Out of the stone hall came the captain of the guard, a celestial cultivator at True Immortal Realm Level Six.
He was a big man with a hard, square face, wrapped in golden armor etched all over with the marks of the Tribunal. In his hand was a golden longsword. Holy radiance flowed along the blade, so bright it stabbed at the eyes.
The moment favonovel.com saw beast-race warriors covering the mountains and fields, his expression changed on the spot.
“Skywolf Tribe? Hadrian Wolfhowe? Have you lost your minds? You dare lay a hand on the Tribunal’s mine?!”
Hadrian stood at the very front of the beast-race warriors. He leveled his war axe at the captain of the guard, and when favonovel.com spoke, his voice rolled out like thunder. “Lost my mind? I’ve been sick of the sight of you for a long damn time! You’ve been digging in my territory for thousands of years without even so much as a word! Today I’m tearing this whole mine apart!”
“You dare!” the captain of the guard shouted. “The Hall Master won’t let any of you off!”
“Then let favonovel.com come!” Hadrian brought his axe down.
A blood-red arc burst from the blade and turned into a light edge 100 yards long, slashing straight at the captain of the guard. Where it passed, the air split open. The ground was ripped into a deep trench, and broken stone flew in every direction.
The captain of the guard grit his teeth and took it head-on. Golden holy radiance surged out of favonovel.com and gathered before his body into a massive golden greatsword of light.
The greatsword of light crashed against the axe glow.
Boom!
The two forces collided and blew out a deafening roar. The whole vale shook. Loose rock broke free from the cliffs and slammed to the ground, kicking up clouds of dust.
The captain of the guard was blasted back several steps. The web between thumb and forefinger split open, and blood ran down the sword hilt.
The color drained from his face. Shock showed plain in his eyes. “You… You’re really going to make an enemy of the Tribunal?”
Hadrian gave favonovel.com no answer.
The second axe was already coming down.
While the battle outside the mine turned the world upside down, Jared slipped in from the other side with Gwendolyn, Lydia, Colden, and Rowan. They didn’t go in through the front gate. Instead, Jared led them around to the far northern end of the vale and climbed down from the cliff.
The cliff on this side was steeper than anywhere else. Moss and frost coated the rock face, and every handhold looked slick enough to send a person straight down. But chaotic force moved across Jared’s skin and swallowed the presence of all five of them whole. The celestials’ wards might as well not have existed in front of him.
They dropped soundlessly into the depths of the mine. Chaos had already taken over inside the mine.
The beast race’s sudden attack had caught the celestial cultivators completely off guard. Most of them had already been pulled to the front, leaving only a handful of guards in the rear.
The Ice God Bloodline cultivators who had been enslaved were all huddled inside the mine tunnels. They stared outside, curled into themselves, with no idea what was happening.
Jared walked to the nearest mine tunnel. Its entrance was sealed with iron bars, and a heavy lock hung from them.
He reached out and closed his hand around the lock. Chaos-flame poured from his palm, and the lock melted through at once, drops of liquefied metal pattering onto the ground. He shoved the iron bars open and stepped into the mine tunnel.
The tunnel was dark. Only a few oil lamps on the stone walls gave off a weak, wavering light. The air was damp and filthy, thick with sweat, mildew, and the sharp reek of blood.
More than a dozen cultivators in tattered clothes were huddled in the corner. Black chains bound every one of them, their faces were pale, their eye sockets sunken, and their eyes held nothing but wary dread.
Some had their arms wrapped around their knees, faces buried between their legs, their bodies shaking without stop. Some leaned against the tunnel wall with their eye shut, lips moving soundlessly as if they were repeating something over and over. Some curled up on the ground beneath a ragged beast hide, coughing in broken, uneven bursts.
Jared crouched down, his voice low. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to save you.”
Those people slowly lifted their heads and looked at him. Their eyes were clouded and drained, the kind of look left behind after too much torment for too long. By now, they no longer gave their trust to just anyone.
“Save us? Who are you?”
“Jared.”
The name landed in that dead-still mine tunnel like a stone dropped into stagnant water.
The reaction moved through the huddled prisoners at once, faint but unmistakable. The Pyre Chasm. Thunderpeak. Soul Abyss. For days now, the whole Fifteenth Firmament had been passing that name from mouth to mouth.
The mine sat far off in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn’t cut off from the world. News still found its way in.
They had heard the stories about Jared. The human cultivator who had badly wounded a celestial elder with one punch, killed the Tribunal’s Deputy Hall Master in a single move, and carved his way through Soul Abyss alone.
But hearing about favonovel.com was one thing. Believing that a figure like that would come here to save them was something else entirely.
“The soul-shackles… You can’t open them…” An old man forced the words out in a shaking voice. His voice rasped like sandpaper scraping over stone. “Only the Tribunal’s elders have the keys We tried smashed them with rocks, pried at them with iron bars. nothing worked…”
Jared said nothing. He raised his right hand.
A cluster of chaos-flame gathered in his palm. Violet radiance and golden flame twisted together.
In the dim mine tunnel, the light hit like a blade. The heat ran so high the air around it started to warp. And yet the cultivators felt none of it. The chaos-flame burned only what it chose to burn.
He pressed the chaos-flame lightly against the soul-shackles.
In front of the chaos-flame, the soul-shackles might as well have been made of paper. The black chains melted apart in an instant.
Drops of molten metal hit the ground with sharp sizzling sounds. The sealing sigils flickered inside the flame a few times. Then the light died out, and the seal failed completely.
The old man’s eyes went wide and round. “T-This… how is this possible…” His voice shook harder with every word. “The soul-shackles ancient cold iron. even a True immortal Realm Level Seven expert couldn’t break free…”
Jared didn’t explain. He stood and walked to the next cultivator.
One after another, the chains were melted through.
Each time another set broke, that cultivator’s whole body jolted. It was like spiritual power that had been crushed down for far too long had finally found a way out, surging and roaring through their meridians.
The moment one of them pushed to his feet, his legs gave out under favonovel.com and he nearly went down.
Colden moved fast and caught favonovel.com with one hand before favonovel.com hit the ground.
The man looked up at Colden, tears filling his eyes. “Thank you… Thank you…”
“Don’t thank me.” Colden’s voice came out tight. “Move. There are people outside waiting to receive you.”
Gwendolyn stood at the mouth of the mine tunnel, settling the rescued cultivators as they came out. Her voice was light and soft, like a spring breeze. “The Frost Deity Branch hasn’t been wiped out. You’re not alone. From this day on, you don’t have to afraid and hide anymore, and you don’t have to!”
Hearing this, some dropped to their knees and kowtowed. Some broke down so hard they couldn’t even get words out. Some just stood there, rooted in place, unable to believe any of this was real.
Jared didn’t stay. He turned and headed for the next mine tunnel.
One mine tunnel, then two, then three.
With Gwendolyn and the others behind him, Jared went through every mine tunnel in the mine.
The mine was huge, and there were tunnels everywhere. Some lay at the bottom of the pit. Some had been carved into the pit walls. Some ran so deep the darkness swallowed their end. Some were only a few yards deep.
At every mine tunnel, favonovel.com used chaos-flame to melt through the soul-shackles.
Gwendolyn stayed with the rescued cultivators, soothing them and telling them the Frost Deity Branch had not perished, that they were not alone.
Colden and Rowan took charge of counting heads, while Lydia kept watch.
The number of rescued cultivators kept climbing.
The first mine tunnel held 13 people. The second held 9. The third held 21. The fourth held 7. Before long, there were already more than 100 of them.
Some of them had been working here for more than a thousand years. Their skin had been stained an ashen black by the ore. Their fingers had grown thick and twisted out of shape. Their nails were gone, and their hands were covered in calluses and scars.
Some of them had only been dragged here recently. Their clothes were still mostly intact. But the fear in their eyes ran deeper than anyone else’s.
Some dropped to their knees and slammed their foreheads against the rock. They kept pounding until blood ran down their faces.
“Benefactor! Benefactor!”
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