless.
After Jared comes out of seclusion, can he really stand against him? That question kept coming back to Vivian, over and over, and still no answer ever came. She didn’t know. She didn’t dare follow it any deeper, either.
She only knew one thing: no matter how this ended—no matter whether the road ahead was a mountain of blades, a sea of fire, or a dead end with no way out—she would stay at Jared’s side and never leave him. If he lived, she would live with him. If he died, she would die with him.
“Vivian… do you think… when Jared comes out this time, he’ll be okay for sure, right?” Evelyn’s voice shook, and there was a faint catch in it as she asked the question softly.
Vivian lowered her head and looked at the girl beside her. The little thing was already trembling all over, scared badly enough that she could barely hold herself together, but she still refused to leave. Something in Vivian gave way. She lifted a slightly shaking hand and gently patted Evelyn’s head. Then she said with steady force, “He will. Jared will come out safe and sound. All of us will be okay too.”
The words were out, but the strain inside her never eased. Her gaze lifted to the horizon again, toward the black-clad figure that had driven everyone to the edge of despair.
Inside the hidden chamber, though, it was a completely different scene; inside the Pentacarna Tower was a world of its own. The flow of time there was completely different from the world outside. Only a few short days had passed outside. But under the Pentacarna Tower’s Time Law, several full years had already gone by within.
Several years were enough to turn a sapling into a towering tree. They were enough to let a weak man temper his cultivation, shed his old self, and come out remade. Jared sat cross-legged at the core of the Pentacarna Tower, his eyes closed and his face calm. Golden draconic energy kept circling around him without end, like a small sun, lighting up the entire space inside the tower. Golden light blazed across his body.
Behind him, the shadow of the Five-Clawed Golden Dragon drifted in and out of sight, and a low dragon’s roar echoed through the space, heavy with sacred, crushing authority. After years of tempering under the Pentacarna Tower’s accelerated flow of time, and after being fed by countless rare treasures, the grave wounds he had suffered in that brutal fight against the Celestial Palace’s experts had long since healed completely.
Not only had he recovered to his old state, he had gone far beyond it. His aura had grown denser and heavier. It sat there like a towering mountain, impossible to see through. The Five-Clawed Golden Dragon Bloodline he had already awakened had been nourished through these past years and lifted again. The power in his blood surged and roared like a boundless sea, crashing wildly through every part of his body.
Each circulation of that bloodline washed through his meridians. The channels that had already been wide were broadened again and again, broken down and rebuilt, made tougher and larger enough to hold ever more terrifying spiritual power. The spiritual power inside him was no longer a thin stream. It had turned into rushing rivers and vast seas, wild and endless, and every single thread of it carried frightening force.
As his cultivation built up over time, it had already slipped past the bottleneck of High Immortal Realm Level Three. Like floodwater bursting through a broken dam, he had smashed straight into High Immortal Realm Level Four. And he had not just stepped into it. He had charged all the way forward in one breath and reached the peak of the fourth tier, only a single step away from High Immortal Realm Level Five.
That one step looked small. For countless cultivators, though, it was a gulf they could never cross in their entire lives.
