Broken stone blasted outward, and dust rolled thick through the passage. A huge figure shot up from beneath the stone dais, then crashed down hard at the end of the passage.
When the dust started to clear, Jared finally saw the thing for what it was. It was a humanoid monster. Its body was enormous, more than 20 feet tall. Dark gold scales covered it from head to toe, and on every single scale, strange blood-red patterns flowed.
The left half of its body gave off a sacred golden radiance. That was the celestials’ holy light. But the right half churned with pitch-black demonic aura. That was the demon race’s demonic malice.
Those two completely opposite powers slammed into each other inside its body like they were trying to tear each other apart. And yet some bizarre method had forcibly fused them together, making the whole thing look like a doll that had been ripped to pieces and then crudely stitched back together, warped and deranged from top to bottom.
There was no expression on its face. Or rather, its face had already lost the ability to make one. That was not a normal human face at all. The left side still kept the outline of a person, but the right side had twisted completely out of shape. Countless blood vessels bulged under the skin like worms, one eye burned a deep blood-red, and the other was so empty it looked like it belonged to something already dead.
“This is…” Lydia sucked in a sharp breath and took a step back before she even realized it.
“The Celestial Basilica’s only successful product from its secret fusion experiments.” Cedric stood behind the monster, and every word out of his mouth carried the same twisted pride and spite. “We spent ten thousand years on this. We burned through thousands of celestial cultivators and Demonic Cultivators in experiments before we finally made this one.”
He lifted a hand and lightly patted the monster’s back, like he was showing off the one thing in the world he valued most. “Inside it are the bloodlines of twelve celestial cultivators and the demonic cores of six demonic cultivators. We spent another ten thousand years adjusting it, improving it over and over, until we finally forced it into the stable state it’s in now.”
The grin on Cedric’s face stretched wider and wider, to the point it barely looked human anymore. “The peak of True Immortal Realm Level Three. This is the greatest achievement the Celestial Basilica has produced in tens of thousands of years. Give it enough time, and it could even grow to the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Nine, maybe even break into that legendary cultivation level!”
He looked at Jared, his gaze dripping with contempt. “If the Hall Master hadn’t been such a useless piece of trash and let that fiend Skylar kill him in an instant, then the second we let this thing out, none of you would’ve escaped. Not one of you would’ve escaped!”
Jared stared at the monster with his brows drawn tight. Every instinct in him was screaming. This thing really was strong. The pressure pouring off it at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Three felt almost solid, crushing down on him until even drawing breath turned hard. That warped holy radiance and demonic aura tangled together into a strange force field that made the space around it turn unstable.
He could tell this thing stood far above Aurelius. Aurelius had only been at True Immortal Realm Level Two, and he had spent too long being pampered. In a real fight, his actual combat strength might not even have reached the standard of True Immortal Realm Level Two. But this monster was different. It had been made for one thing only: fighting! Every inch of flesh on it, every bone in its body, had been born for slaughter.
“Jared…” Lydia’s voice came out low, but the weight in it was heavier than ever before. “This thing won’t be easy to deal with.”
Jared gave a small nod and drew in a deep breath. The Golden Dragon Bloodline inside him started to boil. Golden draconic energy churned around his body, and the Dragonslayer Sword appeared in his palm with a low sword-cry.
“Doesn’t matter if it won’t be easy. we still have to fight it.” His voice stayed even. His gaze, though, had gone sharp as a blade.
Cedric threw his head back and laughed, the sound thick with contempt and savage satisfaction. “Fight it? Jared, what exactly are you going to fight it with? You couldn’t even beat Skylar, and you still think you can challenge the most perfect creation of our Celestial Basilica? Hahaha… Kill them!”
Before the last word had even fully left his mouth, the monster moved. It didn’t make a sound. There wasn’t even any breathing from it. It just rushed forward in complete silence. And it was unbelievably fast. That massive body, more than 20 feet tall, burst out with a speed that had no business belonging to something that big. Like a dark-gold meteor wrapped in twisted holy radiance and demonic aura, it slammed straight at Jared. Every place it passed, its feet stamped deep prints into the ground, each one more than a foot deep.
The air ripped with a harsh explosive crack. A sonic boom. It had already broken the sound barrier.
Jared’s pupils shrank. He snapped the Dragonslayer Sword across his body, and golden draconic energy surged wildly into the blade.
**Clang!** The monster’s fist slammed into the Dragonslayer Sword and set off a deafening crash of metal against metal. The force behind it was monstrous. It hit Jared straight into his chest like a mountain crashing. His whole body flew backward like a kite with its string cut, and he smashed hard into the wall of the passage.
The wall blew apart with a thunderous crash. Broken stone sprayed everywhere, and dust rolled out in thick clouds. Jared’s back punched through at least 3 yards of rock before he barely managed to stop. His sword hand had gone numb. The Dragonslayer Sword shook violently in his grip, and even its sword-cry carried a faint note of grief.
A thread of blood slipped from the corner of his mouth. That punch had already rattled his organs.
“That’s a hell of a punch…” Jared gritted his teeth and forced himself upright. Something sharp flickered through his eyes. He had gone all out on defense just now, and even then, the monster’s strength had still blown past what he expected.
A full-force strike from someone at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Three really wasn’t something a cultivator at the peak of High Immortal Realm Level Four could block head-on. And this monster’s real combat strength was probably even higher than an ordinary cultivator at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Three.
No wonder even the Celestial Basilica, the orthodox line of the celestials, had secretly made something this twisted, something that went against the Heavenly Law…
The monster landed one hit and didn’t pause for even a breath. It charged again right away. There was nothing fancy in the way it moved. No technique, no tricks. Just pure, raw, beastlike violence. A punch, a kick, a body slam—every strike carried enough force to wreck the world around it. Any one of them could have flattened a mountain peak.
Jared gritted his teeth and met it head-on. The Dragonslayer Sword burst into a skyful of blade-light as he locked himself into a brutal exchange with the monster. Golden radiance crashed against dark gold scales, and blinding sparks exploded between them. But it didn’t take long for Jared to run into a fact that turned the fight on its head: his sword couldn’t break the monster’s defense.
When the Dragonslayer Sword chopped into those scales, it left behind nothing more than a shallow white mark. It couldn’t even split a single scale open. And every time the monster attacked, it drove him closer to the edge.
**Boom!** Another punch crashed into him, and Jared was blasted away. He smashed through three stone pillars and sprayed blood from his mouth. Aurelius had already shattered his left shoulder before this, and now the injury got even worse. The whole arm went numb.
“Jared!” Lydia couldn’t hold back anymore. She yanked out her sword and rushed in. The wraithblade carried thick ghostly miasma as she drove one strike straight at the monster’s back.
The monster didn’t even turn its head. It just swung a backhand slap at her. Lydia snapped her sword across her body to block. The hit still blasted through her guard and drove her back several steps. The flesh between her thumb and forefinger split open and blood ran straight down her hand.
“This thing’s defense is too strong… Normal attacks can’t hurt it at all,” Lydia said through clenched teeth.
Jared forced himself back to his feet and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Something hard flashed through his eyes.
