Jared chose the deepest niche in the gorge, a natural stone chamber hiding behind a slit no wider than his shoulders. Veins of pale mineral curled along the walls, muffling spiritual probes like purpose-made seals.
“Senior, stand guard here. No one interrupts me…”
He pitched the request to the towering Vermilion Demon Lord who stalked in after him. He would not let word of the Pentacarna Tower slip; greed moved faster than gossip. A relic that bent time itself—any cultivator would covet that more than blood or treasure. Time was the only coin none of them could mint.
Crimson pupils blazed as the Demon Lord nodded once, heavy as a verdict. “Relax… With me here, not even a fly will slip inside. Heal in peace…”
Jared wasted no more words; he turned and disappeared into the cave’s throat. Once the passage pinched into darkness, he brushed simple wards across the stone, weaving silence and shielding into the air. He sat cross-legged, drew one deep breath, and let a muted flash bloom in his palm: the antique Pentacarna Tower.
A single thought and the tower drank him in; the chamber vanished, replaced by the vast interior worlds of the artifact. Three months inside the tower skimmed by while the outside would see only one day. That crooked ratio was his lone trump card, the promise that a single month of seclusion could grow sharp enough to cut down Morven and Malcolm alike. A single month—that was all he planned to give them. In that span, those two would still be crawling, nowhere near whole.
Inside the tower, space stretched pale and endless, veiled in a slow swirl of chaotic aura that nipped at his skin like icy smoke. Jared stepped to the silent center, dumping Aurelian’s cache of spirit stones, pills, and battle spoils that still pulsed with captured power. Rather than feed immediately, he pressed his palms together and looked inward, letting the outside hush.
Within his dantian, the Origin Star—fused from chaos, the five-elements, earth-fire, and golden dragon force—hung dull and cracked, its sluggish spin threatening to grind to a halt. Elsewhere the meridians looked like a riverbed baked and split by drought; backlash from the Divine Bow still tore at those fissures while chaotic turbulence gnawed the wound in his chest.
Time’s knife was at his throat; hesitation would finish him. A harsh glint cut through his eyes, sharp enough to nick the shadows. Hand seals snapped into place; he drove the Chaos Immortal Scripture together with Gerald’s brutal Nirvana Essence-Forging Art, abandoning every gentle rhythm he had practiced.
A concussive boom rattled the chamber. The piled stones bled dry in an instant, collapsing into cold, useless powder that drifted around his boots. Elixirs dissolved on his tongue, turning into a roaring flood that slammed into every corridor of flesh. A muffled groan leaked out; heat flashed across his face, and thin cracks burst open along his skin, weeping red.
He seized the berserk tide, ramming it through clogged meridians like a mad smith hammering shattered bridges back together and wider. Pain fired through him. Worse than any slash he had taken in the last battle, it swallowed thought, breath, memory. The agony seemed to begin inside his spirit and peel outward. Jared clenched his teeth until they sang, veins bulging across his brow while sweat mixed with blood and soaked the ruined robe.
Chaotic celestial energy and Earthfire True Essence, driven by the Nirvana art, tore him down and rebuilt him in the same breath—a savage self-surgery on his very foundation. At the same time, he dove his awareness into the wounded Origin Star. Inside, four colors tangled and clashed—merge, reject, then merge again—in a stormy loop.
Gerald’s fading strength acted like glue, yet true union would normally need the patience of dripping water. Patience was a luxury; he summoned the ancient dragon soul latent in his Golden Dragon Bloodline, wielding it as a hammer while chaotic aura became the anvil, battering the four forces toward obedience.
The tower knew no sun, no moon, only the churn of pain and the thin wire of resolve. Jared’s aura flickered—at times a candle about to die, at times a volcano splitting its mountain. Before the scream could escape, the agony folded into heat. Veins lit up in four braided colors—crimson, emerald, indigo, gold—roaming under the flesh like live wires. Each time the marrow shattered, it reformed harder, until the reborn bones carried a misty sheen, half metal, half stone.
***
Somewhere beyond the sealed chamber, fewer than two weeks had slipped by. Inside this cocoon of torment, moments stretched and snapped like wet leather, leaving him unsure if the sun still rose at all.
Deep within Malevolent Path Hall, Malcolm kept his eyes fixed on the Reincarnation Altar. The blood pool lapped against his bare ribs, thick as syrup, warm as fresh slaughter. Across the basin Morven floated, cross-legged, eyes closed, face an idol carved from hate. Every rise of the crimson tide carried ghostly whispers, the packed marrow of countless dead pressing against Malcolm’s eardrums.
Overhead the phantom Door of Reincarnation hung like a half-seen moon. Pale halos spilled from its threshold, seeping into wounded flesh, knitting cells faster than any elixir. Pain still burned around the hole that Jared’s Divine Bow had punched through his sternum. Yet under the drifting light and the pool’s foul nourishment, that stubborn, law-breaking shard was shrinking, grain by grain. Breath still rattled, but each exhale carried a thread more strength than the last.
Across the way, Morven’s severed limb budded pale tissue, tendons writhing like blind worms until a newborn hand unfurled. Ninefold Nether Demonic Aura boiled around him, drawing in the pool’s resentful spirits the way a kiln gulps air. Malcolm felt the currents twist, sensed Morven’s damaged foundations knitting back together. Their eyes met for a breath. Nothing passed between them but mirrored hunger and venom.
“Jared… Jared Chance… The Divine Bow…” Morven hissed, each word squeezed through clenched teeth. “When I am whole again, I will tear out his soul, claim that bow, and lay it before the Supreme Master!”
Fierce gratitude swelled in Malcolm’s chest, hotter than the blood around his waist. “Thank you, Supreme Master,” he murmured to the Door. “I will crush the rebels, feed their souls to the eternal cycle.”
As if roused by his fervor, the phantom doorway rippled. In its depth a gray vortex turned, vast, ice-indifferent. A voice rolled out, neither loud nor soft, simply incontrovertible: “Loyalty shall be rewarded.”
Three pillars of ash-white light erupted through the gate and speared down onto the altar. When the glare drained away, three figures stood where the radiance had struck. They were mannequins shaped like men, skin chalk-pale, eyes the flat gray of old ash, expressions carved clean of emotion. Yet the force spilling from them slammed against Malcolm’s senses: High Immortal Realm, Level Two. Each pulse mirrored the next, threads of identical reincarnation aura weaving the trio into a silent formation.
“Reincarnation Guardians,” the unseen lord pronounced. “They are yours to command… Remove every obstacle.”
The words carried no warmth, only the flat inevitability of gravity. Joy crashed through Malcolm. He heaved himself from the pool, wounds screaming, and collapsed prostrate on the stone. “Thank you, Master!” His voice shook so badly the words fractured. “I pledge my life, rebellion will burn, and your light will wash across all twelve heavens.”
Morven’s gaze clung to the new guardians, awe and greed battling in his newly grown fingers as he bent to the floor beside Malcolm.
The old rumor clung to Jared’s memory like burrs; three High Immortal Realm Level Two puppets had surfaced in Malevolent Path Hall. If the puppets marched beside the hall’s recovering masters and whatever weapons still lay hidden, they could scythe through the alliance’s ragged survivors and weld the twelve heavens under one banner.
