Once his supplies were in order, Jared did not remain in the town. He slipped away and, on the barren fringe of the Myriad Sword Mountains, located a lonely ravine where even the thinnest strand of spiritual energy struggled to survive.
There, he planned the heart of his ruse: a forged Infinite Soul Demon Sect command. He produced the finest blank communication device, crossed his legs, and let his consciousness sink into the crystal lattice.
Soul power surged through him like a midnight tide. With it, he mimicked the Infinite Soul Demon Sect’s signature aura—icy, treacherous, and forever quivering with distant screams.
Minute by minute, the words he had drafted earlier settled into the glowing script inside the device.
He combed his memory for every scrap of style he had gleaned from Gavin, Yvette, captured manuals, and looted tokens—grammar, jargon, even the order they listed titles.
Not a single syllable could betray him.
He shaped the text as a top-secret order from Sheldon Soulsby to an embedded operative codenamed “Shadow.”
“Shadow, hear my command. The sect will wage full war on the Mystic Sky Sword Sect and seize the spirit veins of the Myriad Sword Range. From this instant, you are to watch the sword sect’s every move…”
“At midnight three days hence, unite with our main force and strike from within. Target the Alioth Nexus of their Big Dipper Swordsteel Array. The Alioth Nexus anchors one of seven cores. Destroy or cripple it, whatever it takes…”
“I will lead the frontal assault. Inner and outer blades will snap their gate in a single night. Success alone is permitted; failure equals death. Delay or leak this plan, and pay with your head.”
The terms “Big Dipper Swordsteel Array” and “Alioth Nexus” were Jared’s own deductions, pieced together from marketplace rumors, obscure pamphlets, and his mastery of arrays.
Attacking an array’s core was the boldest declaration of war a sect could make.
Inscribing the message, however, was only half the battle. The linchpin was a soul-seal unique to Soulsby.
Jared kneaded the clay with a thread of purified demonic essence drawn from shattered relics. Then, breath by careful breath, he sculpted Sheldon’s oppressive soul signature—every rise, every tremor. A single misstep would collapse the forgery.
For half an hour he worked, fingertips aglow like jeweler’s torches, until the frigid seal burned at the slip’s tail. Only after multiple inspections did he finally exhale.
From substance to syntax to soul-print, the piece was seamless. Unless Sheldon himself probed it, no one would sense the lie. Yet that was not enough. The order needed evidence.
Merging with the night, Jared glided toward a sparsely guarded outpost on the Sword Sect’s perimeter. The sentries never saw him; a few precise taps sent them into harmless sleep.
Low-grade demon artifacts in hand, he clawed fresh scars into nearby rock and let wisps of foul miasma drift, staging the aftermath of a vicious raid.
