Jared’s face stayed flat and unreadable. He ignored the pressure from the celestial cultivators, lifted one hand in silence, and slowly drew the Dragonslayer Sword from his back.
The instant the black blade left its sheath, dense violet chaotic force erupted with a roar. It swept outward like a tsunami, crashing through the space around him.
The force wrapped around the blade. Chaos-flame burned in layers along the sword like living fire, and the violet gleam shot straight into the sky. That tyrannical nascence power crushed the golden holy radiance across the entire field in a single breath.
There were no extra words. There was no standoff before the fight!
Jared raised his arm high. Then his wrist drove down with brutal force.
With one strike, the winds and clouds shifted. Violet chaotic force, condensed to its absolute limit, formed a massive blade of light 100 yards long. It tore through the scorched air.
Carrying a force that seemed able to destroy everything in its path, it swept forward with a thunderous crash toward the forty gate-wardens and the golden ward-veil behind them. Wherever the light blade passed, the burning currents in the air were ripped apart and twisted out of shape.
The hard volcanic ground was plowed open by the razor-sharp sword aura, leaving a trench several yards deep and stretching 100 yards long. Broken stone and molten fire sprayed in every direction.
The holy light the celestials relied on was as fragile as thin paper before chaotic nascence. The moment it touched that power, it was devoured, torn open, and dissolved. It could not hold for even an instant.
The forty Level Five celestial elites had no time to activate defensive spells. They had no time to awaken the protection of their panoply. They did not even have time to release a final scream. Their bodies were cut apart and broken down in an instant beneath the chaotic blade of light. Golden blood evaporated on the spot. Their bodies turned into golden motes that filled the air, then scattered into the wind.
In the blink of an eye, the entire force had been wiped out. Not a bone remained. The forty guards were wiped out in the span of a breath!
The 100-yard violet blade of light did not slow at all. Still wrapped in destructive power, it slammed hard into the thick golden defensive ward-veil.
Rumble!
An earth-shaking crash burst out. All of Mount Cinderfall gave a faint shudder, and wild wind tore across the mountain pass.
The golden ward-veil shook violently. Across its surface, sigils flickered at a speed visible to the naked eye, then dimmed, then shattered. In an instant, dense spiderweb cracks spread across the entire screen of light.
The defensive barrier of the ancient ward broke down section by section beneath the chaotic force’s savage corrosion and crushing pressure. In less than three breaths, a shattering boom ripped through the mountain. The supposedly unbreakable final ward-veil exploded apart. Countless fragments of golden sigils sprayed in every direction, then vanished into the air.
The last outer barrier had been completely destroyed. The vast black stone gate stood exposed before everyone, with nothing left to hide it.
Jared stepped forward. One step at a time, favonovel.com walked beneath the 10-yard stone gate and slowly pressed both palms against the cold, hard door panels. In his palms, violet chaos-flame rose and flickered in a dim, ghostly glow. That domineering, strange power of flame raced along the sealing sigils carved into the door, spreading fast and seeping deep.
The sealing sigils the celestials had engraved over 10 thousand years melted layer by layer under the burning chaos-flame, then split apart and disappeared.
The tyrannical power of the seal was dismantled one piece at a time. Sharp, grating cracks rang out one after another as the sigils broke. With a dull mechanical grinding, the heavy stone door slowly opened inward.
Beyond the stone door stretched a deep, long mountain-bored tunnel. Along the rock walls on both sides of the tunnel, countless pieces of luminous fluorite ore had been set into the stone.
Soft white light spilled down from them, illuminating the long, narrow, twisting passage. The tunnel ran deep and dim. A cold wind blew straight at them, carrying the dry heat of molten fire. The far end remained swallowed in depth and uncertainty, faintly breathing out the cold, dead stillness that belonged only to a prison.
“All forces, enter the city! Advance level by level. Watch for ambushes!” Jared gave the order in a cold voice. With the Dragonslayer Sword in hand, favonovel.com was the first to step into the deep tunnel, his pace steady, his path fixed straight ahead.
Nathaniel and Elder Cillian followed close behind.
More than a thousand soldiers entered in order, their formation neat, their guard locked tight. They slowly poured into the interior of Ashenbrand Gaol. This human hell, built to suppress thousands upon thousands of rebellious cultivators, was destined to be rewritten today in blood and the fire of resistance.
The tunnel wound back and forth in a maze of turns, dark and stifling from beginning to end. The rock walls on both sides were cold and hard. From time to time, scorching air seeped through cracks in the stone, mixing with the rotten, bloody stench unique to prison cells until every breath seemed to press against the mind.
The group moved forward at a steady pace. The whole way, they watched their surroundings, guarding against hidden celestial ambushes and traps.
After walking for the full time it took an incense stick to burn, they passed through layer after layer of twisting forks. Then the view ahead opened wide. The greater and heavier stone gate stood before them.
This was the entrance bulwark of Ashenbrand’s First Depth. This stone door was even more towering and massive than the outer front gate. Its entire body had been forged from volcanic dusk-iron mixed with hallowed wardstone, and its defensive strength had doubled.
The door panels were carved over with dense elder fettering sigils. A dim golden radiance flickered through the markings, spreading a crushing force meant to pin down anything that came near. Just standing there made the air tighten until a clean breath seemed hard to take.
Directly in front of the stone door, a towering, broad-built figure stood with his head high, sealing off the path ahead. The celestial cultivator wore a full set of refined golden heavy armor. The cuirass was etched with severe patterns, every ridge and corner sharpened like it had been made to bite.
In his hands rested the great ember-maul, taller than a man. Its hammerhead bristled with savage spikes, blazing firelight winding around it, the whole weapon heavy and overbearing.
The pressure rolling off favonovel.com was deep and solid. His cultivation sat firmly at True Immortal Realm Level Six.
His muscles bunched like coiled cables, his eyes carried a vicious glare, and his whole body bore the murderous intent of someone who had survived a hundred battlefields.
Behind him, the three hundred celestial guards of the First Depth had already formed ranks and waited. They stood in layered formation, weapons drawn, holy radiance flowing across their blades. Their faces offered no softness. Every stance, every naked edge of steel, had already accepted the coming blood fight.
When Jared’s company broke through the outer barrier and forced its way into the prison’s heart, the Level Six Celestial commander’s eyes looked ready to split apart. The force surging off favonovel.com climbed so violently it seemed to scorch the tunnel air.
He tightened his grip around the great maul and thundered out a sharp roar. The soundwave shook through the tunnel from end to end.
“Jared! You defied Heaven itself, led the insurgents to destroy Blackstone Gaol, slaughtered celestial soldiers, and committed a crime beyond pardon! Now you still refuse to repent, and you dare come alone against Ashenbrand Gaol, challenging the authority of the Celestial Alliance!”
“Today, with me guarding the First Depth, I will tear you into pieces, rip out your soul and refine it, then offer your head to the celestials as sacrifice, so the kin who fell in Blackstone Gaol can be avenged! Today is the day you die!”
The wild roar rolled out in every direction, carrying a killing pressure sharp enough to freeze the blood.
Jared’s gaze stayed cold. He paid no mind to the commander’s roaring threats and turned his eyes to Nathaniel and Elder Cillian beside him, handing out the assignment in a level voice.
“The three hundred guards of the First Depth, plus this Level Six commander, will all be handled by me alone! Lead Freevale and the Sylvan host into the cell blocks immediately. Rescue the trapped prisoners first. Do not get tied down here and lose the rescue window.” Jared gave the order.
“Can you do it?” Nathaniel asked.
Jared’s brows lifted a fraction. His voice remained flat, with a faint edge that stripped the question of weight.
“Three hundred cultivators below Level Six of the True Immortal Realm are nothing but a mob. Whatever strength they can combine is limited. They cannot so much as scratch me. Opponents like these are not even enough for me to slaughter with one sword.”
Hearing this, Nathaniel looked at Jared’s unshaken face, then the memory of the twelve outposts rose again, the terrifying force that had erased a thousand men in an instant.
For Nathaniel, there was no longer any question. Jared’s fighting limits past the strength had already broke normal limits of his realm, and an ordinary encirclement by ordinary cultivators would amount to nothing against him.
A True Immortal Realm Level Two cultivator who did not even put hundreds of cultivators below Level Six of the True Immortal Realm in his eyes, across the entire Sixteenth Firmament, who else would dare such a thing?
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