Those trapped inside, whether Human Immortal or even Heavenly Immortal, felt space thicken, their lifeforce stumble, and swordlight gnaw at every angle.
“Time Deceleration!” Obeying his thought, the flow within the domain slowed to a viscous crawl. To Jared, each foe moved like a puppet with slackened strings, their flaws yawning wide before his eyes.
“Die!” The Dragonslayer Sword swept in hungry arcs, more scythe than sword. With every swing, blood fountained, and one, or several, mid-Heavenly Immortal commanders collapsed headless onto the fractured earth.
Jared’s sword intent fastened onto its targets like an iron vise. Under that invisible pressure, almost no one alive could hope to survive a single stroke.
A Sunfire Sect elder, Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Two, broke from the ranks, brandishing a blazing treasure wheel. Flames howled around him as he roared, “Whelp, meet your death!”
Jared did not bother to turn. With a casual flick in reverse grip, his blade leapt forward. The tip outran the elder’s own momentum, slipped clean through the wall of fire, and kissed the man’s brow.
A wet pop followed.
Life drained from the elder’s eyes in an instant. His body locked mid-air, then toppled like a charred marionette, thudding to the stained earth below.
“Grand Elder!” Sunfire disciples screamed, throats shredded by panic, as their mentor crumpled out of the sky.
From the rear shadows, several killers from Blackwater Grotto blurred forward, daggers aimed for Jared’s unguarded spine. It might as well have been a child’s ambush.
Under the slow-drip tyranny of the Time Law encircling him, their rush crawled like slugs across syrup.
“Spatial Twist…” he whispered.
Space around them imploded without warning—air folding, light bending, reality wringing itself into a knot.
They never even screamed. The newborn singularity crushed bone, flesh, and intent alike, leaving only a paste that spattered the dirt.
Jared tore onward like a tiger loosed among lambs. Wherever he stepped, men reeled, mounts crashed, and corpses carpeted the ravine. Yet brute strength was only half his terror.
Through the tower heart buried in his soul, he felt every Draconian on the field and steered their formation with surgeon’s precision.
“Left flank, Black Dragon Guard, hold the line! Right wing, Wind-borne Clan, surge ahead and shred their rear! Thunder drakes, concentrate every bolt on that array master in yellow robes!”
The orders came crisp, rapid, and absolute. Under that unified will, the Draconian army moved like a single war engine, grinding the numerically superior coalition into panicked retreat.
Battle dissolved into unbridled carnage. Dragon roars tangled with explosions, death-screams, and the clangor of shattered artifacts, composing a blood-soaked symphony over the sundered valley.
Soil turned crimson. Severed limbs spun through smoky air. The stench of iron thickened until every breath threatened to retch the gut.
Only then did the cultivators grasp the nightmare: their vaunted tide-of-numbers stratagem meant nothing before a unified, death-eager Draconian legion.
Each Draconian was formidable alone; together they birthed a force far beyond simple arithmetic.
And at the eye of the storm stood Jared, a living nightmare whose sword, laws, and battlefield mastery shattered every notion of a mere Human Immortal Realm Level Five combatant.
“Monster, he’s a monster!”
“Run! Run for your lives!”
“We were never their match, not for a single breath!”
At last, someone’s nerve snapped. He spun on his heel, abandoning comrades and honor alike, and bolted toward the rear of the shattered formation.
The retreat struck the ranks like a boulder on a mountainside; once it started, everything below tumbled with it.
Terror rode the wind like plague spores, infecting every heart in the space of a heartbeat. Whatever battered line they had held a moment earlier disintegrated in the blink of an eye.
“You want to run? Too late!” Jared’s gaze turned to ice. He understood the wisdom of killing the snake outright; spare it, and the fangs return. None of these foes would live to see another dawn.
“Beast-Subduing Tower, Space Prison!”
From Jared’s palm, the delicate tower spun into view, no larger than a chess piece. It whirled faster, swelling to the height of a fortress and hovering above the battlefield, unseen shock waves flooding outward.
A deep hum shuddered through the air. Tens of kilometers around the tower froze solid. Reality locked in place like poured steel.
Cultivators who meant to rip holes in the void to escape struck an immovable wall instead—there was nowhere left to run.
“N-No!”
“He’s sealed the skies around us!”
“We’re finished!”
Their wails of despair rolled across the field, fading like dying echoes against stone.
