Compared with Immortal Lord Nimbus’ presence, this new force stood a full tier higher, strong enough to shatter mountains and rip the sky like parchment. That terrible weight spawned an abyss of helplessness, reducing every mortal ambition to dust.
“Benefactor… That pressure… It belongs to someone with a higher cultivation level!” Quincy’s teeth chattered as stared upward. “In Cardinal Realm, a being of Earthly Immortal Realm is pure legend. Please, stay vigilant!”
The other freed cultivators mirrored his dread, worry pooling in their eyes for Jared’s safety. A few even shuffled back a step, tiny, involuntary, yet betraying the deep quake in their spirits. To them, Immortal Lord Nimbus had been an uncrossable canyon. Now a mightier shadow arrived.
Jared’s earlier miracle, crushing Immortal Lord Nimbus, felt suddenly fragile, a candle before a storm.
Despair coiled tight, whispering that no victory remained. Above, the cloud-sea writhed under savage wind, rolling like an ocean hurled into the sky.
From that convulsion descended a solitary figure draped in black.
His arrival dimmed the realm, as though daylight itself recoiled. Tall as a granite peak, was swathed in living shadows, oily fumes that curled and twisted, exuding a stench of ancient wickedness.
Each time the figure set a boot upon the stone, the ground fractured into a spider-web of hairline cracks, as though an invisible scalpel were carving the earth.
The air. once clear and bright with spiritual energy, curdled around him. A rancid mixture of rot and sulfur filled every lung, proof that even the breeze bowed to his corruption.
From that raised perch, let his gaze sweep across the battlefield, and the cold in his eyes felt like a pair of knives that forbade direct sight.
At last, those eyes fixed on Immortal Lord Nimbus-still dangling from Jared’s hand, freezing the battered man inside a cage of terror.
“I warned you about loose tongues, Nathaniel…” His words scraped together like rusted metal, spoken with the certainty of a sovereign who expects the universe itself to kneel.
Immortal Lord Nimbus convulsed as if lightning had just broken his spine, the flame of defiance in his eyes guttered out, leaving only raw panic. Whatever meant to say died unspoken. He shoved his face toward the shattered tiles, desperate to hide inside the dust.
Sweat the size of pearls rolled off his brow. soaking his robe. Terror of the man in black eclipsed even his fear of Jared, as though the man in black were the reaper come to grind into ash.
Jared’s brow lifted, a brief flicker of contempt cutting through the calm stillness of his stare.
With a casual flick of his wrist, Jared cast Immortal Lord Nimbus aside, and the latter hit the stone like a discarded burlap sack, the dull impact thudding through the silence.
“Who exactly are you?” Jared met the man in black’s stare without a tremor. “If you mean to stand in my way, do you really think death will change my mind?”
The words struck the man in black as riotously amusing. He threw back his head and howled, no laugh at all but the shriek of a night owl tearing open the dark.
Thick waves of black mist billowed from his robe, roiling like a legion of enraged specters aching for release.
“Death?” the man in black sneered. “In Cardinal Realm, not a soul dares speak that word to me. Brat, you think felling one washed-up Wandering Immortal Realm makes you worth notice?”
He sniffed, impatience dripping from the shadowed hollows where his eyes should have been.
