This time, not even the hiss of a breath slipped out. Every throat felt caught in an unseen vice, crushing sound before it could form. Only hearts pounded—wild, frantic, threatening to split chests open.
Glacial fear rolled through the Demon Sect and Melded Beastkin ranks like an arctic tide. Low-tier disciples collapsed, legs jelly, bowels and bladders failing where they fell. Even seasoned elders of the Heavenly Immortal Realm went ghost-white, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
Power no longer measured what they faced. This was crushing, hope-killing domination—divinity passing judgment on mortals.
Only now did Sheldon Soulsby and Garth Thornscale feel true panic. They realized Jared was no crafty, inferior being from the Human Immortal Realm. He was a primordial horror awakened from myth, an adversary no will could withstand!
“N-No… This is impossible… This is absolutely impossible!” Sheldon muttered, eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
Garth’s gaze, too, bled red. After all, among the dusted Melded Beastkin warriors were many of his favored lieutenants.
He roared, sanity gone, the sound shaking banners from their poles, “All elders from Melded Beastkin Sacred Sect, charge! Kill him! I don’t care what it takes! I want him dead!”
Sheldon’s eyes flared crimson. “Demon Sect elders, heed my order! Form the Ten-Thousand-Soul Godkiller Array, fight beside our Melded Beastkin comrades, and destroy that monster! Anyone who backs away will be punished according to our sect’s law!”
They knew retreat was no longer an option.
Should Jared alone drive them off, both the Demon Sect and Melded Beastkin Sacred Sect would become laughingstocks, unworthy of survival on Level Ten.
Only by piling up their own dead—testing whatever limit Jared might possess—did they believe there could be even the faintest chance of survival.
The command cracked through the air like a whip. Fear clutched every heart, yet the weight of sect law and their sect leader’s reputation shoved them skyward.
A dozen Demon Sect elders, Heavenly Immortal Realm cultivators ranging from Levels Five to Six, snapped into a ring where a cacophony of spectral voices wailed.
Across the field, nearly ten elders of the Melded Beastkin Sacred Sect answered with guttural roars. Fur, scale, and bone ripped through their robes as half-released bodies took shape—flame-crowned bears, iron-plated rhinos, bone-winged bats—before they leapt to join the sky-born circle.
Almost thirty Heavenly Immortal Realm heavyweights now moved as one, their braided auras forging a battle array fierce enough to shake those in the Heavenly Immortal Realm Advanced Phase.
For Sheldon and Garth, this was every card left in their deck, short of stepping in themselves. They refused to believe Jared could brush it aside a second time.
Despite being confronted with that storm of killing intent, Jared’s eyes flickered with something so faint it looked like boredom.
“Oh, how you pathetic souls overestimate yourselves,” he murmured as he raised Dragonslayer Sword once again.
This time, however, he did not release any sword energy. Instead, he extended the blade as though offering a polite greeting.
Buzz!
A low, resonant hum rolled out. At the tip, a single mote of swirling gray ignited, then began to bloom. It was no light at all, but a miniature vortex of raw chaos spinning fast enough to swallow thought.
The moment it appeared, the whole battlefield seemed to cave inward. Light warped, sound died, and even time drifted like thick syrup. The combined strike of nearly thirty elders hurtled toward that hungry whirl.
Soul-Devouring Demon Dragons, bone-gnawing winds, flaming claws, iron hooves—every craft they hurled dissolved within a hundred yards, quiet as pebbles vanishing into dark water. Nothing remained but motes of raw energy, each meekly drawn into the maelstrom without a ripple.
Jared’s wrist gave the tiniest, almost casual flick.
Rip!
A hair-fine thread of chaos lashed out from the vortex, tearing through space so swiftly it seemed never to have existed.
The next second, wet, muffled cracks popped in rapid succession.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The sounds were like blades slicing rotted hide, all but simultaneous.
High above, every elder, Demon Sect or Melded Beastkin alike, froze mid-attack. Expression drained from their faces; the light behind their eyes winked out.
Pinpoint holes yawned in brow, throat, and heart, front to back. No blood flowed, only wisps of chaotic mist that gnawed at flesh and soul.
They dangled there, puppets on an unseen string, once-mighty elders reduced to hollow dolls.
Before a scream could even form, bodies rained from the sky like broken puppets dropping into boiling water.
Long before they hit the ground, Jared’s chaotic sword energy had already vacuumed the life and soul from every elder, leaving only cold, vacant shells.
Their storage pouches and rings, however, seemed to wake, tore free, and streaked like fireflies into the wide sleeve of Jared’s robe before winking from sight.
For a third time, the battlefield drowned in funereal silence. Even Sheldon and Garth stood slack-jawed, eyes glassy, as though an unseen hand had yanked their spirits from their hulking bodies.
Nearly thirty Heavenly Immortal Realm elders, several of them at Level Six, had formed a battle array, yet in the blink of an eye, they were simply gone.
They were crushed like ants beneath a casual heel, erased so quickly they had not even seen how the strike was delivered.
This was no gap in strength. It was obliteration across dimensions, a gulf at the very tier of life itself.
