Jared’s face showed nothing. He returned the sword to its sheath, and his body blurred into translucence again. With the force of Space Law carrying him, favonovel.com shifted away in an instant and headed for the next outpost.
The second outpost… The third… The fourth… One outpost after another fell in succession.
Jared moved like a death god wandering through the darkness of Epea, crossing the 100 miles of wasteland between them. His movement left no trace.
Every strike favonovel.com made ended a life. Each swing of the sword was condensed and stripped down to its deadliest line, aimed straight at the vital point. Not half a measure of spiritual power was wasted, and not half a trace of aura leaked out.
With concealment no one could solve and a spatial art at his command, favonovel.com slipped perfectly past all the wards and every patrol. No matter how tight an outpost’s defenses were, no matter how powerful its commander was, none of it amounted to resistance before Jared’s chaos-wrought blade-flare. Even celestial cultivators at True Immortal Realm Level Four and Level Five could not withstand that crushing nascence across cultivation levels, no matter how many of them there were.
Time crawled on. In less than the time it took an incense stick to burn, the twelve outer outposts encircling Mount Cinderfall were wiped out completely. The 1.2 thousand fully armed, heavily guarded soldiers of the celestial garrison fell in silence, all of them erased without leaving a visible trace.
Jared’s shadowing figure slowly appeared again and landed back in front of the allied host. His robes were neat and spotless. Everything about favonovel.com remained clean and sharp, without dust on the hem and without a single drop of blood on him. It was as if the slaughter of more than a thousand had been nothing more than a small matter handled with a casual lift of the hand.
He raised a hand and took out twelve golden tokens carved with celestial sigils from his Storage Ring, then tossed them casually toward Nathaniel in front of him. “The twelve ward-core tokens of the outposts… They control every Saintlight Defensive Array on the perimeter. With the tokens in hand, the outer wards of Ashenbrand Gaol will recognize us on their own. They won’t attack us, and we’ll be able to reach the prison’s main gate without obstruction.”
Nathaniel reached out on instinct and caught the heavy golden tokens. They were cold in his palm, and a dense celestial saintlight aura still lingered across their surfaces.
He lowered his gaze to the twelve ward-tokens lying in his hands. Then the weight of what had just happened pressed in: in less than the time it took an incense stick to burn, a thousand men had been killed to the last.
His hands gave a faint, uncontrollable tremor. Something vast rolled through favonovel.com like a storm tide, and the look on his face stayed fixed for a long while, unable to settle back into calm.
1200 regular celestial cultivators, the twelve fortified outposts, layer after layer of wards, defense piled on defense, in Jared’s hands, all of it had failed to hold for even the span of one incense stick.
The force stationed there had been erased cleanly, from beginning to end without a sound, without a single loose end left behind. That had long since stopped being simple suppression through a gap in cultivation level. It was a full-spectrum strike from above, crushing them through nascence force, Godric arts, and battle instinct all at once.
Beside them, Elder Cillian’s gaze rested heavily on Jared. The look in his eyes deepened, carrying more weight than before, as if every measure favonovel.com had taken of Jared had just been forced higher.
When Elder Cillian finally spoke, his voice came slow, each word carrying open praise. “Master Chance’s strength truly lives up to its name. You hide your depth well… With chaotic force reinforcing spatial arcana, your ability to assassinate, strike by surprise, and clear a field has reached a level beyond common understanding… No wonder you have been able to cripple the celestials again and again, and crush powerful enemies head-on.”
Elder Cillian had seen enough to have the ground shift under every old estimate favonovel.com carried.
Jared gave a faint nod, offering no display and wasting no words. His gaze moved toward the distant, towering crimson mass of Mount Cinderfall, and when favonovel.com spoke, his voice had gone cold. “The outer obstacles have all been swept clean, and the road ahead is open. The real bloodbath, the real powerful enemies, are still trapped inside Ashenbrand Gaol… The real show has only just begun.”
As the last word fell, Jared stepped out first and moved steadily toward the searing foot of Mount Cinderfall.
More than a thousand soldiers of the allied host followed close behind him. Their steps stayed firm, killing intent rolling off them as they advanced one pace at a time into that deathtrap wrapped in flame.
The gates of Ashenbrand Gaol had already begun to open, slowly, through the color of blood.
The closer they drew to Mount Cinderfall, the more monstrous the heat around them became.
The volcanic stone underfoot burned scorching hot. Even through thick combat boots, the heat came biting up hard enough to feel like it had teeth. If ordinary cultivators stopped there for even a short while, the soles of their feet would be burned until the skin split open.
The air churned with a heavy sulfur stench and the scorched, charred reek of molten fire. Blistering currents rushed into their faces, baking skin hot and drawing every mouth dry.
The soldiers from Freevale began circulating spiritual power through their bodies one after another. A thin spiritual warding veil gathered over each of them, sealing out the Savage heat and flame outside holding back the dry corrosion in the air. Even so, walking for so long through this land of fire drained them heavily. Cold sweat covered the foreheads of quite a few cultivators, and their breathing turned sharp and hurried.
The Sylvan Kin, by contrast, carried themselves with far more ease. Wood-aspected spiritual power was born with long, enduring vitality.
Though flame naturally suppressed it, Elder Cillian had prepared for that from the beginning. As they advanced, his hands quietly formed seals. A vast, mellow surge of the Wilding Grace spread out little by little. A massive layer of green-blue plantborn radiance rose and fell into place, the Greenwood Aegis covering the entire allied host.
The spiritual light was supple and heavy, firmly cutting off the rolling heat waves and burning currents outside. It greatly reduced everyone’s spiritual power consumption and held all of them steady within its protection.
The group continued forward at a measured pace.
Before long, they reached the foot of Mount Cinderfall, and the front gate of Ashenbrand Gaol stood fully before their eyes. It was a great dusk-iron gate 10 yards tall, immense and pitch-black from top to bottom. It had been forged from meteoric frost-iron mixed with cindersteel.
The gate was unimaginably hard, able to withstand extreme heat, resist spells, and endure direct chopping blows.
The door panels were carved from top to bottom with countless ancient celestial sealing sigils, packed so tightly they seemed to breathe against the black surface. Golden radiance stirred beneath the marks, dark and deep, pressing down the evil force sealed within.
From that buried glow rolled an ancient, overbearing pressure that belonged to the celestials alone.
Directly before the stone door, two neat ranks of Celestial gate-wardens stood in formation.
Twenty guarded the left. Twenty guarded the right. Forty in all. Every one of them wore heavy golden panoply and carried a hallowed greatsword. Their auras cut through the heat like drawn steel, and the weakest among them had already reached True Immortal Realm Level Five.
They stood ramrod straight, eyes like ice with blood behind them. Holy radiance coiled around their bodies, and the killing pressure. pouring off them marked them for what they were the elite wardens handpicked by the celestials.
Behind the forty cultivators, the great golden ward-veil hung high across the entire mountain pass. Countless fine sigils raced across the veil in rapid streams. Layer upon layer overlapped, interlocked, and wove themselves into a defensive barrier that looked impossible to break.
This was the Last Aegis of Ashenbrand Gaol, the final ultimate ward outside the prison. Its defense was monstrous, built for one purpose: to stop a large-scale assault by foreign enemies.
The moment Jared and the others stepped into the ward’s warning range, the forty Celestial gate-wardens ahead snapped to attention. Holy radiance surged around them in an instant. They tightened their grips on their arms and advanced step by step, while a cold shout cracked across the mountain pass.
“Stop! This is a vital stronghold of the Celestial Alliance! Ashenbrand’s forbidden precinct. No unauthorized person is permitted to approach! Anyone who trespasses into the forbidden precinct of a Dreadhold and looks down on celestial authority will be killed without mercy!”
The warning fell like iron.
All forty celestial cultivators raised the greatswords in their hands at the same time. Blinding golden holy radiance ran along the blades and gathered at their edges. Murderous intent locked onto every arrival, leaving the battle one breath from breaking open.
The air pulled tight in an instant, stretched to its limit.
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