The leader’s focus had been locked on the battered beast clan captives; an attack from the flank never crossed his mind, let alone one of such terrifying power. By the time he felt that marrow-deep killing intent and the razor wind of Jared’s aura, doom had already arrived.
He flung the Ten-Thousand-Soul Banner before him, pumping demonic essence until the cloth seethed with layer upon layer of wailing phantoms.
It was paper against the tempest. The only sound was a soft hiss, like silk torn by a blade. The Prismatic Sword Aura sliced through the black fog, pierced the banner, and drilled cleanly between his brows.
His body froze. Horror and disbelief still hung on his face as his pupils clouded. Cracks spider-webbed out from the wound.
An instant later, man, flesh, and soul disintegrated into gray dust that the wind scattered across the valley.
The ruined Soul Banner clattered across the flagstones. A battered storage ring spun beside it, hitting stone with a thin metallic chime. Then, nothing.
Not a breath. Not a heartbeat. Silence settled over the clearing like a burial shroud!
The vicious grins on the remaining four black-robed marauders froze in mid-curl. Terror flooded their eyes as the truth dawned: whatever had just appeared had erased their leader in the time it takes to inhale, and none of them even saw the strike land.
The tiger man and leopard woman stood rooted to the spot. Blood matted their fur and clothing, yet they stared wide-eyed at the newcomer, a tall figure in sea-blue robes, the Dragonslayer Sword dripping crimson along its edge.
Jared let the single demonstration speak for him. The sword sang in his grip, a crisp, jubilant note that shaved the air.
“Time-Space Domain, open!”
Reality warped outward from Jared in a ten-yard sphere. Light bent, the ground rippled, and time itself thickened to a slow, syrupy crawl.
Inside that invisible mire, the four black-clad attackers—each somewhere between Levels Two and Four of the Heavenly Immortal Realm—moved like flies trapped in amber, their limbs and demonic essence grinding forward by painful degrees.
Jared’s gaze sharpened. “Die.”
The single word left his lips as cold as a winter blade.
The Dragonslayer Sword flashed, a reaper’s scythe carving silver arcs through the warped air, each stroke preordained, inescapable.
“No!”
“Spare us!”
A chorus of broken pleas rose and died in the same instant.
Four heads spun skyward, mouths still frozen in horror. The bodies beneath them toppled, spewing fountains that painted the stones scarlet. Their fleeing souls barely slipped free before residual sword energy shredded them to mist.
From Jared’s arrival to the final corpse hitting earth, scarcely three seconds had passed—swift, surgical, absolute.
He stood amid the carnage, robes unstained, the Dragonslayer Sword humming softly at his side.
Slowly, he turned toward the stunned beast clan warriors, his expression unreadable.
Power thrummed through Jared’s veins, intoxicating in its clarity. Yet reason tapped him on the shoulder, reminding him that arrogance courts disaster.
Easy, Chance… Show off too long, and you might embarrass yourself…
The tiger-striped man found his voice first. “T-Thank you, honored one, for saving our lives!”
He forced himself onto one knee despite the agony lancing his side.
The leopard-tailed woman followed at once, bowing low, reverence and gratitude pooling in her eyes.
“Stand… Formalities aren’t necessary.” Jared raised an open palm. A gentle current of force lifted both wounded scouts to their feet, steadying them the way a quiet hand steadies a trembling child.
Jared let his gaze sweep over the mutilated corpses and the torn Ten-Thousand-Soul Banner lying among them. A faint line creased his brow.
“So those people were from the Infinite Soul Demon Sect? They come here often, raiding your beast-soul crystal vein?”
“Exactly so!” The tiger man’s jaw tightened, every syllable rasping with hatred. “For decades, those devil-spawn have grown bolder. They stalk our clansmen on the outskirts, rip out their very souls for wicked cultivation, and now they covet the deeper lodes of the vein itself. Sir, you…”
Jared offered no answer. He strode to where the black-robed leader had disintegrated and, with a flick of his palm, summoned the fallen man’s storage ring and the shredded banner.
His spiritual sense cracked the lingering seals. Inside, he found only a few demonic pills, some common materials, and too few spirit stones.
There was nothing that hinted at the Soul Devourer’s whereabouts, nothing that exposed the Infinite Soul Sect’s core secrets.
His eyes shifted to the scraps of blood-soaked flesh and the flickering wisps of soul energy that still drifted where the black-robed cultivators had died.
