The winged soul knelt before Soul Devourer, one knee striking stone. “Caiden Mcintyre reports!” it rasped, voice edged with vengeance. “The ancestors of your so-called kingdom once chained me within this abyss. That debt is blood-deep. Grant me leave, and I will see their nation burned to dust beside you.”
Surprise flickered across Soul Devourer’s hollow gaze, quickly replaced by feral glee.
“Caiden! My fiercest general lives yet.” He spread both arms, cloak snapping in the wind. “With you at my side, I become a blade made sharper still!”
He spun, voice booming over the abyss like a war-horn. “All demonic souls, scatter through level six! Hunt down every survivor. Any who resist, kill without mercy. Any who submit may live, but they live as my slaves!”
“We obey!”
The answering cry, hundreds of thousands strong, shook the very clouds.
A moment later, the Demonic Soul Army surged outward like a black tide, overtopping the lip of the Netherworld Abyss and pouring toward the distant walls of Celestia City.
Wings beat toward the eastern mountains. Shadows spilled across the western plains. Dark specks peppered the southern seas. In the span of a breath, every corner of level six lay beneath a moving night.
Soul Devourer watched his army vanish into the murk. A cruel curve tugged at the corner of his mouth. He glanced down at the Ritual Manual, fingers tightening greedily around its spine.
“The manual offers far more than the release of spirits,” murmured. “Once this realm is mine, I will unearth every secret it hides. Let higher-dimensional lords come if they dare, l will face them all.”
Behind him, Spathe joined Anepan, both elders bowing low, faces painted with flattery. “Brilliant, My Lord. With two hundred thousand demonic souls and countless Demonic Cultivators, level six will soon rest within your palm. You will stand alone, absolute ruler of all.”
Soul Devourer offered no reply. He only lifted his chin toward the sky.
Above, the sun itself failed. Thick coils of black miasma sealed the heavens, plunging every peak and plain into a darkness unseen since creation.
At its center yawned the Netherworld Abyss, and within that maw, the Ritual Manual glowed in Soul Devourer’s hands like an eye that would never blink.
Far off amid Celestia City’s shattered ruins, pockets of surviving cultivators lifted frightened eyes to the black swarm overhead. Terror hollowed their faces, despair rooted their feet. Hope, for the first time, felt extinct.
They understood, with a chill that seemed to settle in their bones, that an even crueler calamity had descended upon level six.
***
Jared stared into the suffocating darkness now swallowing that once luminous realm. Beside him, Aurelius stood rigid, both men wearing expressions carved from granite and dread.
“It’s over… Level six… All of it-over…” Aurelius rasped, the words breaking apart like dry twigs. A fountain of blood burst from Aurelius’s lips. His knees buckled, and collapsed.
“King Aurelius!” Jared shouted, lunging forward before the monarch’s body struck the ground.
Jared caught and pressed trembling fingers against the monarch’s throat. The pulse fluttered so faintly feared it had vanished altogether.
Panic thundered through Jared’s chest. He fumbled inside his cloak for a healing pill, only to close on an empty vial, its contents long spent in the earlier mêlée.
What now? What now?
Aurelius’s eyelids fluttered open. With fragile resolve, seized Jared’s wrist.
“Jared… There is one place… That can save me…” each syllable scraped free with agonizing effort.
“Where? Tell me now!” Jared urged, leaning in so the dying king did not have to force his voice above a whisper.
“East… To Cloud Valley,” Aurelius breathed. “A hidden pocket of space lies there… Even if the Demonic Cultivators stand on its threshold… They will never see it. Inside that fold dwells the Herb Sect. Its matriarch was once royal physician to our realm. Only she… She can mend these wounds…”
Hope flared in Jared’s chest. “Then Cloud Valley it is!” He slid beneath Aurelius’s limp form, hoisted onto his back, and set off toward the eastern mountains with grim determination.
He had taken scarcely ten strides when dozens of Demonic Cultivators materialized between the trees. Spying their quarry, they hissed with savage delight.
