A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5863

After leaving the Mystic Sky Sword Sect, Jared and the Vermilion Demon Lord veered off the main trail, slipping into a lonely ravine shrouded by cliffs and night-black pines.

"Senior, if you are ready, I'll tear open the gate to level eleven."

Vermilion nodded, voice low and rough. "Do it. But remember—level eleven is no tame cousin of level ten. More predators, harsher lands. We move with caution, or we do not move at all."

Jared said nothing more. He pressed his palms together, fingers flickering through seals that glimmered like threads of pale lightning. The mixed blessing of chaotic celestial essence inside him stirred, embracing every law it touched. His brief sojourn within Maxwell's void corridor had gifted him a taste of space itself, and now that insight flowed through his veins.

Jared thrust both arms forward, muscles taut beneath travel-stained sleeves, and roared, "Open!"

Space answered with a scream of tearing silk. A rift blossomed in the air before them, a curtain of night pierced by drifting pinpricks of starlight. Winds born of nowhere howled inside, shards of chaotic void swirling, yet the passage clung to a fragile stability.

Jared was first to leap into the breach. "Go!"

Vermilion slid in behind him, and the wound in the world sewed itself shut, leaving the valley silent and unmarked. Within the corridor, darkness did not reign. Holographic shards of distant realms drifted past like lanterns—oceans upside-down, burning deserts, temple spires floating in violet sky. Then the pressure came—an invisible vice crushing from every direction. Any traveler below the Heavenly Immortal Realm would have been pulped in a heartbeat. Jared expanded a shell of chaotic essence, its milky whirlpool embracing Vermilion as well. Shimmering within that cocoon, they sliced through the corridor at breakneck speed.

After what felt like half a day—though time here was a fickle thing—a silver gleam blossomed ahead.

Jared's eyes lit. "We're through!"

A whipcrack of displaced air-and they tumbled out of the tunnel, boots skidding across a barren expanse of rust-colored gravel. Behind them, the breach winked out like a candle, as though it had never been.

Vermilion surveyed the wasteland, crimson eyes narrowing. "So this is level eleven."

An immeasurable brown desert stretched to every horizon; above it hung three suns of uneven size, each flinging spears of white-hot light across the cracked ground. The air was oven-dry, a punishing furnace that stood in cruel contrast to the Eternal Icefield Jared had trekked not long ago. Spiritual energy here was richer by several orders, but it roiled with untamed currents—fire, wind, lightning, and things unnamed wrestling beneath the surface.

Jared drew a slow breath, tasting heat and power. "Abundant—yet volatile. Every mouthful could as easily nourish you as tear you apart."

Testing the ground, he felt how this realm's fabric was denser; gravity tugged at his boots like hidden anchors.

He lifted off, but the air resisted. His speed dropped nearly a third, and the drain on his essence spiked accordingly.

Vermilion landed beside him, cloak whipping in the thermal wind. "Seems our strength will be throttled here."

Jared gave a short nod. "True, but the density will also fuel faster cultivation. First, let's find inhabitants—information is worth more than spirit crystals."

The two figures lifted off the scorched plateau, riding narrow ribbons of air that spiraled beneath their boots like quicksilver banners. For almost two hours, they cut across a pale sky. At last, a splash of emerald glimmered ahead—an oasis whose palm crowns cradled ghost-gray silhouettes of walls and roofs.

"There—a town."

Jared's eyes flashed with restless excitement. He banked toward the green smear, and Vermilion swept after him, scarlet mantle cracking in the desert wind. With every heartbeat, the mirage sharpened, trading watery haze for the hard outlines of rampart and tower.

The settlement curled around the water in a rough crescent, modest yet sound—large enough, Jared guessed, to shelter several tens of thousands.

Its walls, built from locally quarried brown stone, stood nearly thirty yards high. Beneath the sun-bleached gate, uniformed sentries kept silent watch.

Jared stifled his aura and, with Vermilion beside him, touched down before the gate.

Four guards waited in identical gray tunics, each chest stitched with a single sand-brown sigil.

Their cultivation hovered around Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Three.

A respectable level—nothing lethal, Jared decided, feeling the knot between his shoulders ease. So the famed level eleven isn't wall-to-wall monsters after all.

Here on the frontier, a Level Three or Level Four Heavenly Immortal already counted as the backbone of the garrison.

So—Level Four or Level Five is average; Level Six counts as elite.

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