“Y-You brat…” Nearly three hundred feet away, Soul Devourer tore himself from the cratered cliff face, the remaining five tattered wings keeping him aloft. Black blood dripped from a severed arm, pattering onto the molten stone below, and his aura was in utter chaos. He glared at Jared, emerald eyes swelling with horror, venom, and a thin, reluctant ribbon of terror.
“You… You actually…” The words rasped across broken fangs, thin and unbelieving. He had attained Top Level High Immortal Realm Level One! He had fused Earthcore Demonic Flame and felt his power skyrocket.
His opponent, on the other hand, stood only at Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Three. By all reason, the duel should have been a slaughter, an instant, effortless execution. Yet, what was the outcome he was met with?
He paid the price of an arm and half a shoulder just to land a single palm strike on his opponent’s chest. Worse, Jared’s eyes still burned, undimmed, invitation shining like cold steel. Everything Soul Devourer knew of cultivation lay in ruins, every ancient maxim ground to dust.
Jared coughed, fresh blood spattering the scorched earth. Slowly, inch by stubborn inch, he pushed upright until his spine stood perfectly straight. He wiped the red smear from his lip; though the gash across his chest gaped and his face blanched, the gleam in his eyes sharpened, laced now with mocking light.
“What’s the matter?” Jared asked, his voice hoarse, yet every syllable carried across the ravine. “Are you shocked? Are you finding this hard to swallow?” A bloody smile tugged at his lips, his eyes full of disdain.
“Did you think reaching the High Immortal Realm makes you invincible? You think cultivation level alone determines everything? Hahaha! Soul Devourer, you’ve lived for tens of thousands of years, what have you done with all that time?”
“You’ve no grasp of how true power is built. All you do is consume, pillage, and destroy. It may seem fierce, but it’s empty at the core—all flash and no substance. My power is chaos, protection, and creation. Its foundation is rock-solid, nothing you, a so-called High Immortal who relies on devouring vengeful souls to get stronger, could ever hope to match.”
With every sentence, Soul Devourer’s face darkened, shame and hatred thickening until even the sulfur-laden air seemed to curdle.
“You managed to fight me to a stalemate today, not because you are powerful,” Jared added as he lifted the tip of his sword until the cold edge pointed straight at Soul Devourer. “It happened only because I have yet to reach my peak… Once I step into the High Immortal Realm, killing you will be as easy as pie…”
Soul Devourer trembled so violently that the black-red demonic flames writhing across his skin lost all rhythm. His wings beat once, then shuddered to a stop. He burned with the urge to charge forward and devour Jared alive, yet the last threads of his sanity and his battered body screamed at him: he could not continue the fight.
This brat’s recovery is monstrously fast, and that bizarre power of his suppressed me at every turn! If the fight goes on, I might truly be defeated, wiping out ten thousand years of cultivation in a single moment… I can’t let that happen!
“Fine… Fine! You sharp-tongued little b*stard!” Soul Devourer ground his teeth so hard it was a wonder they didn’t shatter, forcing the words through the gaps. “I admit it, I’ve underestimated you today, causing you to take advantage of a rare opening.”
His six wings unfolded in a slow, ragged sweep. With every backward beat, he drifted deeper toward the lightless heart of the Chthonic Abyss, hatred bleeding from his eyes like poison. “That said, I won’t forget what you did to me, Jared Chance! The disgrace of this severed arm, the humiliation of this day! I will repay a hundredfold, and even a thousandfold! When I reach level twelve and reclaim my full might, I will drag you, every soul beside you, and everything you hold dear into endless perdition! Forever!”
With that venom spat, Soul Devourer’s six wings snapped. He streaked away as a dim spear of black-crimson light, diving toward the abyss where magma frothed and sulfurous mist swallowed all color. In the space of a heartbeat, he vanished behind the churning glow.
Jared, however, did not chase. Not because he lacked the will, but because he just couldn’t anymore. As it turned out, he was in no better shape. The Soul-Devouring Demonic Flame palm strike on his left chest still ran rampant, forcing him to pour every ounce of his strength into containing and dispelling it. Besides, he knew all too well that a High Immortal Realm cultivator bent solely on escape could not be stopped in his current state.
He exhaled a thick, metallic breath. Shoulders slackened, but his gaze remained locked on the darkness where Soul Devourer had fled.
“Jared!”
The next second, Lindsay burst through the scorched haze. Tears streaked charcoal down her cheeks as she caught his sagging frame. “Are you all right? How badly injured are you?” Her trembling hands fumbled open a crystal vial and pressed Earthfire Pavilion’s finest healing pill to his lips.
Vermilion Demon Lord arrived a breath later. His crimson cloak billowed, eyes widening at the sight of the charred wound in Jared’s chest and the parchment pallor of the young man’s face—a storm of worry, awe, and grudging admiration twisting together.
“Jared, you…” Vermilion shook his head, at a loss for words. “Do you know what you’ve done? A Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Three cultivator standing toe-to-toe with the Top Level High Immortal Realm Level One Soul Devourer… And driving him back… If the word spreads, level eleven, and even level twelve, will erupt in chaos!”
Jared swallowed the pill, closed his eyes, and guided the medicine through his meridians. When he spoke, his voice was thin yet unbreakably steady. “Stop making fun of me, Mr. Vermilion. Without my chaotic celestial energy naturally countering his Soul-Devouring Technique, without the Golden Dragon Bloodline’s regenerative power, without the Earthfire True Flame cleansing the demonic flames… I would have fallen long ago…”
“After all, Soul Devourer is a demon whose fearsome reputation has lasted for ten thousand years. He’s not to be underestimated.” Jared’s stare drifted toward the abyssal deep. “He fled to the lowest reaches of the Chthonic Abyss. There must lie a hidden rift, or an ancient teleportation array, leading straight to level twelve.”
