Along the outer line of defense, every post had a clear duty. The guard was tight, the watch unbroken, and there was not the smallest gap left exposed.
Alaric stood tall and straight, steady as a pine. A freezing blade rested in his hand, and his eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, were fixed on the main camp of the celestials in the distance. The slightest flicker of spiritual power, the smallest shift of a solitary figure, would not escape his search.
Elara moved lightly, hidden in the shadows of the icy rocks. Fine threads of frost gathered at favonovel.com fingertips as favonovel.com silently laid down layer after layer of warning wards. The moment the aura of the foreign tribes drew near, the wards would trigger at once, warning them and blocking the intruder at the first possible instant.
Cedric held the blind spot behind them. Heavy spiritual power covered his body at full strength. His fists were drawn tight, and every bit of offensive and defensive force in favonovel.com waited on the edge of release. If anything tried to slip in for a sneak attack, favonovel.com was ready to meet it up close and seal that path shut.
The three of them formed a triangular enclosure. Together, they locked down the entire airspace around the exit of the ancestral seat, leaving no opening for any outside enemy to exploit.
Gwendolyn stood alone at Jared’s side, only half a step away. She did not move from him. She guarded favonovel.com at close range. She had only just accepted the complete Frost-Deity inheritance and the ancient god-forged blade in full.
Now faint ice-blue divine radiance flickered around her, appearing and vanishing by turns. The cold, authoritative field around favonovel.com seemed to belong there by nature.
In Gwendolyn’s hand, the Frostbrand hung slanted toward the ground, its tip resting lightly against the frost. Thread after thread of fine, cold sword aura slipped soundlessly beneath the surface, laying down an invisible icebound ward. Any hostile living thing that came within 100 yards would be slowed by Ice Seal at once, its fighting strength pressed down before it could fully close in.
Her cold gaze swept the four directions, favonovel.com face solemn and steady. She did not give up even half a step. Every possible danger stayed outside Jared’s cultivation aura, shut away so his breakthrough could proceed undisturbed.
Time passed, minute by minute, steady and unbroken.
The snowstorm still screamed across the Wastelands, and the cold around them cut to the bone. The four guardians kept their focus locked from beginning to end, without allowing the slightest slack, their attention drawn tight around the quiet inside the field.
Inside the guarded space, the violet radiance around Jared grew thicker and deeper. His chaotic aura climbed in clear stages, and the moment of breakthrough had already begun to draw near in silence.
One full hour passed in perfect stillness. No outside enemy disturbed them. No flaw appeared in the cultivation.
Jared’s eyes snapped open. Two streaks of pure, concentrated violet light flashed across his pupils and vanished. The edge in them drew inward in the next breath, returning to a deep, still calm, without spilling even the faintest trace of violent aura.
The vast spiritual power that had been surging restlessly around favonovel.com settled back into its proper channels in an instant.
Within the spirit well, the chaotic energy vortex stood stable and full. His meridians had become broad and resilient. The barrier before his cultivation level had shattered completely and dissolved away, leaving his new realm grounded, solid, and heavy, without the least hollow instability.
The shackle at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Two had been broken through completely. He had stepped, fully and perfectly, into the third level of the True Immortal Realm!
Jared slowly rose to his feet, his back straight and unbending. His aura had turned steady and restrained. On the surface, favonovel.com looked no different from before, but the power inside his body had already been remade from the ground up, surging several times beyond what it had been.
He closed his hand into a light fist. The force gathered in his palm felt as dense as a mountain. Around his knuckles, a faint chaos-wrought ruinous force lingered, strong enough to shake apart the flying ice shards and bitter wind around favonovel.com without even touching them.
His physical strength, the depth of his spiritual power, the refinement of the spirit, and the explosive force of his techniques had all risen by a full grade. Against high-ranking cultivators, his footing had become far firmer than before.
“The foundation is solid… Combat strength has doubled… This is enough to deal with the crisis at Northern Abyss Gaol and stand against a ninth-rank celestial war champion.” Jared gave the judgment in a low, heavy voice.
His inner state held level, without a ripple. The breakthrough did not push favonovel.com into arrogance or impatience; it only gave favonovel.com one more measure of strength to protect his companions and resist those who ruled by force.
“Once we have recovered and put everything in order, we can set out and return to reinforce Freevale,” Gwendolyn said softly. Her gaze moved across the heavy night in the distance, with a thin urgency buried deep in favonovel.com eyes. The possibility of the celestials moving early pressed behind that look.
“Mhmm…” Jared answered lightly. His expression sharpened as favonovel.com lifted his eyes, looking straight past the ice peaks toward the dense, brightly fit celestial encampment beyond them. In the depths of his gaze killing intent suddenly gathered, cold enough to bite.
“Before we leave, we clear out the threats around the perimeter. No future trouble. We leave this place clean.”
The five companions rose side by side. Their steps were steady and ordered as they walked together out through the Frost Deity Ancestral Seat’s warding veil.
The instant their feet crossed the edge of the warding veil, the celestial patrol squad keeping watch outside caught the movement. Every head snapped toward them at once. Their eyes sharpened with rigid vigilance.
In a single motion, they tightened their grip on their holy-light spears and gilded war blades. Holy-light spiritual power flared across their bodies, and every inch of their stance locked into full readiness.
This patrol squad held a full fifty elite celestial cultivators. Every one of them had a solid cultivation base, and the lowest among them started at True Immortal Realm Level Five. They had guarded the ancestral seat’s perimeter year after year.
Their killing experience ran deep, and their methods were vicious. On ordinary days, they bullied the scattered wandering cultivators nearby, long used to throwing their weight around without restraint.
At their head stood the captain, a True Immortal Realm Level Seven cultivator. His gaze was venomous and razor-sharp as favonovel.com fixed hard on Jared and the others.
Then favonovel.com shouted in a harsh voice that rolled across the ice plains. “Stop right there! This is a forbidden stronghold of the celestials. The entire Frost Deity Ancestral Seat is under seal. Trespassers will be killed without exception! If you dare step out of the ward on your own every last one of you dies here tonight, without even bones left behind!”
His words came out overbearing and vicious. The echo had not yet fully scattered into the cold wind.
Jared already had no patience left for another wasted word. Killing intent condensed into his sword-heart. His wrist lifted slightly, and the Dragonslayer Sword slid from its sheath without a sound. Its edge did not disturb the snowstorm, and its violent aura did not leak by so much as a thread. He raised his hand and slashed straight across.
A violet chaos-wrought blade-flare, condensed to the extreme, tore through the air in a horizontal sweep. It moved like lightning and cut like heavenly punishment. There was no flourish in it, no showy technique at all, only pure ruinous force. Where the blade-flare passed, the void trembled faintly.
The cold wind split apart in an instant. The holy-light protection, gilded cuirasses, and defensive arcane implements on the fifty celestial cultivators broke like paper pasted over frames, shattering inch by inch with sharp cracking sounds.
There were no screams. No struggle. No pleading. No room left to strike back.
Those fifty elite celestial cultivators did not even have time to block a single move. They did not even have time to raise the war horn for aid!
Their bodies were broken down and dissolved by the chaos-wrought blade-flare in an instant. They turned into scattered golden motes, vanishing into the cutting cold wind. Not half a bone remained. Not even a torn scrap of clothing was left behind. They were erased from the world completely.
One sword fell. Fifty men were gone. Clean, ruthless, and absolute!
The next second, in the distant celestial main camp, the watch-standing cultivators saw that scene with their own eyes. Their scalps tightened. The blood drained from their faces.
A shrill warning bell began to hammer wildly, its booming cry tearing through the ancient ice plains’ silent night and ringing out for 100 miles around.
“Enemy attack! A powerful enemy has broken through the ward and killed his way out of the ancestral seat! All forces, prepare for battle! Form ranks and meet the enemy!”
Sharp, disorderly shouts rose one after another. Inside the tents, figures surged everywhere, and the clash of armor, the scrape of arms, and the barked orders of messengers tangled into one hard roar.
More than a thousand stationed elite celestial cultivators threw on armor, seized their blades, and rushed out of the sprawling celestial encampment at full speed.
Holy-light spiritual power flared across the camp in one spreading sheet. Golden radiance flooded the whole frozen Wastelands. Thick with killing force, they closed in toward the ancestral seat in a tightening surge, their formation clean, their slaughter-heavy pressure rolling ahead of them.
At the very front of the force, two Level Eight celestial elders advanced side by side, both dressed in gilded elder robes, their faces cold and dark. Their presence came down sharp and overbearing. Holy radiance coiled around them, and their pressure sank outward in every direction.
One carried a heavy hallowed tower, a treasure built for defense, suppression, and trapping enemies in groups. The other gripped the Soulreaper Scythe, a weapon made for close slaughter and for tearing through the spirit. The two had guarded this post together for years. Their coordination left no gaps, their offense and defense covered each other, and their methods cut hard and clean.
On this outer defense line, they were the highest combat power the celestials relied on.
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