Keeping low behind Onneas’ radiant wake, the party advanced, step by punishing step, into the palace’s wounded heart. Every pace forward meant enduring another lash of Soul Devouring Threads and another breath of corrosive miasma. Progress felt like wading upstream through broken glass.
The floor was littered with cultivators’ corpses, faces drained of color, eyes frozen wide, lips still twisted in silent terror. Their spirits had been stolen clean away by the Soul Devourer. Their bodies were nothing but discarded shells.
Artemis stared at the fallen, chest heaving with powerless fury. Once, as Celestia’s royal physician, every heartbeat saved had mattered. Now could only watch as all those cultivators lay butchered by Demonic Cultivators.
“They were Celestia’s cultivators,” Aurelius whispered, the words breaking inside him. His gaze swept the uniforms recognized. “They’re heroes who sacrificed themselves to protect Celestia City…”
Jared’s knuckles whitened on the hilt of Dragonslayer Sword. Golden light surged, circling like an avenging halo, and murder kindled behind his eyes.
Memories flashed, Rylan sacrificing himself, innocent townsfolk crushed beneath Demonic Cultivators, and the anger inside Jared flared hotter than any furnace.
Soul Devourer, your head will grace my blade!
With that oath burning in his mind, Jared lengthened his stride, boots striking the cracked marble with new purpose.
A thunderous boom erupted ahead. A powerful aura, ancient and vicious, spilled from the inner sanctum like a tidal wave. The entire palace shuddered-pillars groaning, chandeliers swaying-threatening to crash down on friend and foe alike.
Realizing this, Onneas gasped.
“No… This is bad!” blurted, the warning tearing from chest before could catch breath. “His phantom body is solidifying faster than before!”
Every syllable quivered with dread, as though could already feel the shock of what was coming. The shout galvanized the others. Jared, Aurelius, and the rest sprang forward, boots hammering the marble while they chased the baleful aura boiling ahead.
They swung around a bend, and an icy gasp ripped through the group, air dragging across teeth like the first touch of winter.
At the palace’s lightless core, Soul Devourer hung in mid-air, a dreadful idol frozen in worship. Ebony threads coiled from his frame, latching onto thousands of black urns arrayed in concentric rows beneath him.
Within each urn, ghost-white motes of soul-light winked out in rapid succession, funneled straight into Soul Devourer at the center like tributaries swallowed by a midnight sea.
The once-misty specter of his form was now nearly flesh, eighty percent of a living body, rising toward completion with every stolen breath.
A raven robe draped his body. His skin shone the color of bleached parchment. Blood-red lips framed eyes sunken deep into shadow. The air itself seemed to choke on the stench of his malicious aura.
“Hahaha! At last, the moment arrives! Soon, my flesh will be whole again! My peak power will return, and nothing under these heavens will cage me!” Soul Devourer’s laughter rattled the stone like loose bones in a jar.
Onneas felt pulse falter. The pressure rolling off Soul Devourer was no mere increase. It had multiplied, pressing against ribs like a falling cliff face.
“Everyone, stay sharp! He’s several times stronger now,” warned, teal spirit-light erupting around in a burning halo ready to strike.
Jared, Aurelius, and the rest answered by flinging their own spiritual energies into the air, crimson arcs, silver sparks, rippling barriers, grim lines carved across their faces as they took the measure of their foe.
They understood in a single, silent accord. The battle about to break would be savage beyond anything they had faced.
“You arrive just in time for your own funeral,” Soul Devourer drawled, turning lazily to greet them. “Since you pine for death, let me grant the wish!”
Cold scorn drenched every word. Before the echo faded, his outline blurred. in a heartbeat, stood before Onneas, a spear of inky demon-light blooming in his palm and blasting toward heart.
“Watch out!” Onneas cried out, hurling a torrent of teal spiritual energy to meet the onrushing darkness, a shield conjured in the breadth of a heartbeat. A detonation like a mountain shearing open shook the hall.
Teal brilliance and pitch-black night collided, vomiting a shock wave that cracked flagstones and sent dust billowing upward.
The backlash tore through Onneas’ arms. She staggered three paces, copper flooding tongue as blood traced the curve of lip.
“What?” Her eyes widened in shaken disbelief. “You’ve grown this powerful in mere moments?”
Brows knitted tight, tasted the grim truth. Seconds into the fight, was already bleeding. Yet, Soul Devourer was still unfinished. Once his body was fully formed, one strike might be all it would take to drop her.
