A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5944

Jared felt the sun still high but losing its warmth when his inner clock marked three quarters past noon.

A tremor shivered up the mountain. Far below, the first ranks of Malevolent Path Hall spilled into view, their banners a dark bruise against the valley floor.

The column thickened until it looked like locusts devouring the land. Wherever the mass rolled, grass browned, saplings folded, and every rabbit-trail went silent, as though life itself hurried out of their path.

Rotting breath rose from the army, a swirl of grievance, death, and raw demonic hunger. The fumes smeared the sky into a greasy gray, closing over the peaks like a lid on a coffin.

At the very front drifted the Soul-Devouring Puppet. Its chalk-pale eyes moved without hurry, raking across the range. When the gaze slid over Jared’s ridge, cold pinpricks needled his skin, as if the thing had tasted him already.

Behind the construct, three thousand Soul Hunters locked arms into the Soul-Seizing Grand Array. Gray-white currents surged between them, tides of starved spirits seeking flesh. The chorus of distant wails gnawed at Jared’s ear even this high up.

To the left, Morven lounged inside a black war-chariot dragged by nine horned dragon corpses. Three Ghost Kings and nine Grand Nether Envoys flanked him, while disciples of the Ninefold Nether Palace knotted into the Nether Styx Formation.

Each gust from that quarter carried a hundred different screams.

On the right, a ragged coalition pressed forward—sects that had bartered conscience for favor. Among them stalked the Witherbone Demon and Great Elder Bloodsea, plus three other reclusive fiends. Their auras flashed like blades, honed by whatever bounty the Lord of Reincarnation had granted.

Dead center, Malcolm reclined upon a throne of fused bones borne by pallid porters. Nine Elders orbited him like slow moons, their breaths curling in patterns Jared could not quite read yet felt compelled to distrust.

Malcolm rolled an ashen bone pearl between his fingers. Each turn of the bead left frost on the air. The man’s eyes glittered—two chips of winter—never once blinking.

“Jared, come out and answer!”

The shout cracked off every slope, filled every ravine, until even the smaller birds hiding in stone crevices burst free in panic.

Jared stepped from Gold Peak’s summit and let the wind lift his coat. Gerald, the Vermilion Demon Lord, Blaine, Oswald, and Aurelian fanned out behind him, an uneven crescent that still felt solid under his spine.

Two armies faced each other now. The collective intent of thousands pressed upward, a spear aimed straight at the clouds. Jared’s lungs tasted iron.

He projected his voice, not raising it, merely letting it ride the mountain air. “Malcolm, you swayed the weak with lies, fed the Door of Reincarnation with innocent souls. Your ledger overflows. Heaven itself recoils.”

A pause, small yet absolute.

“Today is the day that debt comes due."

Malcolm threw his head back and laughed. The sound rolled like boulders down a gorge. “Child, you dare lecture me on heaven? The Lord of Reincarnation has granted revelation. Tens of thousands under my banner have broken their shackles. That, boy, is destiny. Stand against it, and you court annihilation.”

His gaze swept the range. “Five-Element Sect, Heavenly Sword Pavilion, Myriad Beast Valley—one last chance. Surrender now, hand over Jared, and the Lord may overlook past errors, may even grant you a taste of eternity. Persist…”

He let the threat hang for a breath, then finished, every syllable iced and sharp. “After today, not even your hounds will survive.”

A hush settled, too thick even for wind.

Aurelian’s shoulders began to shake. At first Jared thought it fear, then the older man’s laughter broke loose, rough and rising.

“Morven!” Aurelian called across the no-man’s-land, voice booming. “Hear that? Your master wants new pets. Should I beg for a collar, or will you fetch it over personally?”

Morven’s obsidian pupils flashed murder before his face smoothed to granite. “Aurelian, the Lord’s might lies beyond your comprehension. Spend what breath you have left in prayer.”

Aurelian barked a single word back, tasting it like wine. “Might?”

"Come on out, coward behind the door! If you have a spine, face me with real steel!"

Heat pooled in Blaine's chest as he hurled the words; the sharp taste of iron rode his breath, daring the hidden foe to flinch.

Oswald did not bother to answer.

His fingers slid across the worn leather grip, and the muted scrape of metal left Blaine's skin prickling.

Only three inches of the blade showed, yet a chill wind leapt from it and clawed upward into the night sky.

Blaine let out a low laugh. "So that's your answer. You're all in a hurry to die."

The promise of combat spread through his veins like hot liquor, steadying his pulse instead of racing it.

Malcolm rose with deliberate ease, dust rolling from his cloak.

When the man's gray eyes found Blaine, they gleamed like stones that had never known light. "Then we kill."

"Kill!"

The single word ripped from a hundred throats at once, a pressure wave that slapped Blaine's eardrums.

The hillside itself seemed to roar back, echo stacked upon echo until sound became a solid wall.

Metal shrieked, soil burst, and the night cracked open—battle was no longer a threat but a fact.

Blaine moved first because waiting tasted like rust.

He flung an arm toward the valley mouth where his beasts seethed behind the tree line.

The forces braided midair into a tri-colored pillar that slammed into the Soul Hunter core.

"Boom!"

Light blinded, heat peeled away the night, and for one stolen second even the wind forgot to move.

Where the pillar passed, banners burst like overripe fruit; dozens of armored figures evaporated, leaving only steaming footprints on blackened soil.

The Puppet shifted first, a subtle stiffening of its ash-colored frame that made the battlefield hush inside Blaine’s chest, as if the coming strike had already stolen the air.

Gray-white eyes fixed on the Three-Headed Flame Lion King, and its spear flickered—one heartbeat it trembled in the Puppet’s grip, the next it was a streak aimed dead at the creature’s central brow.

"Your fight is with me!"

He launched upward, muscles screaming, and the moment his boots left the earth a slab-sized battle-axe of bleached beastbone flooded his grip, heavier than memory yet perfectly known.

Blaine met the incoming spear with a downward cleave.

Clang!

The collision rang like iron gods arguing, the shock ripping open the flesh between his thumb and forefinger and flinging him backward through brittle rock.

He slammed into a cliff face; half the wall caved before spitting him out in a cloud of dust and stone needles.

Pain blazed clear and wet, but he rolled to his feet, spat blood, and felt a grin he could not stop stretching across his bruised mouth.

"Top Level High Immortal Realm, first grade—good," he panted, wiping the red smear from his jaw; the words tasted of copper and satisfaction.

Without waiting for the ache in his hands to settle, he hurled himself back at the Puppet, axe sweeping wide, sparks already screaming in the air between them.

All around, the beast tide crashed against the Soul Hunters in a roar so constant it felt like the sky had turned to teeth.

Across the battlefield’s boiling haze, Oswald rose into open air, boots never touching the dust, his iron sword sliding free of its scabbard with a deliberate hiss.

"Heavenly Sword Pavilion disciples," his voice cut through thunder, "form the Nine Heavens Sword Array—slay the devils!"

"At once!" Nine hundred throats answered as one.

Their swords lifted, points tilting toward the storm-shredded clouds like a forest of steel yearning for lightning.