Wielding such a technique would ravage any ordinary cultivator, bones, vessels, even sanity, but its destructive potential was legend, turning the weakest spark of malice into a storm strong enough to topple palaces in the blink of a heartbeat.
Soul Devourer, cornered and desperate, finally chose the unthinkable. He cracked open a forbidden ritual, feeding his own blood and hatred to the spell so that its power would answer at any cost.
Soul Devourer threw his head back and roared, “Hahaha! To kill you, any price is a bargain!”
Shrouded in blood-red mist, his once-tattered frame hardened Into brutal solidity. The aura pouring from thickened until it felt like a storm of knives grinding across the air. “Today you die! Inevitably, absolutely, irreversibly!”
In the blink of an eye, vanished and reappeared before Jared, fingers hooked like talons ready to rip through steel.
Black demonic aura twined with crimson vapor along his hands, merging Into a power so twisted and dense that even space Itself seemed to ripple.
Jared tried to retreat, but the speed of that predatory blur outstripped thought itself.
Pfft! A wet crack-then those talons slammed into Jared’s chest. Dark demonic aura and crimson mist surged straight into his body, burrowing toward the very roots of his soul.
“Argh!”
Agony exploded behind Jared’s eyes as let out a guttural scream. He felt his own spirit unraveling, strand after strand, while countless phantom screams rose in his mind, like a horde of vengeful ghosts tearing apart.
Soul Devourer laughed madly. “Vermilion, savor this endless pain! This is the price for ambushing me all those years ago!”
Long ago, on level nine, Vermilion Demon Lord and Soul Devourer had been fellow apprentices under the same mentor. A grudging feud turned lethal when Vermilion Demon Lord struck from the shadows, wounding the once-invincible Soul Devourer.
Hunted and finally imprisoned on level six, the fallen tyrant had nursed that hatred through endless centuries. Now, at last, vengeance lay within reach, and mercy was a word no longer remembered.
Jared clenched his teeth until blood filled his mouth. “Soul Devourer, may you rot in every hell!” Even as cursed, could feel the light of his soul guttering like a candle drowning in its own wax.
The Soul Devourer sneered. “Rot in every hell? I am still very much alive. You, on the other hand, are moments away from utter extinction!”
After saying that, poured still more darkness into Jared, black demonic aura, crimson mist, running like poison rivers down the talons buried in Jared’s chest.
Jared’s body began to turn translucent, the black mist that shielded thinning to pale wisps. He knew, in the hollow space where hope once lived, that only seconds remained.
A weary voice, distant yet intimate, whispered inside the fading corridors of Jared’s mind. “Brat, it seems I can no longer help you…”
Inside Jared’s battered mind, the voice of Vermilion Demon Lord floated up like a dying ember, tinged with resignation. “I have done all I can… From here on, the path is yours alone…”
The whisper dissolved, a candle snuffed in the wind, and Jared’s body, moments ago convulsing, went suddenly, eerily still.
Soul Devourer watched the stillness overtake his quarry, a grin slicing across his face. He spread his arms wide, laughter cracking through the ruined hall.
“Hahaha! Vermilion, at last, you are dust. The debt from years ago is finally paid in full!”
However, right then, Jared’s eyes snapped open. Gone was the earlier crimson haze. In its place burned the steady, unclouded light of his own will.
“What?” Soul Devourer choked on the single word, disbelief rasping in his throat.
He felt it then. The roiling demonic aura inside Jared was evaporating, replaced by a stream of pure, spiritual energy that pulsed with life rather than corruption.
Moments before his essence dispersed, Vermilion Demon Lord had poured every last fragment of strength into Jared, returning control of the body to its rightful owner.
Jared’s voice cut the air, calm, cold, and resolute. “Soul Devourer, did you truly think it ended here?”
Pain riddled his flesh, yet deep within, a new current, thin but impossibly refined-glimmered. It was Vermilion’s final gift, and it hummed like a sword freshly drawn.
“Brat!” Soul Devourer sneered. his words rolling together in a single, contemptuous growl, “You really believe a handful of borrowed sparks can save you? Even with Vermilion‘s crumbs, you’re nothing before me!”
He lunged, clawed hand ripping through the smoke toward Jared’s chest.
