Just as the claw’s shadow reached him, Jared moved. The gesture looked unhurried, almost polite. He merely raised his right hand, palm facing the oncoming horror, as though greeting an insect on a summer evening.
Boom! The demon claw shattered, bursting into a storm of black vapor that the wind carried away in a heartbeat. In the sudden quiet, the sky seemed cleaner, scrubbed by invisible hands.
An unseen force lashed backward along the man in black’s arm, a venomous current racing toward his heart. The sneer froze on his lips, fear chiseling newlines across his face.
That same force flooded his meridians, tore through his elixir field, and left ruin wherever it traveled. Bones splintered. Essence crumbled.
He slammed to the ground like a punctured drum, blood spilling from eyes, ears, nose, and mouth before breath could summon a scream.
An Earthly Immortal Realm Level Two Enforcer of Malevolent Path Hall had failed to withstand even one careless motion from Jared, and died for it.
The man in black, who only moments earlier had ruled the field with fearsome swagger, now sprawled on the stone like carrion, limp and cracked.
Every cheer froze in the throats of the Demonic Cultivators at the scene. Smiles set like cracked masks. Mouths gaped wide enough to hide a fist. Terror clouded their eyes, as though the last breath had been sucked from the world.
Their bodies shook without permission, seized by the same nightmare that had just murdered their certainty of victory.
Quincy and the other cultivators jerked awake, blinking hard. They stared at the corpse in its ruined cloak, then at Jared, who stood calm and steady beside it, and their minds simply stalled.
Moments ago, they had cowered beneath an overwhelming pressure, an Earthly Immortal Realm expert no mortal could touch. Now that the expert lay crushed by one casual slap. Impossibility had slithered into fact, and nothing made sense.
“l-Is this actually happening?” someone rasped, the words trembling as badly as his knees. The question hung in the air, hunting for an answer that refused to come.
Jared brushed his palms together as if flicking away dust, the gesture so light it mocked the carnage at his feet.
He turned toward Immortal Lord Nimbus, who still kneeled, shivering, and asked in a voice mild as drifting snow, “You may go on now. How did Drystan learn the Celestial Gem Refinement Method?”
Immortal Lord Nimbus glanced at the man in black’s cooling remains, then back at Jared. Color drained from his face. He shook like a leaf caught in winter gale-force winds.
He threw himself forward, forehead slamming the flagstones. “I will speak! I swear. Mr. Hexford heard it from Enaricus, the overlord of the Third Hall. How Enaricus discovered it, I never learned!”
Terror and despair painted every line of his bowed body. Jared had become executioner, judge, and fate itself.
“So Enaricus of Celestial Palace is already colluding with Malevolent Path Hall?” Jared muttered, brows knitting.
The Celestial Palace was the core of the celestials. Treachery at that height could topple empires. Worse, Onneas had long opposed Enaricus. If Enaricus had joined the enemy, Onneas would soon be targeted.
