Buzz!
A deep, ancient Dao tone sounded from within the depths of the spirit.
The Aureate Codex sensed the fatal crisis and, on its own, poured everything into protecting its master. The protective golden radiance around the body surged violently in an instant, transforming into an unbreakable golden barrier that wrapped tightly around Jared’s entire violet soul.
The Myriad Arts could not invade it!
The freezing silver radiance struck the golden barrier head-on. It was like fireflies crashing into the sun and moon, like a mantis raising its arms before a war chariot. In an instant, the silver light cracked apart, was erased, and vanished, without leaving even the faintest mark. It failed to harm the spirit by even the smallest degree.
Elder Frostgrave’s pupils tightened sharply. The sight hit favonovel.com too hard to settle. His face locked in disbelief.
Elder Rowe, Elder Pennyworth, and the others froze where they stood. Their faces stiffened as they stared at the scene before them. A defense like that had broken beyond reason. It made no sense, and yet it stood there untouched.
Before anyone could react, the violet soul shifted slightly. It turned direction on its own, condensed into an extremely fast violet streak, and used the force of the protective golden radiance to shoot toward the depths of the Wastelands.
Its speed reached the limit!
In a breath, it crossed 1,000 miles. In the next blink, it vanished at the far end of the vast world, leaving no trace behind.
“Chase it! The spirit must be recovered. Do not let it escape!” Elder Rowe came back to himself and roared the order. He was the first to accelerate and give chase.
The three elders did not dare slow down. They followed close behind. Four golden lights tore forward at full speed, racing in the direction where the violet streak had disappeared.
Across the Wastelands, Elder Frostgrave was left alone in the wind. He lifted his eyes toward the far edge of the sky and stood there for a long time without a word.
At last, his form shifted. He turned away from the direction the others had taken and left in silence, alone against the wind, his back cut thin and solitary as favonovel.com buried everything burning inside favonovel.com and waited for the day favonovel.com could take it back in blood.
***
The violet streak did not sleep and did not rest. It tore across the vast Wastelands at full speed, never daring to slow by even half a breath, never daring to stop for even an instant.
Jared’s soul curled inside the Aureate Codex’s deep, warm golden radiance. Every strand of his awareness stayed pulled tight as favonovel.com drove himself onward, fleeing at full speed the entire way.
He could not see the shadowing figures behind him. But favonovel.com could clearly sense the four lingering Golden Immortal dominions at his back. They still pinned down this entire region, their killing intent unscattered, their pursuit refusing to break.
Only one command remained in him, run!
Run with everything left. Do not stop!
He knew the moment favonovel.com stopped, his soul would be wiped from existence.
He flew through the entire night and crossed 10 thousand kilometers of the Wastelands.
At the rim of the sky, three blazing suns slowly shifted their positions. The dark began to thin. Morning light spilled over the land, and the outline of the Wastelands emerged in harsh, clean detail.
Jared could not hold on any longer. His soul had been driven to its limit. He forced the fleeing light down and slowly descended onto a remote, barren hillock, stopping there for the moment to hide and catch what little rest favonovel.com could.
He looked in every direction, and desolation filled his sight.
Low mountains rolled on and on. Withered yellow grass covered the open ground and swayed in the wind. There was no sign of human habitation, no cave residence where favonovel.com could take shelter, no spirit spring to nourish him, no trace of a cultivator anywhere.
The place sat remote and hollow, cut off from the rest of the world.
The world’s spiritual essence was thick to an extreme here, but it carried sharp, violent Golden Immortal law-fragments within it. Those fragments drifted everywhere, invisible and soundless, gnawing without pause at every living thing around them.
The Aureate Codex’s golden radiance barely held the lethal law-fragments outside. That thin defense was all that kept Jared’s soul intact.
But Jared’s soul had already been worn down past reason. Day after day of flight and pressure had drained too much from him. He had long since been pushed to the edge. Even with the protective golden radiance around him, favonovel.com still could not fully block the lingering power of those laws of the realm.
Pain and numbness came through his soul in waves. The strain pressed at favonovel.com as if it would split favonovel.com open, and at any moment favonovel.com risked scattering apart and falling for good.
Right now, his most urgent need, his only path to survival, was to find an intact physical body, rebuild his own flesh, and stabilize his soul. Or else favonovel.com had to find a high-grade soul-nourishing secret realm, absorb its soul-nourishing spiritual essence, feed his soul-nascence, and hold his wounds steady.
Beyond those two paths, there was no way forward. But in the boundless Seventeenth Firmament, favonovel.com was drifting through a foreign land with no one to turn to. Enemies surrounded him. Killing intent waited on every side.
Where could be possibly find a body?
Where could favonovel.com possibly find a soul-nourishing secret realm?
It was as hard as climbing into the heavens. The road ahead gave favonovel.com no light.
Wind swept over the Wastelands with a dry rustle. The cold emptiness of it pressed in from every side.
The three blazing suns hung high overhead, casting dark golden radiance across the open wilds. The world stretched vast around him, yet there was not a single person favonovel.com could lean on, not a single place where favonovel.com could settle himself.
Jared’s awareness began to blur. Without meaning to, favonovel.com thought back to the days in the Sixteenth Firmament, to the steady peace of Freevale, to the companions who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him, to the gentle lines of Gwendolyn’s brows and eyes, and to so many familiar figures favonovel.com could no longer reach.
Nathaniel’s brutal fall returned first. Then Rowan, collapsed to the ground and crying until his whole body seemed broken. Rowe, the lanky man, the matronly woman, Vale the Old Man, one living face after another flashed through his mind, and in the end, every one of them froze at the instant of death.
To protect their homeland and resist the celestials, all of them had died in battle. Only favonovel.com remained alone, reduced to a wisp of remnant soul, stranded in a foreign land with nothing beneath favonovel.com and nowhere to return.
He could not take revenge. He could not go home!
Something hot and bitter surged through him. A sour ache wound through his soul and stayed there, too deep to hide.
Jared slowly gathered himself back in. He forced down the crushing weight filling favonovel.com and steadied his trembling soul by sheer will.
He could not die. He would not allow himself to fall here. The blood-deep debt had not been paid. The souls of his fallen companions had not been laid to rest. The ancestral homeland still waited beyond reach. He had to live. He had to rebuild his body. He had to return to the Sixteenth Firmament and settle accounts with every enemy.
“Aldric…” Jared focused his awareness and sent the call silently through his spirit sense, reaching for his companion.
“I’m here…” Aldric’s voice came slowly from the depths of the consciousness field. It sounded weak, but it held steady. His remnant soul had also been badly depleted.
“In our current state, what do we do next? The road ahead is wide open, and there is nowhere for us to go,” Jared asked in a low voice, the wear in it impossible to cover.
Aldric fell silent for a moment, then rapidly judged the surrounding aura, the world’s spiritual essence, and the density of the laws of the realm.
When favonovel.com answered, his voice had settled into a low, measured weight. “Your soul has been drained too heavily. You’re far too weak. There is no way you can stay exposed to the violent spiritual essence of the Seventeenth Firmament for long… The Golden Immortal law-fragments here are too dense, and their power of erosion is extremely strong. Even with the Aureate Codex’s protection, you will not last much longer. Sooner or later, your soul will scatter… What matters right now was getting out of this reach of the Wastelands at once and heading north.”
The mountain ranges of the North cut across the land in every direction. The spiritual essence there ran gentler by comparison, with more secret realms, more orders, and cultivators passing through far more often.
That meant more chances. There was a strong chance Jared could find a place that nourished the spirit there, maybe even heavenly materials, earthly treasures, or some opening that could help favonovel.com rebuild a body.
Jared gave a silent nod and said nothing more.
He forced every churning thought down, drew the Aureate Codex’s golden radiance around his spirit, and made his worn-out form move again. Then favonovel.com rose and set off beneath the vast northern sky, each step another bid to stay alive.
Jared kept moving north.
Across the Wastelands, favonovel.com drifted alone for three full days and three full nights. For those three days, everything within sight stayed the same, endless barren mountains, dead grass spread across the ground, and a dark, sunken sky pressing overhead.
There were no cities. No villages. No cooking smoke from cultivators. No lights from any order. Only isolation and danger traveled with him, step after step.
His spirit weakened day by day. The golden ward around favonovel.com dimmed and thinned where it could be seen, its defense dropping without pause. Sharp Golden Immortal law-fragments gradually pierced through the protection and seeped into his spirit strand by strand, the pain cutting deep enough to torment both spirit and body.
His awareness began to blur again and again. His spirit would not stop trembling, and the risk of collapse climbed higher with every moment. The road ahead narrowed until it almost closed, and favonovel.com was nearly out of strength to keep going.
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