The instant his words landed, the valley’s air clamped tight, as if the land itself held its breath. The shout split the smoky air. “No!”
Jared’s shoulders stiffened before he even turned; that single syllable carried the weight of everyone’s fear, and it landed squarely between his ribs. A second voice, harsher, followed a heartbeat later: “Absolutely not!”
Jared drew a slow breath, willing his pulse to stay even. He pivoted, taking in Aurelian, Blaine, and Oswald—usually an argumentative trio, now united, mouths still open from their shared protest. Even the Vermilion Demon Lord’s crimson brow furrowed, the faint tremor in his aura betraying unease.
Aurelian’s voice cracked like splintering glass. “Jared, are you out of your mind?!” He stepped forward until the torchlight rimmed his anxious stare. “The Door of Reincarnation is a maze we still don’t grasp, and the Lord who rules it stands beyond guessing. Malcolm and Morven were only pawns. Even with your newfound strength, charging into his house is suicide.”
Blaine folded his arms, gravel in his voice. “Kid, I know saving the Flaxseed clan matters, but time isn’t chasing us. We gather facts first, pry open the Door’s secrets, then strike.”
Oswald’s bass rumble followed. “At least let us stabilize level twelve, summon every ally, and go together.”
The Vermilion Demon Lord hovered a pace above the ground before speaking. “Jared, the Lord of Reincarnation is no saint. Mr. Morse once warned he could be an echo of something ancient, wielding fragments of reincarnation itself… Your chaotic force is impressive, but against a will like that, we cannot predict victory.”
Amid the volley of concerns, Jared’s breath evened, eyes steady. He shook his head once, the gesture soft but immovable. “I feel the depth of your concern, and I honor it. But with every minute the Flaxseed spirits linger inside that Door, they drift closer to being swallowed forever. I promised Mr. Flaxseed I’d bring them home, and I intend to keep that promise.”
Jared’s gaze slid to the phantom Door that shimmered above Reincarnation Peak, its edges flickering like a half-remembered dream. “The Chaos Source Seed inside me seems to blunt reincarnation energy. I can leverage that. The Malevolent Path Hall has just fallen. The Lord may still be reeling, unaware. That makes this the best window we’ll ever get.”
Aurelian tried again, hope and dread tangling on his tongue. “But…”
Jared lifted a hand, stopping the protest mid-birth. A calm smile eased across his face. “Trust me. I will pull back if the tide turns against me. Besides…” He paused. The Chaos Vortex Mark in his palm glimmered, a miniature storm hungry for answers. “I also want to know which is stronger: chaos or true reincarnation.”
Before another word could chase him, Jared’s body dissolved into a dim ribbon of gray light. The stream arrowed toward the altar at Reincarnation Peak, leaving the platform eerily vacant.
“Jared!” The Vermilion Demon Lord’s shout thundered across the clouds as he lunged after the fading light.
A voice drifted back, thin but firm. “Senior, stay where you are! This road is mine alone. Help Aurelian and the others secure the aftermath. If I don’t return in three days…”
The sentence crumbled into silence, its unfinished edge sharper than any warning. Hovering mid-air, the Demon Lord’s scarlet pupils flickered with rebellion, then dimmed. He clenched his fists and remained. He knew too well that once Jared fixed on a path, no one could lever him off it. Besides, at his current strength, he would only slow Jared down.
Aurelian and the others watched the gray streak shrink against the sky, their faces carved from the same grim stone. They all felt the same raw truth: he might never walk back through that cloud line.
The distant courtyard trembled with Aurelian’s shout. “Pass the order!” The elder growled, breath scraping the cold air. “Form every line of power, raise a grand array at the hall’s gate. In three days, if Jared fails to return, we break the Door of Reincarnation by force!”
A single thunderclap of agreement answered, “Yes!” The sound rolled through corridors until it frayed into whispers around Jared’s ears. Silence pooled in the wake, thick and expectant.
***
At the Malevolent Path Hall, on the raised altar, the phantom Door of Reincarnation towered a hundred yards high, still as an ancient verdict. Inside its frame, a pale whirlpool turned with maddening patience, exhaling an age-old chill that pricked Jared’s skin. The stone face writhed with carvings: processions of pleading beasts, wheels of distant constellations, and symbols that refused any mortal logic.
Jared touched down on the rim of the altar, knees bending to soften the impact. He straightened, letting his gaze travel the height of the doorway the way one might measure a storm cloud before it breaks. No ripple of doubt surfaced on his face. Power seeped from the whirl, a reincarnation current whose rhythm jarred against the laws of this realm, yet locked itself there like a nail driven wrong but unmovable.
“The spirits of the Flaxseed clan,” he murmured, the words scarcely reaching the air. Resolve flared behind his sternum, clean and bright as forged steel. He let the hesitation die, set one foot ahead, and strode toward the impossible gate.
The moment he crossed the span of thirty feet, the air convulsed. A low hum, deep enough to tremble bone, unfurled from every carving. Runes ignited in unison, washing the altar in a flood of gray-white fire. The vortex whipped into frenzy; a brutal pull clamped onto him while a thousand overlapping screams, prayers, and sobs gushed from the doorway. Faces without bodies flickered across the light, shreds of creatures long devoured, reaching for him with memory rather than flesh.
Jared answered with a curt breath, more dismissal than sound. Deep inside, the Chaos Star revolved; a misty boundary unfurled, hemming him in a muted sphere that denied every clawing voice and tug. He advanced, and the instant his fingertips grazed the pale storm, the world flipped, pitching vision and gravity into a single churning wheel.
Time shredded; distances folded like wet paper. Jared felt himself hurled through an endless funnel, streaks of light and snatches of voices whipping past faster than thought. Triumph of breakthroughs, horror of dying breaths, the fall of kingdoms, the birth and death of stars—all tore across his senses in merciless succession. A lesser mind would have snapped already; he felt the edge of that abyss, cold and inviting. Yet the Chaotic Domain held, firm as bedrock, letting the torrent rage outside while he remained a silent observer behind glass.
Time folded in on itself, stretching so thin that Jared no longer trusted the idea of seconds or centuries. Then, without warning, the roaring blur around him snapped shut like a slammed door, and silence punched the breath out of him. Solid ground caught the soles of his boots. He opened his eyes, half-afraid the world might slip away if he blinked.
An entirely unfamiliar landscape waited, raw and silent. Overhead, a sky of perpetual gray-white hovered—neither day nor night, just a dim halo of colorless light. The ground stretched barren, broken by jagged, ash-colored rocks twisted into impossible shapes. Far off, a serpentine river the same mournful gray crept along; beneath its surface, warped faces drifted up and sank again like drowning memories.
The air itself tasted of concentrated reincarnation aura, ten times purer than anything outside. Yet every breath carried a chill finality, an unarguable stillness that scraped along his ribs. Rocks, water, light, even the stagnant wind—everything seemed yoked to a single ruling principle. Reincarnation was not a theory here; it was the gravitational pull that organized every atom.
A quiet realization pooled in his chest: he was inside the Door of Reincarnation, standing in the Reincarnation Realm itself.
Jared slowly turned a full circle, jaw tight, shoulders held just short of a fighting stance. The familiar laws of the outside world felt muted, as though someone had wrapped them in damp cloth. In their place, the realm’s relentless law of reincarnation pressed from every direction. His chaotic force rose to meet the pressure, but its flow hit unseen snags, thickening like syrup.
Ahead, the gray mist bulged, then rolled aside. Three silhouettes surfaced, carved from the same chalky vapor. Each figure was humanoid yet faceless, built entirely of swirling gray, naked of features or clothing. Power bled from them in steady waves, stronger than any Reincarnation Guardian he had faced.
