Dustin dared not argue. “Yes, Elder Quill. I will relay the order immediately.”
In the wavering torchlight, Elder Quill’s lips curled into a crescent of cruelty. Jared Chance… I wonder how many heartbeats you can last inside the Netherworld Triple-Slaughter Array… After you fall, even your wandering soul will feed my cultivation…
“Hehehe…” His icy laughter slid along the stone walls like a serpent tasting air. Three days slipped by in the blink of an hourglass.
Dawn of the third morning found Jared and the Vermilion Demon Lord standing once more outside Sandrock City’s eastern gate, every precaution taken. Jared now wore a teal combat suit cut for freedom of movement, several storage pouches, and a miniature array of plates dangling at his belt.
Though his surface aura still mimicked a Heavenly Immortal Realm Level One cultivator, chaotic celestial energy flowed steadily inside him, ready to explode at a flicker of intent. Vermilion, clad in a dark-crimson robe etched with occult sigils, kept his demonic essence banked low, yet his hawk-bright stare promised violence. In his breast pocket rested vials of life-igniting elixirs, final measures for the worst.
Jared had stowed the small fire unicorn inside a storage ring; its blazing majesty would draw too many eyes. He glanced eastward, toward the direction of Blackwind Gorge. “Time to move.”
The two rose into the sky, streaking away as twin trails of light toward Darkwind Gorge three hundred leagues distant. Level eleven’s fabric proved denser, the very air pushing back against flight. Jared estimated that his top speed here had dropped by roughly forty percent compared with the previous level. Which meant that, should disaster strike, retreat would be far harder.
Half an hour later, a stretch of obsidian canyonland surfaced on the horizon. Sheer black cliffs walled the chasm on both sides, and perpetual cyclones of sable wind whipped sand and stone through the gorge, reducing sight to a ghostly blur. They called this place Blackwind Gorge. Every gust roaring through its fissures carried coal-black grit, a savage breath that had scoured the canyon walls for ages until even daylight seemed bruised.
Guided by the markings Jared had studied on the device, he and Vermilion touched down at the mouth of the gorge. More than twenty cultivators had gathered there already. Each one pulsed with power in the middle tiers of the Heavenly Immortal Realm, their auras bristling like unsheathed steel.
Dustin, smiling broadly, pushed through the wary crowd and hurried toward them, the tails of his cobalt robe snapping in the restless wind.
“You two are right on time…” Dustin’s voice carried an easy warmth, but his eyes kept a merchant’s tally of every blade and badge on their persons. “Allow me to introduce Conrad Hawke. He stands at the very peak of Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Six and will lead today’s expedition. And this distinguished friend beside him…”
Name after name spilled from Dustin’s lips until each principal figure had been presented like pieces on a freshly set game board. Jared, expression placid, let his gaze drift across the assembly. Most were veteran rogues or minor-sect fighters, seasoned, distrustful, and careful to leave a sword’s length of space between alliances.
Conrad looked every inch his reputation: broad-shouldered, bare-armed, a coffin-wide Ghoulblade strapped over his back. His stare raked Jared with open disdain. A Heavenly Immortal Realm Level One? Not worth a full breath, that glint seemed to say.
“We’re moving!” Conrad barked.
Without waiting for agreement, he tramped into the gorge, boots cracking loose shale. The rest of the party fell in behind, the clink of talismans and the hush of caution merging with the mournful wind. No sooner had they crossed the threshold than Darkwind Gorge exhaled its signature storm—black, knife-edged currents that slapped their protective light with a hiss of sand. Worse, the wind gnawed at the mind. Jared felt his spiritual sense cramp until it could barely stretch a hundred paces.
“Stay close! This gale muddles perception; lose the line, and you’re done,” Dustin warned from the safer middle ranks, voice low but firm.
They threaded deeper through a maze of gullies. Conrad moved as though following an invisible map, pausing to study faint sigils etched into the basalt before choosing each turn. Perfect ground for an ambush… Jared thought, noting the overhangs that could rain stone and the blind corners begging for traps. A single misstep here would cage us like crabs in a pot!
After the time it took an incense stick to burn, the group halted before a low opening half-hidden by slabs of obsidian rock.
“This is it,” Conrad announced, pointing with two fingers still stained by old blood. “Intelligence says an ancient barrier seals the lair. We break it together—brace yourselves.”
At once, treasure lights flared; swords, flags, and jade seals rising like a field of tiny suns while their owners funneled celestial energy into them. Conrad roared, swung the Ghoulblade, and unleashed a crescent of blood-red light that hammered the doorway.
Boom!
Stone exploded, shards whirling past protective shells in lethal streaks. Behind the rubble shimmered a translucent veil, rippling with pale runes—ancient, stubborn, and still intact. The others attacked in waves: spears of frost, arcs of flame, sonic talons. Each strike dented the shield and sent rings of silver light coursing across its face.
Jared added only a few understated sword arcs, their glow deliberately dim. Better to watch for now, he decided, than to show the cards the wind had not yet read. He caught a flicker of motion at the edge of his vision and realized Dustin had joined the assault. Yet, like Jared, Dustin withheld a portion of his true power, releasing just enough force to look committed while secretly gauging the field.
Half a quarter-hour later, the barrier cracked with a rubbery pop. Shards of red light dissolved into smoke, and a yawning, soot-black tunnel mouth appeared where polished stone had stood only seconds earlier.
“Move!” Conrad barked, his great blade already flashing ahead of him as he dove into the darkness.
The rest of the party poured in after him, a staggered river of anxious silhouettes that vanished one by one beyond the lip of the opening. Inside, the passage sloped downward in lazy coils. Walls wide as city streets bulged with age-polished rock, their faces etched with fading murals: flames, magma rivers, and creatures half-serpent, half-bird. Each panel pulsed with old, furnace-hot breath that mocked the valley’s usual chill.
A voice drifted from the rear. “Whoever owned this lair must have practiced some ancient fire technique.” The words trembled between awe and greed.
Hearing this, Jared’s skin prickled. Those flames… That molten abyss… Dustin spoke of a Blaze Region, of an infernal Lava Abyss… Could this place be linked? The timing feels too neat, too convenient…
After another quarter-hour, the corridor abruptly widened into a vast subterranean chamber, the ceiling lost in shadow. At its heart stood a crimson dais nearly twenty feet tall. Upon it rested a jade casket that shimmered with liquid light, exhaling waves of tempting spiritual energy. Around the dais lay brittle skeletons and shattered relics, bleached by centuries.
“Treasure!” a wide-eyed cultivator cried and sprang forward, hunger smothering caution.
“Hold it!” Conrad roared, sweeping his blade sideways. “There’s a trap!”
Unfortunately, his warning came a heartbeat too late. The instant the first two zealots crossed within thirty yards of the dais, blood-red sigils spidered across the floor, glowing like fresh scars.
Boom! A crimson curtain, wide as a parade ground, erupted, swallowing both men. Their screams rose, shrank to gurgles, then stopped as flesh, bone, and even soul evaporated into nothing but oily mist.
