That thread was no tangible weapon; it was a spatial rift. It was clear that before she died, the wraith had mastered Space Law.
Gerald’s pupils tightened to pinpoints, though calm never left his weather-beaten face. His left hand blurred through seals, and his lips shaped an archaic syllable lost to living tongues.
“Suppress…” The fire lotus erupted, petals of molten fire flaring outward in a roar of alchemical sunrise. Torrents of earth fire surged forth, congealing before him into a crystalline wall three feet thick. Ancient runes of fire coursed across that wall, radiating heat so fierce the very air wavered like a mirage.
The black filament pierced the crystal barrier, hissing and spitting sparks that scraped the teeth. The spatial rift and earth fire wrestled, each devouring the other. The wall thinned by inches, yet the dark line dimmed just as quickly.
When only a fragile veneer of crystal remained, the spatial fissure guttered out like a snuffed wick. All this time, Gerald had not moved a single step.
Across the way, the spectral woman flickered, her form half-dissolved. With a brittle snap, the jade hairpin crumbled to dust against her phantom breast.
“Stand aside, Great Elder Earthfire. Allow me!” Jared’s voice cracked like steel unsheathed. He broke from the protection of the Clearheart Soul-Guarding Array with a single stride. Dragonslayer Sword rang free of its scabbard, its cry part thunder, part dragon roar. No flourish followed, only a thrust as pure and direct as purpose itself.
Along the blade, chaotic celestial energy intertwined with Golden Dragon Bloodline and earth fire, fusing into a mist-gray beam veined with streaks of gold and crimson. The condensed sword energy measured scarcely three feet, yet the sky darkened beneath its crushing aura.
Sensing annihilation, the spectral woman shrieked and vaulted backward, layering pale barriers before her with frantic, flickering seals. The instant Jared loosed his streak of chaotic sword energy, he knew resistance was meaningless.
The pale barrier the female wraith had woven crumpled like damp parchment, and the midnight-bright blade lanced through her forehead, bursting from the back of her skull in a spray of silver ash. Her elegant figure froze, witch-fire eyes guttering to dying coals.
She glanced down at the smoldering fissure across her chest, then lifted her gaze to Jared. A fragile, almost thankful smile—release at last—softened the blur of her face. A breath later, she dissolved into drifting motes of dust.
Jared slid the blade home and stood amid the settling gloom, brows drawn tight. In that final slash, he had felt an uncanny hum. When his chaotic celestial energy brushed the wraith’s core, it did more than destroy. It analyzed, devoured, and assimilated the fractured law sealed inside the ghost.
“Chaotic celestial energy can evolve into myriad laws, or reduce all laws to nothingness…” Jared muttered as clarity struck.
These ancient spirits persisted because their obsessions had merged with the battlefield’s warped ordinances, shaping twisted pseudo-laws. The chaotic celestial energy he wielded, however, was the origin of every law. Here, within these ruins, that power might prove stronger than anywhere else.
“Watch out! There’s more incoming!” Selina shouted, her voice cracking the hush.
Jared’s reverie shattered as the earth began to quake beneath a fresh tide of death. All horizons erupted with specters, their hollow screeches welding into one thunderous gale.
Three presences towered above the swarm: a battle-scarred Warlord Wraith brandishing a shattered axe, a throat-slit Monk Wraith draped in tattered robes, and a hulking Weapon Monster Wraith cobbled from broken steel.
Rage had made them disciplined; the dead now advanced with strategy, not frenzy. The Warlord Wraith marshaled hundreds of lesser ghosts into a serrated phalanx that pressed forward, step by deliberate step. High overhead, the Monk Wraith hovered cross-legged, chanting a sinister scripture; greasy gray light fanned out, armoring the legion in mournful light. Behind them, the Weapon Monster Wraith bellowed, its jagged body disgorging rust-flecked blades in a roaring metallic storm.
“Form the Seven-Star Demon-Subduing Array now!” Winslow barked, a ribbon of blood threading from his lips.
Leopold and Selina leapt to their points with him, forming a living triangle. Azure light flared, birthing seven spinning star-shadows overhead. Chill starlight cascaded down, raising a luminous rampart that stalled the oncoming ghosts. The cost was brutal; crimson trickled from Winslow’s mouth, proof that the formation would not endure long.
Elsewhere, Vermilion Demon Lord and Gerald were snared in brutal duels with the remaining Wraith Kings, far too occupied to assist.
Jared drew a steady breath, resolve crystallizing. His hands wove an ancient sigil, a technique he had comprehended from the legacy of chaotic celestial energy, but had never truly unleashed.
“Chaos Origin… Return to the Void…” he whispered. The words drifted softly, yet the air convulsed, bending toward a silent, yawning abyss that formed around him. The pressure around Jared was no longer blade-sharp, no longer furnace-hot. Instead, a nothingness yawning enough to swallow, to erase, to reduce every living note to silence unfurled from his core.
Space within three hundred feet warped like ripples in glass. Colors bled away, drained to the pallor of morning ash, until all that remained was a swirling smear of gray chaos.
