“Quickly, get up. There is no need to kneel.” Jared reached out and gently helped favonovel.com to his feet, his voice lowered and mild. “There are countless others trapped farther in. We do not have time to waste. We save them now.”
As soon as the words left him, Jared moved from cell to cell.
Chaos-flame flowed over his fingertips. Each time favonovel.com raised his hand, shackles snapped, sigils melted away, and cell doors burst apart. One sealed, lightless prison after another was opened. One chain after another, each one made to bind Liberty itself, was burned through and severed.
Figure after figure, each one worn down by torment, was given a new life. More than 300 trapped human cultivators had their seals lifted one after another and broke free of their shackles.
Some curled on the floor and wept until their voices failed, pouring out the years that had hollowed them from the inside. Some threw their heads back and laughed toward the ceiling, tears running down their faces as they breathed in Liberty after so long without it. Some trembled all over and ran their hands along the meridians where spiritual power had returned, standing there for a long time without being able to steady themselves.
Their dried-up spiritual power slowly revived. Their failing bodies gradually took warmth again. Light returned to eyes that had been hollow. Souls that had gone numb stirred awake once more.
In the time it took half an incense stick to burn, every cell in the First Depth had been liberated. The more than 300 cultivators who had regained their Liberty wiped away their tears one after another. They forced their battered bodies to hold, bent down, and picked up the arms the celestial cultivators had left scattered across the floor. Their eyes burned with a fierce need to make the celestials answer.
All the years the celestials had kept them caged and broken, all the humiliation ground into their bones, gathered tight in their chests.
“The celestials locked away our bodies, trampled our dignity, and butchered our kin. Today, this blood debt will be paid in blood!”
“We are willing to follow Chieftain Linford and Mr. Chance into the Second Depth, rescue more of our people, and flatten Ashenbrand Gaol!”
“Kill every celestial, overthrow the oppression, and resist to the death!”
Roars burst through the prison one after another, fierce enough to shake the cells. Fresh fighting strength filled the ranks in an instant, and the rebel force swelled even larger.
Nathaniel wiped the tear tracks from the corners of his eyes and looked back at the rescued cultivators behind him. Their morale had shot sky-high, their will to fight rolled like a storm, and something hot surged hard through his chest.
He raised his arm and shouted, his voice booming across the open space. “My fellow kin, the suffering is over, and the shackles are broken! Follow me into the Second Depth and save more trapped champions of every kin!”
“Blood for blood, tooth for tooth!”
“Charge the Second Depth! Flatten Ashenbrand Gaol!”
The answering cries thundered through the prison. Countless figures surged after favonovel.com in a vast, driving tide, rushing straight for the entrance to the Second Depth.
The flames of war spread. The killing rose to a higher pitch, and the war horn of liberation rang through the entire blazing cage.
After they passed through the narrow passage from the First Depth, the Second Depth barrier loomed into sight.
Compared with the rough defenses of the First Depth, Ashenbrand Gaol’s Second Depth had doubled its defensive strength outright. The guard was tighter, and the fighters posted there were far sharper.
Two hundred elite celestial cultivators stood in layered ranks along the vital entrance route. Every one of them held a cultivation level above the fifth tier of the True Immortal Realm. With the Gallows Array built specifically to trap and kill, their offense and defense fused into one. Every strike and every guard position supported the next.
The Second Depth Warden leading them had reached True Immortal Realm Level Seven. His methods were vicious, favonovel.com excelled at binding arts, and among the celestials’ middle ranks, favonovel.com counted as one of the hardest men to deal with.
Ahead of the crowd, an unimaginably heavy golden severance veil sealed the passage shut.
The screen of light was far thicker than the one in the First Depth. Across its surface, ancient and densely tangled elder God-King runes had been carved. The golden radiance was dense and condensed, giving off a vast ancient divine pressure.
The veiled bulwark stretched across their path, cutting off every way forward. Its weight pressed down so heavily that anyone standing before it had to look twice.
The Level Seven warden stood in front of the screen of light with the Aureate Crozier in hand, his face carrying a hard, superior chill.
When his eyes moved to Jared, ridicule and contempt filled his stare, and his voice came out like a blade dragged over ice. “Jared, you’re nothing but a True Immortal Realm Level Two cultivator. You relied on some strange secret art and crooked tricks to take the First Depth by luck, and now you think you’re invincible?!”
“This God-King’s Sealing Veil guarding the Second Depth was personally refined and empowered by the God-King of elder days. It contains the God-King’s nascence force. It is solid and undying! Forget a low-level cultivator like you. Even a foremost adept at True Immortal Realm Level Nine could attack with full strength and still have no hope of breaking it in a short time!”
“Today, this is where you stop. This is where you die inside Ashenbrand Gaol!”
Seeing this, Jared’s expression stayed flat. He ignored the warden’s taunts and shouting walked forward at an unhurried pace, and pressed both palms directly against the cold, hard surface of the golden ward-veil.
A vast surge of chaotic force poured wildly out from his palms. Rich violet radiance slammed head-on into the God-King’s ward-veil of gold.
Zip! Zip!
The black and white polar nascence forces clashed violently. Harsh corrosive sounds kept ripping through the air.
The violet chaotic force devoured and unraveled the golden holy radiance in a frenzy. The surface of the screen of light shook violently, and its sigils flashed and churned without pause. But the God-King of elder days had left behind a nascence force with foundations far too deep. Its roots held firm, far beyond ordinary celestial holy radiance.
Chaotic force naturally countered every kind of divine-aligned power, but against ancient nascence on the level of a God-King, that suppressive effect was weakened by a wide margin. It could only keep wearing down the surface of the screen of light. It could not quickly shatter the core bulwark.
The screen of light shook hard, yet it remained locked in place from beginning to end. Not the faintest sign of cracking appeared.
At the sight of it, the tightness in the Level Seven warden’s face smoothed away in an instant. A cold, vicious smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, and his voice climbed into something even more unchecked.
“It’s useless! Completely pointless! Your chaotic force is strange and overbearing, sure. It can suppress the holy radiance of ordinary celestial cultivators but before the divine-spark nascence of the God King of elder days, it isn’t worth mentioning at all! The gap in cultivation level, the gap in nascence-none of that can be made up for with crooked tricks. Today, you lose. There is no other outcome!”
Jared slowly drew his palms back. His brows pulled in by the barest degree, and a heavier look passed through the depths of his eyes.
This obstacle really was difficult. Against ordinary saintlight bulwarks, chaotic force could crush through them in an instant. But this screen of light had been forged on the foundation of the God-King’s remnant nascence. Its defensive depth had surged by entire orders of magnitude. If favonovel.com relied only on his own chaotic force, there was no easy way to break the situation open in a short time.
Just then, Elder Cillian stepped forward at an unhurried pace. His gaze locked tightly onto the ancient God-King runes flowing across the screen of light. He studied the patterns and traced their hidden paths, weighing each line with care.
Little by little, the air around favonovel.com seemed to grow heavier.
“Master Chance, this screen of light is difficult indeed…” Cillian spoke slowly. “The God-King’s nascence force is deep, dense, and far above ordinary grades… Your chaotic force restrains common divine arts, but it cannot quickly pierce a defensive barrier at the Divine King level… If you want to forcefully break the formation, you must stack on an even more massive nascence power. Only by borrowing strength and amplifying it can you tear the seal apart.”
“What kind of stronger borrowed power?” Jared turned his head and asked.
Cillian fell silent for a moment. Then favonovel.com raised a hand and took from his robe a palm-sized, lozenge-shaped eldercrystal, green from end to end and clear as polished jade. The crystal was pure in texture, and its spiritual light was concentrated to the limit. Across its surface, layer upon layer of ancient plant-and-wood patterns curled and overlapped.
Just holding it in the hand was enough to sense an ancient life force inside it-vast, surging, and seemingly without end.
“This is the Evershade eldercrystal, passed down through generations of the Sylvan Kin. It gathers the spiritual essence of Evershade’s mountains, rivers, plants, and trees across 100 thousand years. It condenses the nascent life force of the entire ancient wood. It is the Sylvan Kin’s sacred heirloom…” Cillian placed the eldercrystal solemnly into Jared’s hand.
“Use the eldercrystal’s vast Evershade nascence force to empower your chaotic force. With the two sources fused together, they will reinforce each other. If you force out their ultimate destructive power, it will be enough to break through the God-King’s Sealing Veil.”
Jared reached out and accepted the cool, smooth Evershade Eldercrystal. The instant it settled into his palm, favonovel.com felt a warm, massive current of spiritual power pouring through it without cease.
Pure and gentle. Thick beyond measure.
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