“Who says I can’t call reinforcements without help from a branch?” Esorin replied, a frigid smile carving lines into his face. The old devil’s soft chuckle echoed like a rusted hinge. Cold promise shimmered behind his eyes.
Figures began to stride out of the gate, one after another, none of them anything but Demonic Cultivators. Each arrival left a smoky after-image of black miasma curling over the ruined flagstones.
First to emerge was a giant of a man. He carried a mountain-cleaving axe whose iron edge could have split a city wall. Black fog coiled around his shoulders, making his outline blur and swell like a living shadow.
Jared’s eyes narrowed. “That brute isn’t from the Malevolent Path Hall?”
“Correct,” Onneas said quickly, keeping pace beside him. “We’re on level eight, Jared, that’s Fiend-Titan Sect. The axe-bearer is their sect master, Maximilian Stonehelm. We have crossed blades with him before.”
Jared’s jaw flexed. “Then before his friends pour through, we hit hard…”
He knew the longer the gate spat out warriors, the worse their odds became.
He raised the Dragonslayer Sword. One blazing stroke tore through the void, its light a crimson comet. Several Third Hall cultivators never even felt the blade that lopped their heads from their shoulders.
“Kill!” Onneas answered with action, leading the Celestial Guards forward in a silver and blue wave.
Steel met flesh. Screams became wind. In a breath, the courtyard was a storm of limbs and sparks.
After Jared felled a fourth opponent, Esorin appeared in front of him with a single ghost-swift step. One casual palm shredded Jared’s sword-light like paper, forcing him back on his heels.
“Jared!” Onneas cried, fear ripping the name from her throat.
She planted herself at his side, armor plates humming with gathered power. She knew, alone, Jared could never match the abyssal force radiating from that devil.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, gazes locked on Esorin, whose aura rolled over the paving stones like an ocean trench come alive.
Esorin moved. The world blinked.
Suddenly, he was before them, palm swinging down with the force of a collapsing mountain range. Air collapsed ahead of the strike, shrieking like tortured metal.
Jared roared, channeling every shred of will into the Dragonslayer.
Scarlet fire ignited along the blade, sword intent becoming liquid flame as he slashed upward to meet the descending hand.
In the same instant, Onneas’ hands flew through a blur of seals. Threads of light stitched themselves into a clear, rippling barrier that wrapped both warriors in a translucent cocoon.
Bang!
Steel met flesh, flame met abyss. The collision split the silence with a thunderclap so brutal the flagstones underfoot exploded into a halo of dust.
A brutal current traveled the length of the Dragonslayer Sword, slamming into Jared’s arms. Nerves sparked, flesh went numb, and thin splits opened across his palms, feeding streams of blood down the cross-guard and onto the blade.
At the same instant, the shimmering barrier before them fractured under Esorin’s sweeping palm; spider-web cracks crawled across its surface, then it burst apart with a single, glass-like snap.
With a cold, amused breath, Esorin blurred from view, reappearing at Jared’s flank, his hand already arcing toward the young man’s ribs.
The blow landed squarely on Jared’s shoulder. Thunder boomed inside his bones, and his body flew backward through the air, a scarlet plume escaping his lips.
“Jared!” Onneas hurled herself into the sky, catching Jared just before he could crash against the flagstones. His face had gone ghastly white, and fresh blood beaded at the corner of his mouth, sparking fury behind her eyes.
“I’m all right,” Jared hissed between clenched teeth. “Focus on that old devil!”
Ignoring the fire searing through his shoulder, he wrapped both trembling hands around the Dragonslayer Sword’s handle and forced the sword back into guard.
Esorin granted them no breath. He darted around their shared perimeter like black lightning, each sweep of his arms hurling crescents of lethal force toward them.
Jared and Onneas answered with desperate flashes of footwork, weaving through the air in a whirl of steel and light, every collision ringing like a forge in the night. But as minutes bled away, the number of defenders inside the Celestial King Palace thinned.
Demonic cultivators poured in like a murderous tide. Though the Celestial Guards fought with reckless valor, the sheer weight of bodies and brutal power began to grind them down.
A strangled scream tore through the din. One guard fell beneath a giant war-axe; the blade split him from shoulder to hip, spraying hot red across the white marble steps.
Rage cracked through the remaining guards, yet for every cry of defiance, another life was extinguished.
