“Protect Mr. Chance!” Despite ribs jutting and scales split, Coall lurched forward again, roaring as his massive, night-colored body became a living bulwark before Jared.
The few Draconians still able to move beat broken wings, dragging themselves into the air to weave one last, trembling wall around their leader. Yet without the strength of their battle array, each dragon stood fragile as glass before the Soul Devourer.
“Out of my way!” The Soul Devourer’s voice cracked like frozen steel. A careless sweep of his hand released a soul-quake; invisible force hit the onrushing dragons like cosmic hammers, flinging them howling into the dark, their soul-lights guttering out.
Coall spat searing dragonfire, but the specter dispersed it, then conjured a colossal hand of condensed soul energy that came crashing onto the dragon’s skull.
Boom!
The impact shook the plain.
The skull that had shrugged off blades and fire finally cracked; Coall’s scream split the night while his titanic body plummeted like a meteor, punching a crater into the earth and vanishing beneath choking dust.
“Coall!” Jared’s cry tore from his throat, raw and desperate.
Watching his guardian fall for him ripped Jared open; agony and fury rose like wildfire, threatening to consume what remained of his reason. He hated his own helplessness and his blind pride.
*If I had not insisted on a solo duel, had not underestimated the horror standing before me, would the night have bled this way?*
That earlier surge of invincibility now mocked him, a hollow joke smashed by reality’s fist.
There was always someone stronger, always a higher sky, and he was paying for his youth and arrogance in blood.
Soul Devourer drifted closer; the chill of his killing intent seemed to freeze Jared’s blood and spirit alike. He stared at that face forged from spite, at the emerald flames dancing in its eyes, and felt despair press on his chest like a mountain.
*Am I truly going to die here?*
*No! I cannot die! Sylvia is waiting, the Heaven Gate Sect has only just risen, and the Vermilion Demon Lord has barely reclaimed his flesh… My work has only begun!*
A savage instinct to live surged. Jared squeezed the last drop of chaotic energy from his battered core and even set his wounded soul ablaze.
The Dragonslayer shrieked in his grip; Five-Element light, ripples of space-time, and a barely perceptible echo of mystical energy forced themselves into a single, blazing edge. This would be his final strike—reckless, delirious, and utterly unhinged.
“Soul Devourer, you mangy cur! I’m dragging you down to hell with me!” Jared’s eyes burned a violent crimson.
Gripping Dragonslayer, he flung himself toward the looming Soul Devourer like a moth plunging into living fire.
“A useless death-throe!” Soul Devourer scoffed.
Deep inside his spectral core, a pinprick of bottomless darkness ignited, the very heart of his essence, ready to snuff out Jared’s soul forever.
Their final collision hovered on the brink of eruption, tension screaming in the air. And then, at the razor-edge of that instant, the impossible happened.
Buzz!
The entire Soulgrave Abyss convulsed without warning, a quake that rattled bone and thought alike. This tremor did not come from their clash but from the very marrow of the realm itself.
Above the abyss’ blood-red sky, a monstrous rift tore open from horizon to horizon. Beyond was no void, only an ocean of glittering, imperial starlight.
From that celestial sea, a pillar of pristine, sanctified luminescence—an avalanche of life and purification—plunged like the Milky Way in freefall.
It ignored distance, spearing straight through the abyssal walls to strike the Soul Devourer a heartbeat before he met Jared’s blade.
“Argh! Ah! Starry… Purification… Light?! N-No… No!” His shriek sliced the dark, a sound born of terror far worse than death itself.
The specter’s once-solid form boiled, melted, then vaporized, the agony of soul-level annihilation dwarfing any mortal wound a thousandfold.
The sudden miracle arrested Jared mid-charge. He skidded to a halt, head snapping upward, disbelief widening his eyes.
He stared at the descending column, at once familiar, yet foreign, and at the Soul Devourer inside, thinning to transparency before his gaze. His mind went stunningly blank.
*What in all realms is this?*
*Who could wield such power? Why intervene now, at my bleakest hour?*
