Venerable Emberlain descended slowly from the air, landed, and walked to Jared. He stood over favonovel.com from above, looking down at Jared’s badly wounded body sprawled against the ground.
There was no mercy in his eyes. Only a still, unmoving emptiness.
“True Immortal Realm Level Three, yet you managed to possess two ancient divine arms… I suppose your fortune wasn’t shallow. Too bad. Today is the day you die. No matter how fine divine arms are, you won’t live long enough to enjoy them.”
He slowly raised his hand, and golden saintfire gathered in his palm once more. This time, it burned even hotter than before, wilder, more savage, carrying the force to burn everything clean.
He was preparing to end Jared’s life with a single strike and bring this battle to its close.
Jared lay sprawled in the blood-soaked ruins, strength drained from every limb. Even the smallest movement came hard. With effort, favonovel.com lifted his head and looked toward Gwendolyn not far away.
She lay quietly on the ground, favonovel.com breath faint, favonovel.com white clothes stained red. She did not move. The Frostbrand stood slanted beside her, its light gone dim.
“G-Go… Hurry and go…” Jared’s voice came out hoarse and broken, so faint it nearly vanished before it reached her.
He used the last of his strength to call to favonovel.com in a low voice, every word dragging against what favonovel.com could not let go and what favonovel.com could never make right.
Gwendolyn forced favonovel.com eyes open and looked toward him. At last, tears slid down favonovel.com cheeks and soaked into the dust.
She tried to rise. She tried to shield him. She tried to stand beside favonovel.com and fight one more time. But favonovel.com body no longer obeyed her. Her spiritual power had frozen solid, favonovel.com meridians were badly damaged, and there was nothing left favonovel.com could make answer.
She gave the slightest shake of favonovel.com head. Her lips moved without sound, saying what favonovel.com body could not carry any farther, favonovel.com would not go.
She would stay with favonovel.com until the end!
Jared closed his eyes.
When favonovel.com opened them again, that refusal to yield had filled them from edge to edge, and something raw and burning pressed up from the bottom of him.
He could not accept losing like this. He could not accept dying like this. He could not accept Freevale being destroyed here. He could not accept his clansmen scattering in all directions, fleeing their homes and drifting with nowhere to belong.
But what did that refusal change?
There was no power left to turn the sky back. Fate had already pressed down beyond what could be broken.
The dragon of golden saintfire had already taken shape. With a roar, it plunged from above and charged straight at Jared.
Death was right in front of him.
In that dead-end moment, Gwendolyn drew out one final thread of nascence strength from somewhere unseen. She slammed favonovel.com hands against the ground and forced herself up, then staggered forward in a desperate lunge.
The Frostbrand cut out with everything favonovel.com had left, and an ice-blue blade-flare forced itself into the path of the fire dragon.
The blade-flare severed half the fire dragon outright, but it no longer had the strength to stop the remaining blaze.
Golden saintfire swallowed Gwendolyn’s body in an instant. Her white clothes caught fire. The panoply shattered. The frost energy scattered into nothing.
The flame wrapped around favonovel.com whole body and blasted favonovel.com away. She hit the ground hard, then went silent, motionless.
“G-Gwendolyn!” The roar tore out of Jared as if it had ripped through his chest. It split the open sky and carried everything in favonovel.com that had just been broken.
His eyes turned blood-red in an instant. and the sight before favonovel.com drove a storm through favonovel.com that no body should have been able to contain.
He threw everything away and burned all of his blood essence, the spirit, and his nascence lifespan. By force, favonovel.com reversed his meridians and ignited the spiritwell maelstrom of chaos.
Around Jared, the chaos-flame changed in an instant, purple burning down into black. The power turned savage, thick with a kind of horror that pressed against the battlefield.
His aura climbed without stopping, the third tier, the fourth tier, Level Five, Level Six!
It kept tearing upward until it reached the peak of Top Level True Immortal Realm Level Six, and only then did it barely come to a halt. It was the last flare before the lamp went out. He was burning through his life for a brief, stolen rise in battle strength.
The price waited on the other side of the fight: his flesh and the spirit would both break apart completely. Death had already been written into the bargain.
Jared ignored the tearing pain as his body split. He forced his hands against the ground and dragged himself upright.
Black Chaotic True Flame wrapped around the Dragonslayer Sword, and Jared took one step forward. He out against the tide straight at Venerable Emberlain, staking life against life. ready to drag them both into the grave.
Venerable Emberlain’s brow tightened by the slightest degree. That last charge had drawn a flicker of notice from him.
“Burning your nascence for one final gamble? You do have some backbone. Too bad it still changes nothing…”
Sword and fire crashed together. For a short moment, the black flame swallowed the golden saintfire, and the two powers locked in a brutal stalemate. But the gap in level could not be crossed by will alone. Golden Immortal Law bore down and crushed the nascence beneath it.
The black flame was driven back at speed. Retributive backlash force swept over Jared from head to toe.
Venerable Frostgrave saw it happen and refused to let the fight drag on. He took the opening and struck.
A streak of silver cold at its absolute limit slammed into Jared’s body.
Jared froze in place at once. Fine cracks spread across his skin, dense as a web. Golden blood seeped from those cracks. His flesh split open. and the pain dug all the way into the bone.
He clenched his teeth and bore the agony of his body coming apart. Without sparing a thought for life or death, favonovel.com swung again, cleaving toward Venerable Frostgrave. He went to his death with nothing held back.
Venerable Frostgrave’s gaze turned cold. He lifted a hand and sent a palm strike forward.
Silver cold gathered into a giant palm and smashed hard into Jared’s chest.
Jared flew like a kite with its string cut, then crashed heavily into a deep pit. Every bone seemed shattered. His flesh was a ruin of blood, his left arm broken, his right leg snapped. A gaping hole punched clean through his chest.
Jared lay at the edge of the end, with only one last ragged thread of breath left in him. He lay at the bottom of the pit and looked up at the dim sky.
The clouds had broken apart. The daylight spilling through them looked sickly white.
Countless shadowing figures flashed through his mind. Family and friends passed before him. His clansmen followed, then the companions who had once fought shoulder to shoulder with him. Then came the quiet steadiness of Freevale, its everyday smoke and fire, its peace before all of this had been torn open.
At last, everything stopped on Gwendolyn‘s pale face, stained with blood.
Tears slid down and mixed into the blood and filth. Under his ribs, the world had gone hollow and cold, crowded with everything that would never be finished.
***
At that very moment, far off on the horizon.
Nathaniel had been unable to leave it behind after all. He led Freevale’s surviving soldiery back the way they had gone, returning to the battlefield. They knew coming back meant walking straight into death. Still, they returned to stand beside Jared for that final road, without complaint, without looking back.
“Kill them! Fight to the death! Protect Mr. Chance!” Nathaniel roared, charging headlong into the enemy.
The surviving fighters surged after him. They knew it was a mantis raising its arms against a chariot, but not one of them slowed.
Alaric let out a cold laugh and swept his hand forward.
The celestial elites poured in like a tide. Holy radiance flooded the vale. Blades met blades, steel turned on flesh, and the slaughter tore open in an instant.
The remnants of Freevale could not hold. They were too few, and the gap in strength was too wide. They fell in sheets, one after another, until blood soaked the valley grounds.
Rowe cleaved through several enemies with his war axe.
When his strength finally ran dry, several longswords drove straight through his heart. He collapsed to the ground and gave his life there. His eyes stayed wide open, fixed on the field that had taken everything from him.
The lanky man cut down two men with his folding fan. Then a spear punched through his back and burst out through his chest.
He dropped facedown into a pool of blood. After that, favonovel.com did not move again.
The middle-aged woman fought on with twin blades, both of them slick with blood. Wounds covered favonovel.com from head to toe. In the end, a sword pierced favonovel.com heart. She slid down against the wall and died there without a sound.
Vale the Old Man fought with everything favonovel.com had left. When his strength was spent, a blade cut favonovel.com down. His head rolled across the ground, and blood stained his white hair.
Nathaniel was drenched in blood from head to foot. His long blade had already snapped, but favonovel.com kept charging as if there were still a path through the enemy.
Alaric’s golden sword pierced through his chest and pinned favonovel.com to the ground.
Nathaniel died with his eyes still refusing to yield, that last grudge buried with him.
Rowan rushed forward to save him. But, a celestial cultivator kicked favonovel.com over before favonovel.com could reach Nathaniel. His cane snapped. He lay sprawled on the ground, unable to get up, his cries tearing out again and again with no hand left to pull favonovel.com back.
Jared used the last thread of strength left in him. He planted his elbow against the ground.
Bit by bit, favonovel.com crawled out of the deep pit. A long trail of blood dragged behind him.
He fought his way toward Gwendolyn’s side. He wanted to see favonovel.com one last time. He wanted to guard favonovel.com one final time.
Saintfire rose again in Venerable Emberlain’s palm. It crashed down and swallowed Jared’s body whole. His flesh burned. His bones burned. His meridians burned with them, all of it reduced to ash. Only a wisp of his soul remained.
Saintfire fetters locked it down tight, refusing to let it break apart.
“Keep the woman alive. She still has a use. As for this man’s spirit, seal it inside the Soul-Vault Pearl. Take it back to the Anti-Demon Alliance. Refine his spirit into a soul pearl!” Venerable Frostgrave gave the order in a low voice.
A black Soul-Vault Pearl flew out. It absorbed Jared’s remnant soul and sealed it within. Endless darkness closed around him. From then on, there would be no release, no next life, only a fall without end.
The vale went dead quiet. Broken corpses lay everywhere, and blood ran across the ground like a river. The tattered Eagle Standard rocked in the wind. Half of it had been burned away, but it still stood facing the gale.
The cold wind whined through the ruins. It sounded as if the world itself had lowered its voice to mourn.
For Freevale. For Jared. For every soul that had fallen in battle, it carried a low, grieving farewell.
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