Jared lay on the ground as life seeped from him in slow, deliberate threads. Soul Devourer’s triumphant face loomed closer, the demon‘s grin carved of jagged stone and sharpened hunger.
From the distance came the frenzied cheers of Sheldon Soulsby and the other fiends, savage roars that beat against Jared’s skull like war drums, until the cold spread from his chest to his heart.
Is this how it ends… Dying under an empty sky, forgotten in the dirt? A roar of unwillingness and resentment sparked behind his ribs, burning hotter than any flame he had ever summoned. Despair followed, a black tide threatening to drown that spark before it could breathe.
Anger surged next—red, blinding, alive, slamming against bone like a caged beast. All those emotions tangled, combusting within him like poison set ablaze, screaming for release.
Do I still have a trump card?
The Dragonslayer Sword—it lay somewhere in the dust, as battered as its master. The Chaotic Fire Lotus—its embers flickered weakly, smothered by Soul Devourer’s overwhelming aura.
Against a foe whose strength had all but returned to its terrible peak, those relics seemed like children’s toys.
No! There is still one more weapon!
Buried deep, beneath marrow, beneath memory, slumbered his Golden Dragon Bloodline that coiled around his chaotic essence—patient, ancient, waiting for its master’s desperate call.
It was the gift his father had placed in his veins, sovereign power drawn from dragons older than mountains and storms.
That blood had saved him on Level Seven, then again on Level Nine, unrivaled miracles that bent the rules of worlds. Yet since reaching the lofty Level Ten, the dragon within had slept, lulled by higher cultivation and tempted into silence by the allure of the Chaotic Origin Flame.
Now, boxed in by death, stripped of flame and strength, Jared’s unyielding spirit clawed at that buried core.
The dragon blood felt his summons. It stirred, then burst awake with a thunderous roar that rattled the chambers of his heart.
A roar burst from the depths of Jared’s soul, a savage, ancient cry that seemed to tear through every age at once. It did not pass his lips; instead, the sound detonated across the laws of creation themselves, shaking the very spirit of every living thing.
Then, the world cracked open.
A thunder like colliding worlds rolled outward, and from Jared’s heart surged a storm of blood-force so vast it felt capable of propping up heaven and flattening eternity.
That flood carried the raw scent of chaos, laced with a breath of supreme dragon’s power. In an instant, it struck the Soul Chains coiled around him. The chains, unscathed even by primal true-flame, melted like frost beneath noon sun, snapping, shattering, vanishing into gray ash.
The same torrent washed over his ruined flesh. Wounds knitted, bones fused, and organs bloomed anew. Rotten muscle sloughed away, replaced by skin so smooth it gleamed like jade, faint images of dragon-scales sliding beneath its surface.
Deep inside, the unyielding wall of the Human Immortal Realm Level Nine began to splinter. A hairline crack whispered through dantian, meridians, even soul.
Another crack followed. And another. Fractures webbed everywhere, thin as spider silk yet unstoppable.
Outside, the skies changed. Swirling demon clouds that had smothered the Soul Devourer’s Citadel were swept aside by an unseen hand.
In their place blossomed rainbow celestial clouds. Within those clouds, dragon shadows wove, and sacred tones echoed while pure spiritual energy, summoned from every quarter, spiraled toward Jared, a whirlpool vast enough to drink the sky.
He was pushing into the Heavenly Immortal Realm. And he was doing it in a death trap, forcing a breakthrough by igniting his blood.
“What?” The confident smirk on Soul Devourer’s face froze instantly, replaced by pure shock and disbelief.
He felt it—the terrifying bloodline pressure suddenly erupting from Jared, a force so overwhelming it made his very soul shiver.
The heavens themselves seemed to respond: strange cosmic phenomena, surging spiritual tides. This was unmistakably a breakthrough into the Heavenly Immortal Realm, but not just any breakthrough. It was the rare, extraordinary kind, fueled by a foundation so solid that the heavens themselves seemed to celebrate.
Impossible… This kid… He was spent, on the brink of collapse. How could he possibly break through now?
And that bloodline… It’s terrifying!
Even Soul Devourer, who had devoured countless powerful beings over his long life, felt an unfamiliar, instinctive hesitation. A flicker of deep, primal caution.
“Stop him! He must not break through!” The demon snapped to action.
All mockery and restraint vanished. He formed hand seals, releasing every ounce of demonic energy and soul power he possessed. One of his deadliest techniques surged forward.
“Soul-Devouring Heavenfall!”
Above his head, a massive black void took shape, an abyss capable of swallowing the world itself. Its pull radiated death and annihilation, aiming to engulf the immobile Jared at the critical moment of his breakthrough.
But at the very instant the black vortex descended, a roar sounded.
Jared’s eyes snapped open. They were no longer human eyes. Golden vertical pupils burned with chaotic flames—cold, commanding, and disdainful, like a divine dragon soaring through the heavens, looking down on mere ants below.
An aura far stronger than before erupted from him, a terrifying force ten times greater than anything he had shown before.
This was no longer simple Human Immortal power; it carried the authority of heaven and earth, the majesty of a dragon, and the raw essence of chaos: true Heavenly Immortal power.
He had done it. On the edge of life and death, his indomitable will had awakened his bloodline, shattering the wall of the Heavenly Immortal Realm and stepping into a new tier of existence: Heavenly Immortal Level One!
Though only a beginner in this realm, the transformation in his power, his nascent control over cosmic law, and the terrifying combination of his bloodline and Chaotic True Flame made his actual strength skyrocket to an unimaginable height.
Facing the devouring black vortex of Soul-Devouring Heavenfall, Jared didn’t even draw his sword. He simply raised his right hand, forming a fist.
Upon it, the three supreme forces—chaotic celestial energy, Chaotic True Flame, and his bloodline—fused perfectly into one. Then, he struck the sky itself.
“Chaotic Dragonfire Rupture!”
A punch surged outward, chaotic yet golden, filled with countless miniature dragon silhouettes and flaming runes.
Where it passed, space shattered, laws of the heavens recoiled. The so-called world-consuming Soul-Devouring Heavenfall void was nothing but paper before it, exploding and vanishing in a roar of creation and destruction.
The momentum did not stop. The fist hurtled straight at the Soul Devourer, whose face was frozen in shock, utterly unprepared for what struck next.
