At the same moment, inside Freevale, night had settled completely.
The world lay dark, drained of light. The evening wind out cold enough to bite bone. It carried the smell of blood from the Wastelands and blew through every corner of the vale. The air hung low over Freevale, heavy enough to press the breath out of a man.
Jared came through the mouth of the vale with people on both sides holding favonovel.com up as carefully as they could. He moved one step at a time, each step dragged out of a body that barely obeyed him.
Pain had favonovel.com from head to toe. Every inch favonovel.com shifted pulled at the wounds spread across his body.
The strain drew his brows tight. Cold sweat kept seeping from his temples, head after bead.
His injuries had sunk to the worst point. A broad mass of clotted blood had pooled inside his chest, blocking his meridians.
His breathing came short and rough. Every inhale felt as if countless ice needles were driving through his lungs and organs.
The pain cut too deep to endure cleanly. The bones in his left arm had snapped and shifted out of place. The arm hung useless at his side, with no strength left in it at all. The slightest sway sent bone-deep pain drilling straight through him.
Dried blood had hardened at the corner of his mouth. His face had gone white as paper, and his lips held no color at all. Blood and grime covered him.
His clothes had been torn nearly beyond recognition, leaving favonovel.com In a state no one could mistake for anything but brutal ruin. Even with the pain buried in his bones and his strength wrung out to the last thread, Jared kept his teeth clenched and forced himself on.
He would not let anyone carry favonovel.com or fully bear his weight as they helped favonovel.com forward.
That was Jared. He had too much steel in him, and favonovel.com stood as the backbone of Freevale, the hope every pair of eyes had fastened onto.
Even if his body had been battered to pieces, favonovel.com could not fall. He could not show even the smallest crack.
Step by step, favonovel.com moved ahead, slow and steady. His footprints landed heavy.
Blood followed each step as favonovel.com crossed the flagstone road of Freevale. Every step carried endless exhaustion and a shadow of trouble no one could shake.
Gwendolyn walked quietly at his side. Blood had soaked through most of favonovel.com long white dress. The hem had been shredded. Loose strands of hair clung to favonovel.com pale cheeks.
Her face had been worn down to a frail, drained stillness. Her vital blood and energy had declined to the very limit.
The retributive backlash force from forcing the Frost-Deity final sword art into motion had never stopped. It gnawed at the spirit every moment and consumed favonovel.com nascence without pause.
Her meridians stung and numbed all through favonovel.com body. Her spiritual power had run dry, too scattered to gather again. Yet favonovel.com eyes remained clear and fixed, without the slightest dimming or retreat.
She planted the Frostbrand at a slant against the ground and used it like a cane to support favonovel.com weakened body.
The sword tip scraped over the earth, leaving behind one thin, long, unbroken shallow mark. That mark spoke without sound of how savage and grueling the battle had been.
Back at the mouth of the vale, Rowan still stood there waiting in silence, never having moved so much as a step away. He had waited from daylight into deep night, from the first morning light all the way to moonlight.
His legs had long since gone numb from standing. Stiffness and soreness had swollen through them. His cane had been planted deep into the soil, pressing out a sunken pit beneath it.
The deep pit around his cane said enough about how long Rowan had waited, and how sharply favonovel.com had been holding on.
His gaze stayed nailed to the road beyond the valley, the road they had to come back on, his eyes refusing to leave it for even a blink. His heart seemed to hang somewhere above his chest. He could not sit still, and favonovel.com could not make himself stand easy either.
Every passing moment threatened to bring back bad news, or worse, broken corpses. Then, with his own eyes, favonovel.com saw Jared, Gwendolyn, and the others appear on the road back. He saw them come in covered in blood, battered and ragged from head to toe.
The string that had been pulled tight in favonovel.com for days finally gave way. Everything that had been pressed down inside favonovel.com for days rose at once and turned into scalding tears. They spilled from his eyes before favonovel.com could stop them, running again and again down the deep folds of his aged face.
“You’re back… All of you came back safe…” His voice broke rough in his throat. His steps staggered, but favonovel.com hurried forward to meet them anyway. His body shook in small, uncontrollable tremors. The words would not line up, and the only thing left in favonovel.com was the sight of them alive before him.
Jared turned his head toward the venerable chieftain and forced a faint smile onto his face, his voice low as favonovel.com steadied him.
“Venerable Chieftain, there’s no need to worry. What I promised has always counted… We were always going to come back safe and keep Freevale unharmed.”
Rowan nodded hard, again and again. Tears blurred his sight, and his throat worked as if something had lodged there.
A thousand things crowded behind his chest, but not one sentence made it out. All favonovel.com could do was raise his hand and keep wiping at the hot tears in the corners of his eyes, with everyone still standing there in front of him.
Nathaniel did not dare lose a moment. He immediately began giving orders in a clear, steady sequence.
On one side, favonovel.com had people move fast to set up temporary healing tents. The gravely wounded cultivators who had returned with them had to be settled properly, and the number of dead and injured had to be counted. The wounded and sick brought back from the Ancient Battlefield also had to be handled without delay.
At the same time, Nathaniel personally took charge of moving Pentacarna Tower to the very center of the square. He stabilized the tower’s body and opened Pentacarna Tower’s healing sanctum within.
Inside the Pentacarna Tower, the flow of time was a gift no ordinary place could match, one day outside, 100 days inside the tower. It was the only priceless secret realm in Freevale capable of quickly repairing grave wounds, nourishing nascence, and stabilizing cultivation.
Jared and Gwendolyn carried the heaviest injuries, and their nascence had been drained the deepest. Their spirits, meridians, and physical bodies had all taken brutal damage.
No one needed to say a word. They stepped into the depths of Pentacarna Tower at the first possible moment. Each found a quiet corner, sat cross-legged, and closed their eyes to gather their focus.
They immediately began regulating their breathing and treating their wounds, repairing their broken bodies and sorting through their damaged spirits.
Jared stilled his mind and sank his breath, drawing on the last meagre chaotic force left inside him. He guided it slowly through the meridians across his body, repairing torn flesh and blood inch by inch.
He set the misaligned bones back into place and washed the pooled bruised blood out of the damaged channels. But the domineering Aurelian remnant force Marshal Stone had left inside his body would not go quietly. It was like countless tiny steel needles, packed tight and rooted deep in his meridians.
They wandered and rammed through him, stabbing at his spirit veins every moment and blocking the movement of his spiritual power. They scorched his spirit-well nascence, leaving a low, persistent ache that refused to be fully purged.
Jared clenched his teeth against the piercing pain, and his focus did not waver. Bit by bit, favonovel.com devoured the remaining Aurelian force, converted it, refined it, and forced it out. He allowed himself no slack. Not even half a breath of it.
Not far away, Gwendolyn sat in silence, favonovel.com aura faint. The Frostwrought Panoply’s spiritual light had dimmed until it was almost gone. The spiritual power shield clinging close to favonovel.com body was as thin as a cicada’s wing, with no real power left to protect her.
The Frostbrand lay across favonovel.com knees, and every ancient sigil along the blade had lost its glow. It rested there in dead stillness, with none of the sharp frost energy that had once flowed through it.
Gwendolyn quietly urged the last of favonovel.com Frost-Deity nascence into motion, slowly nourishing favonovel.com damaged spirit. She repaired the consciousness field and meridians that had been corroded by the Wraith-Maze killing art. She soothed the turbulence within, warmed favonovel.com body back a little at a time, and rebuilt the foundation of favonovel.com spiritual power.
Inside the tower, time passed in a silence so deep it left no trace. It shut out every disturbance and every unrest from the outside world.
Beyond the tower, only 3 short days slipped by. Inside the tower, they had already endured a full 300 days of bitter cultivation and quiet recovery. That blessed gap in time made the healing twice as effective for half the effort.
After 300 days of seclusion and recovery, every serious wound across Jared’s body had healed. The fractures in his left arm had joined cleanly, and the stagnant blood in his chest had completely cleared and flowed away.
The Aurelian remnant force left in his meridians had been fully refined and emptied out. The spirit-well maelstrom of chaos turned smoothly, and his nascence remained unharmed.
His cultivation had not broken through or advanced from the chance, and it still held steady at True Immortal Realm Level Three. Even so, his chaotic force had grown more condensed and richer, and it moved through favonovel.com with greater ease.
His understanding of battling world-nascence and Void-Law had become deeper and clearer. His foundation rose steadily, and his state of mind settled into something steadier and harder to shake.
Gwendolyn had also recovered most of favonovel.com battle power, and warmth had returned to favonovel.com blood and vitality. Her spiritual power filled favonovel.com again, and favonovel.com damaged spirit had been restored whole.
The Frostwrought Panoply shone once more with cold spiritual light, its protective resilience recovered to what it had been. The Frostbrand’s sigils revived and flowed again, and fierce frost energy returned to the blade.
Her killing energy returned in full. Her cultivation settled hard and steady in the middle-to-late phase of Level Nine of the True Immortal Realm. Only the thinnest chance stood between favonovel.com and the Top Level of Level Nine.
Her battle strength had warmed back across the board. She remained one of the top killing-focused powerful adepts.
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