A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6052

"Who dares intrude upon Nether City?" a voice snapped, colder than the chains.

The speaker remained hidden, words spilling out of the surrounding dark like knives.

Three figures stepped forward. The one in front towered above mortal height, clad in black war armor and a helm made from bleached bone.

Only twin eyes shone through the visor, burning blue. The pressure rolling off him marked an Upper Immortal, sixth grade.

Behind him waited two fully armed ghost guards, bone spears in hand, their strength hovering around Upper Immortal fourth grade.

Jared coughed, a raw scrape in his throat betraying the chain’s bite.

Forcing steadiness, he said, "We didn’t trespass. We seek Ghost Clan kin. The man beside me is your blood, and he needs nether aura to heal."

The bone-helmed ghost captain let the single word hover between them.

"Clansmen?" His voice slid over the syllable, dry and edged. The echo crawled down the polished tunnel walls.

Chains rasped against Jared’s armor. The sound reminded him the power to tighten those links still lay with the speaker.

A thin laugh escaped the captain, metal plates tapping against one another.

"The Ghost Clan topside died off a thousand years ago when the celestials butchered them to the last." The words flowed like poison. "So tell me, how could any survive? You two are clearly infiltrators the celestials groomed and pushed toward our gate."

Luther’s answer broke apart as soon as it formed.

"N-no… not…" The wheeze rattled out of his throat. Every breath scraped, yet his eyes refused to drop. A faint shimmer of nether aura clung to his lips, proving stubborn life still flickered inside that battered body.

He forced the next claim out, each syllable trembling.

"I am Ghost Clan… of the Ming bloodline… ninety-seventh heir." The title sounded both weighty and fragile the way it passed over his cracked lips. Even so, the statement held a stern spine the chains could not bend.

From deep inside his chest, pure nether aura surged. The vapor spilled through the shackles in curling threads, merged with the dungeon air, then rippled along the carved stones.

Nearby buttresses answered with a soft hum, as though the architecture itself recognized a lost heartbeat.

All three ghost soldiers stiffened.

Helm crests stopped swaying; spear hafts dipped an inch. An instant earlier they looked carved from threat. Now uncertainty feathered their stances while their eyes tracked the drifting aura that refused to lie.

The captain’s gaze narrowed, inner light flickering behind the bone visor.

"Nether aura can’t be forged," he conceded. "Yet puppets can be. Prove you aren’t a husk the celestials hollowed out and filled with commands." His tone made the test sound routine, lethal, necessary.

Luther swallowed brokenly. "I possess… a fragment of the Ghost King Token."

The promise in that single relic outweighed the tremor in his voice. Hope and risk twisted together, each daring the other to blink first.

Fingers shaking, he dug beneath scorched robes and produced a pitch-black token shard.

The piece looked unimpressive—no larger than a child’s palm—yet the moment it cleared the fabric, the lantern-blue glow in the tunnel guttered as if yielding to an elder presence.

The temperature plunged. Nether aura all around them roared like an awakened tide.

Invisible currents slammed outward, rattling chain links and rippling torchfire. For a breath, every particle of darkness seemed to bend toward that shard.

Streams of ghostly light arrowed in from every archway. They swirled about the fragment, knitting themselves into flickering sigils—ancient Ghost Clan script that hovered, billowed, died, then birthed anew in an unending ring of acknowledgment.

"It’s the Ghost King Token!" one guard blurted.

His voice cracked, spear lowering a fraction as instinctive reverence overruled training. Awe replaced suspicion in the whites of his eyes.

The captain snapped his hand forward. The shard launched from Luther’s numb fingers into his plated palm.

He inspected its jagged edges, the way faint glyphs crawled across the surface, and let a hush stretch thin.

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