The cheers that had been rattling through the main hall of Nethergate Sect were strangled mid-cry, as though an invisible titan had clamped its fist around every throat.
From the platform, Soul Devourer rose, no flourish, no grand gesture, merely standing, but the whole world appeared to pivot on this single point, all gravity rewired to him alone.
Moments ago, the giant had seemed terrifying. Now his menace felt like a firefly before the full moon, a creek set against the boundless sea.
A thunderous rumble rolled overhead, deep enough to shake dust from the broken rafters. Outside, the sky, already bruised by demonic aura, plunged into total night.
Clouds thick as congealed ink whirled together, churning like a cauldron. No clean lightning flickered there, only faces—thousands of distorted, wailing spirits—that flashed and vanished with piercing shrieks.
A wind colder than graves rushed through the shattered doors, whipping robes like tattered flags and probing straight into bone.
Around Soul Devourer, the very air warped, a wavering mirage, as if he stood inside a private hellscape stitched over the mortal realm. The slaughter-born malice he carried, distilled from an age of carnage, crashed in relentless waves against every mind present, each crest heavier than the last.
Somewhere in the hush, heartbeats pounded, loud enough to echo like war drums.
Weaker disciples toppled without a cry. Eyes rolled white, blood trickled from nostrils and ears, souls splintered beneath terror no language could name.
Even an expert like Neville felt a mountain range descend upon his shoulders. Joints groaned, and only the frantic circulation of his Netherlord force kept him standing, his face drained chalk-white.
Sylvia staggered with a muffled gasp; the color Jared’s victory had returned to her cheeks drained away again. She held her longsword like a crutch, fine frame trembling, unwilling to collapse.
Her very soul shivered, gripped by instinctive dread born of a gulf in existence itself. The entire hall, no, the entire mountain gate of Nethergate Sect, quivered beneath that aura, as though a breath more would shatter it into dust.
Only Jared remained unbowed. He stood at the epicenter, bearing the brunt of Soul Devourer’s fixation, the pressure of a collapsing sky.
Stone tiles splintered beneath his boots, branching cracks like a spider’s web, and the blood he had only just staunched slid anew across his lips. Yet his spine held straight, the posture of a spear that would sooner break than bend.
In his grip, the Dragonslayer sword rang with a desperate, exalted cry, part agony, part defiance, its light flickering as it wrestled the realm’s most profane darkness.
Jared’s gaze sharpened further; he knew with surgical clarity that the true ordeal opened only now. Every clash before this had been an appetizer.
Across from him stood a monster who, ten millennia ago, had erased Heaven Gate Sect overnight. Chance had no place here.
The Soul Devourer finally spoke, his tone calm and merciless, the sound of a judge who had never learned pity. “To die beneath my hand is the greatest glory a maggot like you will ever know.”
He lifted his right hand, fingers splayed, and pushed downward with deceptive gentleness, an executioner laying a palm on the world. No blaring trumpets announced the strike. No shower of colors lit the sky.
The moment arrived in perfect, terrifying silence.
The instant that palm touched empty air, every inch of space within thirty meters snapped still.
Stones mid-tumble, drifting dust, even the smallest breath—everything halted as though the world itself had been paused. Yet it was more than space alone.
Light stopped flowing, sound curdled in its throat, the surrounding spiritual energy froze into glass, and, most frightening of all, time itself bowed beneath an unseen hand and refused to move.
Jared’s face drained of color. Panic, disbelief, and raw survival instinct collided behind his eyes.
He felt as if he had been poured into a mountain-sized block of amber. Each attempt to lift a finger demanded impossible strength, and even thought moved sluggishly, like oil trying to push through ice.
