A shaft of icy, corrosive intent speared through the shield of soul energy around him and plunged straight into his consciousness field. Pain flared like molten needles behind his eyes, forcing him back several hundred yards. His face blanched.
“H-How can this be?” Jared reeled. Even the ancient Hydra power coiling through his veins could not fully block a soul energy honed to such terrifying purity.
“Hahaha… Frightened now, boy?” Soul Devourer’s laugh scraped the air like rusted chains. “Your little Heavenly Laws are clever, your Power of Immortals is novel, but in the face of absolute power and a gulf of realm, they’re just pretty fireworks. I’ve devoured more so-called prodigies than you’ve bothered to count!”
Jared clenched his jaw until it creaked, refusing to bow. He flung out his hand and summoned the battered Beast-Subduing Tower once more.
“Beast-Subduing Tower, suppression!”
The bronze tower rocketed forward, spilling a cataract of pristine silver light that crashed down over Soul Devourer like a waterfall of dawn.
A flicker of caution crossed the specter’s eyes, but it was swallowed by feral delight. “If the tower were whole, perhaps I’d yield. As it stands… Break for me!”
Jared marshaled a mountain of soul energy, shaping it into a night-black claw large enough to eclipse the tower’s glow. The talons stabbed straight into the falling curtain of light.
Light and darkness scraped together, filling the sky with a sound that set teeth on edge. The tower’s radiance flickered, dimmed, then steadied, but Soul Devourer’s pressure kept climbing, threatening to smother its brilliance entirely.
“Time Acceleration, Slash!” Jared bent the Heavenly Law around himself, bursting sideways in a blur.
One heartbeat later, he stood at Soul Devourer’s flank, Dragonslayer Sword blazing with killing intent as he poured every shred of strength into a single stroke. Yet the Soul Devourer twisted at an impossible angle, as though joints meant for humans had been replaced with liquid shadow.
The sword missed the core by inches. In the same breath, a needle-fine soul spike drifted out of the darkness and arrowed toward Jared’s brow—silent, merciless, and perfectly aimed.
Jared’s eyes flared wide. He flung himself sideways, yet the black radiance still grazed his shoulder, hot as molten glass.
A moment later, pain knifed straight into his soul—white-hot, burrowing—and the left half of his body went numb as though a piece of his divine soul had been torn away.
A guttural groan escaped him. Cold sweat beaded along his brow, collecting at his temple and slipping down the curve of his jaw.
The speed and Heavenly Law he normally flaunted now felt sluggish, dulled, almost laughable before this enemy.
“Mr. Chance!” Coall and Cyanna started forward, faces drawn tight with alarm, instinct begging them to shield their commander.
“No one move!” Gritting his teeth, Jared barked the order. Pride forbade him from letting his people witness how close he stood to collapse.
He drew a breath so deep it rattled inside fractured ribs, forced his shredded soul to knit for an instant, and a manic spark ignited behind his eyes. “Old mutt, take my final stroke! Golden Tome, lend me your resonance!”
Deep within his consciousness field, the Golden Tome stirred. A nearly imperceptible thread of ultimate energy laced itself into his sword intent.
It was one of the secrets he had never dared reveal until now. Since the tome had first awakened, he had learned to tease out slivers of its might. Yet he still could not draw upon its full majesty.
His blade flashed. Wind and cloud recoiled as though the heavens themselves blinked.
A sound like creation’s first chord reverberated through the abyss. The sword light grew solemn, vast, carrying judgment and an end as it cleaved toward the Soul Devourer.
For the first time, the Soul Devourer’s ghastly features tightened with genuine concern.
“Interesting… Yet far from enough… Ten-Thousand-Soul Devourer!” His roar rang out, and every resentful spirit in the Soulgrave Abyss seemed to answer, surging into his phantom body until his aura swelled monstrously.
He expanded into a sky-blotting demon silhouette, jaws yawning wide enough to swallow stars, and snapped straight at the ultimate-energy-infused sword light.
A detonation ripped through the abyss, too vast for mortal words.
At the crater’s heart, the blast shredded space itself. Stone ripped apart, the ground split, and rivers of blood reversed their flow into the yawning dark.
An irresistible force slammed into Jared. Dragonslayer Sword nearly flew from his grasp as he was hurled back like a severed kite, a ribbon of crimson tracing his arc.
He crashed among jagged boulders. Bones snapped, organs shifted, and his soul rang as though struck by an iron bell. Darkness pulsed at the edges of his vision.
Across the gulf, the demon shadow dimmed, emitting a pained screech. The cut had wounded it, but nowhere near enough to break it.
