Ignatius continued with his introductions, gesturing toward the younger pair. “Behind him stand his personal disciples, Leopold Hawke and Selina Moonfield. As for the rest of our guests… All of them fled here from level twelve.”
Fled? The single word echoed in Jared’s mind, cold and metallic. His pupils constricted, a blade-thin glint flashing across his amber eyes.
For cultivators, the road had always been simple to name and cruel to tread. They had to defy fate, risk their lives, and constantly strive toward higher realms of existence. Those stranded in level eleven dreamed of breaching the twelfth. Those already astride that summit whispered of a fabled thirteenth level, then of realms so distant they carried no name at all.
This hunger for ascent was an iron law, older than dynasties, etched into the marrow of every era. Yet today, elites of level twelve had fled, battered and desperate, to seek shelter on the eleventh. The very notion cracked destiny’s spine.
“Father…” Jared began, voice pitched low enough that only Ignatius could hear. Reining in the questions boiling behind his ribs, he offered a bow in formal salute. “Ladies and gentlemen, for what purpose have you crossed the boundary to this humble hall?”
His courtesy landed like a stone in still water; several muffled, frigid snorts rippled through the great hall. The one-armed elder in a storm-green robe jerked up his head, veins blazing scarlet across his eyes.
“What brings us? Young man, are you truly ignorant, or are you putting on an act?” Elio Frostgate scolded.
“Elio Frostgate, mind your words!” Winslow cut in, the rebuke snapping through the hush like a bowstring. He turned to Jared, letting the edge of his tone soften. “It seems you have been secluded in cultivation, unaware of the chaos outside. I will be brief…”
Drawing a breath that trembled in his chest, he delivered each word like a funeral bell. “Level Twelve is drowning in calamity… Three months ago, Malevolent Path Hall went out in full force. Under Malcolm, it unveiled a nightmare, an abomination called the Soul-Devouring Puppet. Its power rivals Top Level High Immortal Realm Level One, and it doesn’t fear pain or death… With thirty thousand Soul Hunters under its command, they started from the eastern region of level twelve and launched a hunt that would sweep across the entire realm.”
Hearing this, Jared frowned. “A hunt?” he echoed, the single word heavy as an anvil.
“To hunt the living and extract their divine souls,” Winslow replied, the words tasting of rusted iron. “Any cultivator above Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Eight is prey… In just three months, the Three Great Celestial Sects in the east have vanished. Kneel or resist, it mattered not; each soul was ripped out, every corpse hammered into puppets for the hunters… Elio fled Frostgale Valley; two of its three elders died, while the rest scattered to the winds. Lyla Harpwell is from Heavensong Pavilion. Her master shattered her primordial celestial weapon to shield her disciples, perishing with three Soul Hunters. Those three armored men are the Mountguard Sect‘s remaining elites. When their mountain gate was breached, their sect protected three hundred children and fought their way out. Now, only the three of them remain.”
A hush settled over the audience chamber, thick and suffocating. Only the stifled sobs of a few young survivors and the soft drip of Lyla’s blood striking marble dared disturb the silence. Weight gathered in Jared’s chest until each heartbeat felt like a stone sliding down a well.
Memory flared. Back in the Chthonic Abyss, Soul Devourer had said, “When I reach level twelve and reclaim my strength…” Back then, the chill along Jared’s spine had seemed irrational. Now it felt like prophecy fulfilled. So it had never been a mere illusion…
“Malevolent Path Hall… Soul-Devouring Puppet…” Jared muttered, tasting the names like poison. His gaze snapped to Winslow. “Do you know where that puppet came from?”
Winslow shook his head. “All I know is that its face is very similar to the notorious Soul Devourer of ten millennia ago, yet its techniques now drip with suffocating reincarnation aura. Some believe Malcolm butchered Soul Devourer and reshaped him into the puppet.”
Jared traded a weighted look with Vermilion Demon Lord at his side; each read the same heaviness in the other’s eyes. The nightmare they had feared was no longer a rumor; it was here.
“Why has no grand coalition risen to resist him?” Jared asked, each word a spark against dry tinder. “Level twelve is supposed to be thronged with legends, High Immortals by the hundreds. Are we truly going to let Malevolent Path Hall run wild without a single united sword raised against it?”
“Resist?” Elio gave a broken laugh that scraped across the air like metal on stone. He lifted the remains of his right arm and pointed at the empty socket where his left shoulder had once been. “Do you know what carved this void, young man? A casual brush of reincarnation aura from the Soul-Devouring Puppet. I stand at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Eight, yet before that thing, I failed in less than three moves!”
His throat grated, every syllable soaked in equal parts terror and despair. “In the past three months, seven High Immortals had gathered to hunt it down. But three died on the spot, two were captured, their divine souls torn out and refined. One fled, grievously maimed, never to be seen again. Only Skycrest Sword Immortal escaped—alive, yes, but his cultivation foundation is shattered, and likely, he will never be able to fight again.”
A collective gasp sliced through the hall, the sound sharp as winter air sucked between clenched teeth. Even Gerald, half-dozing moments before, forced his rheumy eyes open. Terror flashed there like sparks in failing embers. Seven High Immortals were routed like children? What, then, was the true magnitude of the Soul-Devouring Puppet’s power?
Just then, a frigid voice cut the hush. “So you guys fled?”
Vermilion Demon Lord had opened his scarlet eyes at some unseen moment. Those burning pupils swept across the chamber, disdain curving his lips. “You couldn’t win, so you scurried to level eleven to cling on to life. Have all the cultivators of level twelve become spineless creatures?”
Elio lurched forward, anger flaring, then collapsed into a single, ragged sigh. Words died before they formed. Vermilion Demon Lord’s cruelty was also the truth, and truth left no refuge.
After a long silence, Winslow stroked his white beard and spoke, each word measured. “Mr. Vermilion is not wrong. When I led the Azure Firmament Sword Sect members to retreat, I had asked myself the same thing… How is it that after a million years of cultivation, we end up as defeated, pathetic beings at a stranger’s gate? It sure is sad and laughable. That said, I did not come merely to survive. Level twelve is already a living purgatory, and Malevolent Path Hall will not stop there… Malcolm is harvesting souls by the tens of thousands. When his preparation is complete, the next step will surely be Level eleven, and from there the remaining worlds.”
The old man first looked to Ignatius, then to Jared, resolve gleaming in his eyes. “I have come today to implore that everyone in level eleven make the necessary preparations. If every realm joins forces, then perhaps a single thread of hope will remain.”
The hall drowned again in wordless stillness.
