Yvette’s gift lay with shadows. In this realm of searing light, her talent shrank to nothing. Only the sliver of celestial power Jared had slipped into her veins earlier kept her heart from stalling outright.Around them, the rest of the Myriad Beast Sect looked defeated.
Eagle clansmen watched their own feathers curl to charcoal. Tiger youths’ fur became charred. Snake-blooded novices listened to their scales crack open like old pottery. Choked groans rolled through the troop, one after another—the mournful rhythm of an army tossed alive into a smelter.
Clara might be a disciple of Reiner and practiced a top flame-type technique, but due to the injury she suffered, her meridians were thin ice under a torrent of lava. Pale as bleached parchment, she shook and coaxed her art into motion, each cycle buying only another moment before annihilation.
Despair enveloped them yet again. They had outrun pursuit, crossed into a sanctuary whispered of in legends, only to discover the sanctuary itself eager to burn them down. Death stood one step away, its hot breath already licking their souls.
“Calm down…”
The words drifted clear and bell-bright, yet they carried authority that silenced pain itself. It pierced scorched ears, rang against nearly broken spirits, and nailed every cascading flame in midair.
Jared had spoken. He did not so much as glance at the carnage behind him. He simply lifted one elegant hand toward the tidal world of fire and pressed his fingers down like a painter smoothing canvas.
Nothing exploded. No arc of spell-light shattered the sky. Yet the moment his palm descended, something deeper than power rippled out.
A hush of ultimate energy spread from Jared in widening rings, the way a pebble troubles a mirror-still lake—silent, unstoppable, perfect.
This was not cold battling heat. It was a command, an edict from a higher law. Under that whisper of supremacy, the flames bowed, their roar fading to a humble crackle, as if the entire realm had remembered who truly ruled it.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the impossible became real.
From the spot where Jared planted his boots, an unseen radius rolled outward, as though a colossal hand had stroked the very air.
Flames that had moments ago screamed hot enough to melt iron fell silent, tamed, settling at a warmth almost pleasant.
Chaotic tongues of colored fire, once battering everything in their path, lined up like soldiers answering a sovereign call.
The violent impurities were skimmed away, leaving only the gentlest, most refined core of fire-element essence. Even the blinding glare dimmed, passing through an invisible sieve until the light shone bright yet harmless.
The raw scorch on every skin receded like a tide; lungs that had burned cooled, drawing slow, luxurious breaths.
Wide-eyed, the crowd stared at the neat divide this wonder had carved into the world around them.
Beyond the boundary, the inferno still howled, heat waves twisting the air into a furnace of light and terror. Inside it, temperate breezes drifted over a pool of mellow aura and gentle radiance—a pocket of paradise. An invisible frontier separated inferno from oasis as cleanly as knife-glass.
Beneath their feet, the dark-red, glassy soil remained, yet its buried fury now purred rather than roared.
Not far away, a fissure, once vaporized by heat, burbled with milky spring water that smelled faintly of wildflowers and cool stone.
Around that newborn spring, tufts of jade-green, flame-shaped spirit grass sprouted in seconds, dew gleaming on every alien blade.
“What… What kind of sorcery is this?” Paxton breathed, feeling the searing ache inside him dissolve into a warm, vibrant tide of bestial power.
To rewrite the laws of such a savage realm, and so utterly, could not be explained by any ordinary array or divine art Paxton had ever studied. It felt instead like a command of Heaven itself, a decree uttered and instantly fulfilled.
Behind Jared, Clara stood transfixed, those pale eyes dancing between awe and a trembling thrill she could not name. She, more than anyone, understood the weight of what had just occurred. The core rule of the Blazefire Secret Realm was simple: fire, raw and supreme.
Her own master, Reiner, had cultivated here for millennia, yet could only carve a tiny, fragile pocket of safety for meditation.
Jared had conjured an oasis with a casual flick of the wrist, wide as a city square and flawless in stability. The feat lay beyond every framework of strength or doctrine she possessed.
Gavin and Yvette exchanged a glance, reverence and relief shimmering openly between them.
The elder’s depth, they realized, was oceanic—immeasurable and best left untested.
Catching the stunned gazes that circled him, Jared answered with nothing more than a calm, almost playful smile.
I’m an expert at playing with fire…
The fire essence housed in his core was a tapestry woven from countless fires. The demonic fire within him dwarfed the Blazefire Secret Realm’s inferno a thousand times over. Without that, Jared wouldn’t have been able to show off.
“We stay here,” Jared said, his tone calm yet unquestionable. “Use every breath to mend what has been broken.”
He turned, unhurried, unruffled, as though shattering a hell-level formation were nothing but stretching stiff joints. His gaze swept the newborn celestial spring and the curls of flame spiritual plant edging the pool. He nodded.
“Those waters carry gentle life-essence. Bathe your wounds in them; you will heal twice as fast.”
“Thank you sir! You’re beyond amazing!”
Dozens dropped to their knees. Their voices trembled, a single, quavering chord of gratitude. They had their lives snatched from the jaws of certain death, then delivered a pocket of paradise to recuperate; such grace could never be repaid.
Paxton, eyes bright with unshed tears, bowed. “Myriad Beast Sect will never forget this favor. Should we one day rebuild, you will stand as our Supreme Lord. At your word, every beast son and daughter shall rise or fall…”
Jared lifted an open palm. A hush of gentle force pulled them to their feet. “Enough ceremony. Every heartbeat spent kneeling is a heartbeat stolen from recovery.”
At Paxton’s barked orders, the others quickly settled down.
