Seamus swung his sword. Tides of radiant light flooded the gate, crashing over pillars, tiles, and sky alike until the world itself seemed hammered from gold.
A scent like incense and thunder mingled in the air, promising to scour every shadow from flesh and soul. Jared lifted his Dragonslayer Sword. “Petty tricks…” muttered. A black-and-gold arc burst from the blade, meeting the oncoming brilliance head-on.
Boom! Light and darkness collided in a roar that rocked the mountainside. For an instant, the courtyard vanished behind a blinding sphere.
Then, to everyone’s astonishment, Jared’s sword glow tore through the gilded wave, shredding it into drifting sparks that rained like dying fireflies.
Seamus staggered three paces, eyes wide for the first time. “Your sword technique… How can it suppress my holy light?”
“Because your ‘holy’ light is a fake and lie…” Jared advanced, his Dragonslayer Sword pulsing with ever denser marked aura. “That so-called holy sword intent is forged from the resentment energy of souls you slaughtered. You dare call it sacred?”
Seamus’ face blanched. “Nonsense-preposterous!”
Yet his pupils trembled, betraying the secret Jared had ripped into daylight.
“You know the truth,” Jared said, voice low as a grave wind. “The magical items you stole from the Flaxseed clan, where are they? Locked away in the secret room of Holy Light Palace, I bet…”
Vicious resolve flashed across Seamus’ eyes. “Looks like you won’t be leaving here alive.”
A piercing whistle burst from his lungs. Golden light flared again, now laced with faint threads of black energy.
“Holy Light Sword Art, Third Form! Spear of Judgment!” bellowed. From the radiance, countless golden spears coalesced, tips glittering with an arctic gleam. They screamed toward Jared and the others in a ruthless barrage.
Corin’s longsword streaked into a silver comet, severing spear after spear. Beside him, Flaxseed flung out a yellow shield etched in runes, every spear that met it shattered into harmless dust of light. Yet, the majority of those spectral lances hunted Jared alone, their murderous glare fixed on the man who had dared to expose false sanctity.
Jared’s gaze hardened, and channeled both spiritual energy and marked aura. The Dragonslayer Sword roared awake. Gold and midnight swirled together around its blade, a miniature cyclone of light and shadow that devoured the air itself.
“Dragon Soarer!” A phantom black dragon, forged from Jared‘s sword intent and marked aura inside him, burst free with a roar.
Pitch-black scales shimmered with veins of gold as the beast swallowed every spear screaming toward him. Not sated, the spectral monster hurtled on, its molten eyes fixed on Seamus.
Horror washed across Seamus’ face. In panicked reflex, lifted his gleaming longsword, hoping a thin wall of holy light could counter the storm barreling down.
A wet crack echoed. The phantom dragon shredded that radiant guard as though it were parchment, then crashed into Seamus’ chest with bone-splintering force.
He spat blood, his body flung backward until slammed against the white-jade gateway of the sect. Marble shattered around like brittle ice.
Struggling to rise, tasted iron and terror. Marked aura had already wormed into his elixir field, choking the flow of his spiritual energy.
“W-Who in the world are you?” Seamus gasped, voice trembling more than his limbs. Jared strode forward one measured step at a time, eyes colder than moonlit steel.
“A debt-collector,” answered, leveling the Dragonslayer Sword at Seamus’ throat. “Where is your sect leader?!”
Blood on his lips, Seamus let resolve flicker behind fear. “You want him? You pass through me first!”
He struck his own chest, coughed a glob of golden blood essence, and flung it to the ground. Runes blossomed, weaving into a complex runic array.
“Holy Light Sacrificial!”
Blinding brilliance erupted. Chains of liquid gold shot from the runic array, snapping toward Jared like serpents hungry to bind his limbs and soul. Each link pulsed with sacred runes, a forbidden technique meant to cage anything it touched.
“You’re courting death,” Jared muttered, disdain sharp as frost. He swung. The Dragonslayer Sword’s arc carved a crescent of interwoven gold and black that severed every radiant chain in a single breath.
That lethal light kept moving, a reaper’s blade destined for Seamus’ neck.
