He slashed out with one sword strike and collided head-on with all six bone blades at the same time.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Six metallic crashes rang out almost at once, shaking the air around them until it quivered.
The impact left Jared’s sword hand numb, and the Dragonslayer Sword nearly flew out of his grasp. But the three-headed skeleton was driven back several steps too.
“Move!” Gwendolyn caught Jared and pulled favonovel.com through the opening the skeleton had just been forced to leave.
The two of them threw everything they had into it and ran wildly toward the depths of the Ancient Battlefield. Behind them, dozens of giant skeletons kept coming without letting up. Every step they took made the ground shudder.
After running for who knew how long, the pursuers behind them finally began to fall farther and farther back.
The skeletons seemed to have territories of their own. Once Jared and Gwendolyn crossed a certain line, the things stopped chasing them.
They stood along that invisible boundary, the ghostly green fire in their eye sockets flickering a few times. Then they slowly turned and went back to the places where they had originally lain asleep.
Jared and Gwendolyn finally stopped. Both of them bent forward, dragging in huge breaths.
Both of them had taken hits.
A bone blade had sliced open Jared’s left arm, and blood ran down his wrist in steady drops.
There was still blood at the corner of Gwendolyn’s mouth. Her face looked even paler than usual.
“You’re hurt…” Jared said.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” Gwendolyn wiped the blood from the corner of favonovel.com mouth and looked into the distance. “We’re almost there.”
Jared followed favonovel.com gaze.
The land ahead had changed. It was no longer one flat stretch of plain. A massive basin opened up in front of them instead.
Steep cliffs ringed the edge of the basin. Those cliffs were packed with dense cracks, like marks gouged out by a giant’s fingers. And at the bottom of the basin…
Jared sucked in a cold breath.
At the bottom of the basin was a sea. A sea made of ghostfire.
Ghostly green flames churned, burned, and roared across the bottom of the basin. They covered the entire place, stretching so far that Jared couldn’t see the end of them.
The flames burned so hot that even from thousands of yards away, Jared could still feel that searing heat washing straight into his face. And at the exact center of the Sea of the Dead, there was a lone isle. It wasn’t large. At most, it stretched a few hundred yards across.
There were no skeletons on the isle. No broken weapons either. There was only a stone dais.
Resting on that stone dais was a pearl the size of a fist. Its color kept changing. One moment it was gold, the next black, then ice-blue, then clear and colorless.
Every time it changed, a visible ring of ripples spread out from the pearl and swept across the entire Sea of the Dead. Where those ripples passed, the ghostfire snuffed out for a brief instant, then flared back to life again.
“What is that?” Jared asked.
Gwendolyn stared at the pearl, and the look in favonovel.com eyes burned like twin flames.
“The root of the Frost Deity Branch. The Heart of the Northern Abyss.” Her voice shook, as if something buried for ten thousand years was finally forcing its way out. “The Frost Deity Branch bloodline came from Aldric. And the core of Aldric’s power is this pearl favonovel.com left behind after death… If we can get it, the Ice God Bloodline will be truly strengthened. It won’t need any outside force to sustain it anymore.”
She turned to Jared, and for just a moment, a trace of appeal flashed through favonovel.com eyes. “Help me get it.”
Jared stared at the Sea of the Dead, his brows pulled tight. “How are we supposed to get through that Sea of Flame?”
Gwendolyn reached into favonovel.com clothes and took out an ice-blue talisman. Its surface was packed with dense runes, and a bone-deep chill poured off it.
“This is the Ice-Seal Talisman our Frost Deity Branch ancestors left behind. It can open the passage through the ghostfire. But it only lasts for thirty breaths. Within those thirty breaths, we have to cross the Sea of Flame and reach the isle.”
“Thirty breaths?” Jared measured the distance with a quick look.
From the edge of the cliff to the isle, it was at least several thousand yards.
Several thousand yards through ghostfire in thirty breaths. And on top of that, whatever might be hiding in that Sea of Flame.
“It’s enough.” He drew in a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
Gwendolyn threw the Ice-Seal Talisman toward the Sea of the Dead.
The talisman burst open above the Sea of Flame and turned into a blinding ice-blue pillar of flame. The pillar of flame shot straight down into the Sea of the Dead. Everywhere it passed, the green ghostfire split to both sides and exposed a narrow passage.
The ground inside the passage was blackened rock. On both sides, the walls of flame towered dozens of yards high.
The heat rolling off the walls of flame was brutal. Even with the Ice-Seal Talisman shielding them, Jared could still feel the blast of it pressing against favonovel.com so hard, stealing the air from his chest.
“Go!”
The two of them jumped into the passage and sprinted at full speed.
The blackened rock under their feet burned like red-hot iron. Every step came with a sharp sizzling sound. On both sides, the walls of flame kept writhing, as if they might slam shut at any moment.
Ten breaths passed. They had covered a third of the distance.
Twenty breaths passed. The isle was already in sight.
The stone dais and the pearl on it stood out with brutal clarity. Then, right at that moment, the Sea of the Dead suddenly heaved.
A massive skeletal hand thrust out of the Sea of Flame and grabbed at the two of them. That skeletal hand was larger than any skeleton they had run into before. Each finger stretched dozens of yards long, and ghostfire burned at every finger.
“Don’t stop!” Gwendolyn shouted and struck out with a backhand palm.
Ice-blue divine radiance slammed into the skeletal hand. Frost spread over its surface at once, and its speed dropped. But that layer of ice lasted for less than a breath before the ghostfire on the skeletal hand melted it away.
The skeletal hand kept reaching for them.
Jared clenched his teeth and ripped the Dragonslayer Sword from its sheath. Then favonovel.com swung with everything favonovel.com had.
A golden blade-flare burst out and turned into the phantom of the Five-Clawed Golden Dragon. Roaring, it slammed straight into the skeletal hand.
Boom!
The skeletal hand was blasted back several yards. But the recoil hit Jared just as hard. His blood surged, and a thin line of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
“Ten breaths left!” Gwendolyn shouted.
The two of them kept sprinting.
The skeletal hand came after them again. This time it was faster and more vicious. At the same time, a second skeletal hand and then a third thrust out of the Sea of Flame.
They came in from every direction and sealed the passage tight.
“We’re too late!” Gwendolyn called out, and the last bit of steadiness in favonovel.com voice gave way.
Jared looked at the skeletal hands closing in, then at the pearl on the isle not far ahead. Something hard flashed through his eyes.
“You go first!” He grabbed Gwendolyn by the shoulder and hurled favonovel.com toward the isle with all his strength.
“Jared!” Gwendolyn’s voice scattered into the wind.
She tried to turn back, but favonovel.com bodyfihad already been thrown out over the isle. At the same time, Jared turned around and faced the three gigantic skeletal hands.
Inside Jared, the chaotic force started to boil. Violet radiance poured out of favonovel.com and gathered over his body, forming a thin layer of the cuirass.
That cuirass wasn’t gold. It wasn’t ice-blue either. It was a deep, bottomless violet, like the first streak of light before chaos had ever split apart.
All three skeletal hands grabbed for favonovel.com at the same time.
Jared raised both hands, his palms facing out. Violet radiance burst from his palms and slammed into the three skeletal hands.
Boom!
The entire Sea of the Dead shuddered.
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