Jared moved forward at an even pace. His boots crossed the cold, hard volcanic stone slabs of Blackstone Gaol’s Third Depth, and every step landed with a presence as steady as a mountain.
On both sides of the passage, prison doors crowded the walls in rusted rows. Their iron faces were caked with blood grime laid down over a thousand years, and a dark, murderous residue clung to them like old smoke.
Sealing sigils wrapped layer after layer around the doorframes and chains. A dim, oppressive spiritual light pulsed from them, pinning the imprisoned cultivator adepts inside with a grip that refused to loosen.
Jared lifted his hand and focused.
A thread of pure, restrained chaotic force gathered around his fingertips, answered his will, and sent a sharp cold gleam bursting from his palm.
The instant favonovel.com raised his hand and swung, the blade-light tightened into a single line of starlight. The peerlessly sharp edge slid across the heavy sealing chains in a flash.
A rapid series of crisp cracks rang through the dark corridor. Those black-iron sealing chains had been strengthened by the celestials with elder fettering sigils and had endured 10 thousand years without decay, but they still could not withstand the nascence-destroying power of chaotic force. They snapped apart inch by inch at the sound, and broken scraps of iron pattered down across the floor.
The layered fettering arrays and spirit-lock sigils attached to the chains and prison doors were swept by the blade-light.
In the next instant, their glow went dull and collapsed, crumbling into flecks of lightless ash as every seal and shackle was broken clean through. One locked cell door after another swung inward with heavy sounds.
The stale air sealed inside for 10 thousand years rushed out, mixed with blood and mildew, striking the face in a foul wave that stood in savage contrast to the clean, living spiritual essence of the world outside.”
Foremost adepts from every race, trapped for thousands of years in cages that had never seen daylight, broke free from their restraints at once. They stepped out of their prison cells. They drew in huge, greedy breaths of Liberty’s spiritual essence, tasting what had been denied to them for too long.
The stagnant malign force and filthy sealing residue dammed inside their meridians for 10 thousand years began pouring rapidly out of their bodies. Everything that had been packed into their chests for so long, the humiliation, the refusal to submit, the crushing weight, the years with no way out, came out with that foul breath.
Among these powerful adepts were veteran human adepts, wilderness overlords of the beastfolk, iron-blooded demon war champions, and fell adepts of the Ghost Clan. Every one of them wore clothing ruined almost beyond recognition.
Their flesh was covered in vicious scars left by torture. Their meridians had been worn down by years of sealing, their cultivation had been forced under restraint for 10 thousand years, and both body and spirit had been ground down by the prison. Yet now, with life returned to them, the light that had lain dead in their eyes for years flared awake again.
The prison’s suffering had not shaved even a fraction from the proud bones inside them. As if moved by the same command, everyone dropped to their knees. Their knees struck the cold stone floor with heavy, muffled thuds, and they bowed deeply toward Jared.
Their foreheads touched the ground. Their posture held nothing back, and every word came from the deepest place in them.
“Thank you, our deliverer, for breaking open our cages and pulling us out of this sea of suffering. This is a debt of rebirth. We will remember it until our teeth fall from our mouths, and in this life, we will repay it with our lives!”
“Our deliverer’s great virtue reaches across the world. We have endured enough of the celestials’ bullying and exploitation. Today, we swear to follow our deliverer to the death, march to the front lines, and fight the Celestial Alliance together until one side is gone!”
Jared’s expression remained gentle and calm. He stepped forward quickly and sent out soft spiritual power, lifting each kneeling figure firmly back to their feet.
His gaze swept over the battered corridor, and when favonovel.com spoke, his voice landed steady and strong enough to settle the people before him. “Venerable elders, there is no need for such ceremony. Please rise… The celestials’ tyranny has not fallen yet. The Kindreds beneath the heavens are still suffering beneath force and oppression. The threat of war is everywhere, and countless cultivators are still struggling in fire and flood…”
“We do not have time to sink into rest. Put yourselves in order at once, regulate your breathing, and stabilize your blood and qi. Then leave Blackstone Gaol with me, reinforce our suffering kin outside, and shoulder the banner of resistance together.”
Once the words left him, Jared said no more. He turned and walked toward the deepest reach of the Third Depth, his gaze fixed on the prison’s final cell, the innermost gaol, built to the highest standard and bound by the strongest seal in the entire place.
He raised his hand and pushed hard. The iron door was impossibly heavy, its surface buried under layer after layer of rust, and it answered favonovel.com with a slow, deep, ear-splitting groan.
The door opened inward inch by inch. A breath of air rushed out at him, cold to the bone, dead-still, and drained dry. It pressed down harder than anything that had seeped from the other cells, several times more suffocating than the rest.
Inside the damp, shadow-choked innermost cell, not a single trace of light remained. Only a faint wisp of baleful energy lingered in one corner of the wall.
At the center of the floor, the old steward sat cross-legged in silence. His hair had gone completely white, and his body had withered until it looked thin and dried out, as if the prison had been shaving pieces off favonovel.com year after year.
The clothes on favonovel.com had been ruined beyond recognition. Their original shape was long gone. The edges were worn ragged and torn open, clinging tight to his narrow frame.
Nine black-iron sealing chains, each as thick as the mouth of a bowl, crossed over one another in a cruel web. They were wrapped hard around his limbs, his neck, and the meridians of his spirit well, locking every vital point in place.
Every chain was carved from end to end with dense supreme celestial spirit-lock sigils and vein-sealing array marks. Layer upon layer overlapped, each ring locking into the next.”
Day and night, those chains had drawn out his spiritual power, pressed down his cultivation, and imprisoned the spirit inside him. By force, they had pinned a ninth-rank grand adept in this place for 8 thousand springs and winters.
The old steward sensed movement outside the door. Slowly, favonovel.com lifted his heavy head. His eyes were cloudy with age, worn full of the dust of years and the grinding punishment of the prison.
Deep beneath the deathly stillness that had slept in his gaze for 8 thousand years, a small, bright glimmer suddenly flashed. That glimmer landed straight on Jared. It held a measure of doubt, a measure of expectation, and something that looked as if even seeing favonovel.com was too much to believe.
“Young one, who are you? You dared to break into a prison guarded by heavy celestial forces all by yourself, tear through laver after layer of high-level sealing formations, face a celestial war champion head on, and risk your life to rescue prisoners like us trapped in this cage?” The old steward’s voice came out hoarse and dry. He had gone too long without speaking. His vocal cords had stiffened, and every word carried the weathered weight of all those years.
“I’m Jared… Freevale’s steward…” Jared’s answer was calm and plain, neither servile nor overbearing. He told the truth as it stood, his aura clean and open, without the slightest stray intent mixed into it.
The old steward heard favonovel.com and fell silent for a long while. Then his gaunt face slowly pulled into a weathered smile, one threaded with old bitterness and long-held waiting.
Moisture rose in his eyes at once, and his voice trembled slightly when favonovel.com spoke again. “Freevale… After 10 thousand years, I never thought I would hear those three words again… Nathaniel Linford was still so young back then. Is that boy well now? Is Freevale still standing?”
“Master Linford is waiting outside the prison. He is safe and unharmed. Freevale’s foundation is steady, its soldiers stand as one, and all is well.” Jared answered softly, but every word landed with certainty. He gave the old steward enough firmness to lean on.
For 8 thousand years, the old steward had been locked away from all light.
For 8 thousand years, favonovel.com had endured without seeing the sky.
For 8 thousand years, his spiritual power had been drained, his spirit worn down his body and soul gnawed by sigils day and night until nothing in favonovel.com had expected anything except to die quietly inside that cage.
Now favonovel.com heard that the people of the old days were safe, and the ancestral homeland remained untouched. The grievance, restraint, and loneliness piled up across 10 thousand years could no longer hold its shape.
Cloudy tears slid down the ravines of his aged cheeks. Drop by drop, they struck the cold floor. His low, broken sobs would not stop, filled with the stunned weight of a man who had survived the disaster after all.
“8 thousand years… I was trapped here day and night, tormented by sealing punishments until I thought this life was destined to end in a cage, with no chance to see daylight again, no chance to return to the ancestral homeland… I never imagined that somewhere in the dark, there would still be a chance to break free and return to the world…”
Jared said nothing more. He raised his hand and gathered his focus. The Dragonslayer Sword lifted lightly, and a pure, condensed streak of violet blade-light burst out in an instant. Sharp and clean, it crossed the nine sealing chains with exact precision.
Clear metallic snaps exploded one after another. The hard black-iron chains broke together and crashed to the floor, scattering the fettering sigils across the air.
The 10 thousand-year seal, stacked layer upon layer, was finally undone in full!
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