A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5158

On the left stood a hunched crone. Skeletal fingers, nails tinted a corpse-blue, slipped from the sleeves of her black robe; at her waist spun a rosary of soul orbs.

On the right loomed a swollen-faced old man, eyes rolled white, drool threading from the corner of his mouth. He gripped a chain-bound scythe wreathed in ghostly fire.

They were the Nether Duo whom Dioz had summoned in haste—Granny Deadclaw and Lord Drowned Souls.

“Grand Elder Dioz, what calamity drives you to such panic?” Granny Deadclaw’s voice screeched like nails skittering across a chalkboard.

A quick glance at the children’s ashes had irritation flickering in her eyes. “Had you not hauled us here, we’d be tempering a fresh vessel with the Hundred Ghosts Soul-Refining Art.”

Dioz jerked to his feet, sleeve trembling, and pointed at the dais where five extinguished lamps smoked faintly. “Ghostmask... all Five Wraiths are dead!”

Lord Drowned Souls’s cloudy eyes twitched; the scythe clanged to the floor. “Impossible! The Five Wraiths together, bolstered by that Ravenousor Wraith, could fell a Top Level Wandering Immortal. Who in the Third Heaven wields such power?”

“Soul lamps do not lie,” Dioz hissed, knuckles white around a clenched fist. “Worse—the token on Ghostmask’s body is missing. If it falls into outsider hands, every secret of our order—every shackle we wear—will be laid bare.”

The Nether Duo traded a glance, shared horror flashing between them.

Granny Deadclaw pinched her brittle fingers, divining unseen currents. Wrinkles deepened with each calculation. “Just before the soul lamps extinguished, the energy signature showed them near Bloodshadow Palace, colliding with a... peculiarly twisted force. Then nothing.”

“Bloodshadow Palace?” Dioz’s pupils shrank. “I know their strength. Since when do they harbor someone capable of killing the Five Wraiths?”

Lord Drowned Souls licked cracked lips. “Whoever it is, we must reclaim the token. Grand Elder Dioz, do you have any lead at all?”

“None.”

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