Jared caught them before they could keep bowing and pulled them up one by one.
“Don’t kneel. Move. There’s someone outside to get you out.” His voice stayed even. His hands, though, shook faintly. Not from exhaustion, but from anger.
He looked at the wounds covering their bodies. He looked at the deadness in their eyes, at frames stripped down to skin and bone.
Something hot kept climbing higher inside him. None of it showed on his face. This wasn’t the time for that.
He turned to Gwendolyn. “Is everyone here?”
Gwendolyn shook favonovel.com head. The color had drained from favonovel.com face. She could still sense one more mine tunnel in the deepest reaches of the mine. The aura of the Ice God Bloodline inside it was so dense it made favonovel.com go still.
“There’s still one mine tunnel left. It’s in the deepest part.”
Jared’s brow tightened. “A mine tunnel in the deepest part? What’s down there?”
“I don’t know,” Gwendolyn said. Her voice came out tight. “But I can feel the aura of the Ice God Bloodline there. It’s very strong.”
Jared looked toward the depths of the mine.
It was pitch-black there. He couldn’t see a thing.
“Let’s go.” Jared led the others to the mine tunnel in the deepest reaches of the mine.
This mine tunnel was larger than the others, and deeper. A massive stone door sealed the entrance. Its surface was carved all over with the Tribunal’s warding sigils, packed so densely they looked like countless eyes, flickering with golden radiance in the dark.
Jared pressed his palm against the stone door.
Chaos-flame poured out of his hand. In front of the chaos-flame, the warding sigils held up no better than paper. One after another, they dimmed, cracked apart, and vanished.
The stone door rumbled open, slow and heavy. Inside the mine tunnel, crystals were piled everywhere. Not ordinary ones. These were high-grade cultivation crystals. Every single piece was the size of a fist.
Clear all the way through. Spiritual power rolled off them in thick waves.
They were heaped inside the mine tunnel like a small mountain. There had to be at least several hundred thousand of them.
The crystals’ glow flooded the entire mine tunnel with light. It was as bright as daytime.
Gwendolyn’s pupils tightened. “These crystals… They’re enough for a True Immortal cultivator to cultivate for hundreds of years. The Tribunal has been mining this place for thousands of years. They hid all the best crystals here, waiting to ship them out.”
Jared said nothing. He walked up to the crystal pile and set his hand on it.
“Take them all.” He opened his Storage Ring and started drawing the crystals inside, one piece at a time.
The chamber inside the Storage Ring was limited. But these crystals were too valuable to leave behind for the Tribunal.
One piece. Two. Ten. A hundred, his hands moved fast. But there were too many crystals, and gathering them still took time.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded from outside.
“Someone’s coming!” Lydia snapped under favonovel.com breath.
Jared turned his head and saw several golden motes appear at the mouth of the mine tunnel.
That was the holy radiance of celestial cultivators. It was closing in fast. More and more golden motes came into view. They grew brighter by the second. There were at least a dozen.
“It’s the Tribunal! They found us!” Colden gripped favonovel.com bone knife and planted herself at the entrance of the mine tunnel.
Jared glanced at the pile of crystals. More than half of it was still sitting there. “You go first. I’ll stay behind.”
“But…” Gwendolyn started to say something.
“Go!” Jared’s voice left no room to argue.
Gwendolyn ground favonovel.com teeth, then led the rescued cultivators out through the other side of the mine tunnel.
Lydia, Colden, and Rowan followed behind them, covering those weakened people as they moved. They moved fast, but every step stayed light. No one dared make a sound.
That left Jared alone in the mine tunnel. He kept collecting crystals.
One piece. Two. Ten. A hundred…
The footsteps outside kept closing in.
“Here!”
“Quick! Notify the commander!”
“Don’t let favonovel.com get away!”
More than a dozen celestial cultivators rushed into the mine tunnel, and their golden holy radiance flooded the dark passage until it was bright as day
The instant they saw Jared, their faces changed.
“Jared! It’s Jared!” One of them turned and ran, but more of them charged straight at him.
Golden blade-flares, light blades, and thunder-spears poured down on Jared like a storm.
Jared didn’t move. His hand was still sweeping up crystals. He didn’t have a free hand to spare. Then, right at that moment, something flashed through his mind.
There was still one little guy left in Jared’s Storage Ring. He sent his spirit sense into the Storage Ring and roused a life that had been sleeping for a very long time.
The fire unicorn!
A burst of crimson light shot out of the Storage Ring, hit the ground, and turned into a small beast. It wasn’t large, only about the size of a calf. Its whole body was covered in crimson scales. Every scale was as big as a palm with edges sharp as blades and under the glow of the crystals, they threw back a sheen like living fire.
Golden flame ran through the gaps between its scales, the way molten fire streamed through cracks in rock.
Two curved horns rose from its head, and fierce flames burned on them, shifting nonstop from deep crimson to gold-white. Its eyes were gold, and something like molten fire seemed to move inside its pupils. Everytime it blinked, fire sparks flew out.
The fire unicorn had been asleep in Jared’s Storage Ring for a long time. Now, at last, it had been let out.
It stretched and let out a long yawn. Its body crackled as it extended, as if its bones were rearranging themselves. Its tail swished once, and the flame at the tip drew a burning arc through the air. Then it looked around.
The moment it saw the celestial cultivators, its eyes lit up.
Roar!
The fire unicorn released a roar that slammed through the mine cave. It was like a volcano erupting, like a heavenbolt exploding overhead.
The sound wave turned into a solid blast of flame and swept straight at the celestial cultivators. Where the shockwave passed, the air ignited, the ground charred black, and the rock melted.
The celestial cultivators didn’t even have time to react before the flaming shockwave hit them.
“Argh!” Screams broke out one after another.
Some of them were burned straight to ash before they could even get a scream out. Others hit the ground rolling, their bodies covered in fire.
The flames burned through their armor and charred their flesh. The whole mine tunnel filled with the foul stench of burned meat.
Some turned and ran on the spot, but the fire unicorn was much faster than they were.
It streaked through the mine tunnel. It moved so fast the eye couldn’t follow it at all. All anyone could catch was a flash of crimson light flickering through the tunnel. Everywhere it passed, fire ran wild.
The rock walls of the mine tunnel were burned red-hot and started to melt, and molten fire streamed down the sides. The air itself caught fire, and even breathing turned hard. The ground was scorched into blackened trenches, and flames still burned inside them.
In front of the fire unicorn, those celestial cultivators were no more than ants. In less than 3 breaths, all dozen-plus celestial cultivators were wiped out.
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