A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5939

Back at Malevolent Path Hall's headquarters, Malcolm stood before the Door of Reincarnation with his hands clasped behind his back. The door's bone-white surface writhed with living runes, each glyph squirming like a trapped centipede under his pallid gaze.

Behind him, a black-robed elder knelt, forehead pressed to cold stone.

"Spread the word. Anyone in level twelve who bends the knee to Malevolent Path Hall shall be spared—and we will grant them the blessing of eternal life through the Door of Reincarnation," Malcolm ordered, his voice rattling like gravel across frost, yet every syllable rang with a promise both terrible and seductive.

Now that Jared had joined forces with the three great sects against the Malevolent Path Hall, Malcolm knew he could not afford to be careless.

After all, those three sects were powerful, and Jared even had Gerald by his side.

"At once!" the black-robed elder replied and swiftly vanished into the corridors' gloom.

The summons flew on black wings. Within hours, the rumor of immortality blazed across every sky-bridge and market square of level twelve

Soon, rivers of cultivators were pouring toward Malevolent Path Hall's fortress like moths to flame.

The black-robed elder returned, trembling with barely contained excitement.

"Mr. Vayne, three days have passed since the news went out. Over thirty-seven sects and nearly a hundred wandering cultivators have pledged their allegiance. Among them, eleven are old elites at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine or higher."

A thin smile cracked Malcolm's lips.

"Immortality... Resurrection... They make for such exquisite bait," he said as he stroked the door's skeletal frame, and the runes quivered as though savoring his touch. "What do these old cultivators fear the most? It's neither defeat nor disgrace. They fear the dark beyond breath. They crave time—time to mend mistakes that gnaw at their hearts."

"Indeed," the black-robed elder replied. "And now, we have given them hope. Even if the hope is false, they would still stake everything on it. Such is human nature."

Malcolm glanced toward the courtyard, where hundreds of auras jostled in restless devotion. "Bring in the first flock. Let them witness a miracle with their own eyes."

"Yes, Mr. Vayne!"

***

Beyond the fortress walls, a wasteland once stripped bare of life now roared like a carnival. Scholars in tattered robes, warriors whose beards were older than kingdoms, mothers clutching cracked memorial tablets—all pressed forward until the crowd became a single heaving creature.

Every face tilted toward the gray-white pillar soaring from the plains, and in every eye burned the same desperate fever.

"That Door of Reincarnation—tell me, can it truly bring my son back?" a woman asked, voice raw, knuckles white on the splintered memorial tablet she hugged to her chest.

"Lorian, you have lingered on this earth for forty-eight thousand years," a gaunt elder uttered to his friend, voice thin yet sharp. "Your final grains of life are sliding away—why not stake everything on one last roll of the dice? Malevolent Path Hall has sworn it—render distinguished service, and the Door of Reincarnation will open to you. Step through, and you may claim eternity. I have cultivated for fifty thousand years, yet I've been stuck at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine for twenty thousand of them. Breaking through seems impossible, and I have less than a hundred years of life left..."

The man called Lorian wavered for a moment, then his hesitation turned to iron resolve. "Okay, okay! That's enough. I guess it's better to gamble everything than to vanish into nothingness!"

Scenes like theirs echoed everywhere, one fevered negotiation after another rippling through the crowd.

A deep bronze bell tolled from the direction of the Malevolent Path Hall, its single note stretching like a chain across the plains.

"The hour has come—followers, enter the hall and witness the miracle of rebirth!"

Hundreds of Soul Hunters in sable robes marched from a pillar of ashen light, lining themselves into two silent phalanxes that formed a corridor toward the hall's shadowy heart.

The supplicants arranged themselves by cultivation levels like students before an exam, then stepped into the passage one by one.

At the far end, Malcolm lounged on a throne of interlocking bones, the Soul-Devouring Puppet standing beside him, its eyes vacant, posture perfectly still.

The first to be ushered forward were three decrepit titans of cultivation, each trapped at the precipice of Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine, each hearing death's breath in his ear.

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