A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6053

"Nether City was founded three thousand years ago, during the celestials’ Great Purge." Morvane spoke while leading them forward, his voice a calm thread stitching past tragedy to present survival.

Footsteps rang lightly on the obsidian street as Morvane guided them forward.

The faint sheen on his black armor caught the blue lantern glow, yet his voice carried the dust of old wounds.

"Back then," he said, each word measured, "our Ghost Clan was almost wiped out.

Only a handful slipped deep underground and stumbled upon this natural pocket of nether aura. That lonely refuge kept the bloodline breathing."

Jared caught the tremor beneath the calm statement and pictured survivors hauling their injured through endless tunnels, the air growing colder with every yard.

The thought tightened his chest before the next step pushed it aside.

"For three thousand years," Morvane went on, breath fogging in the chill, "we have lived here, too afraid to risk the surface even for a moment of sunlight."

The admission landed heavier than the clank of his greaves. Jared tasted iron on the back of his tongue, sensing how long a single decision to hide could stretch across generations.

"Now and then we sent scouts upward," Morvane added. His words slowed as though he felt those losses returning.

"They always returned with the same story—the celestials tighten their grip, city after city nailed under divine banners. After a while, hope itself stopped coming home."

Jared pictured unseen messengers slipping away and never reappearing, each absence another brick in a wall of despair.

The commander’s gaze shifted to Luther. Behind the bone visor, a flicker of dawning faith sparked.

"Yet the surface still carried your branch, and it carried the Ghost King Token with you. Perhaps the Sovereign of the Netherworld has decided our clan should walk beneath open sky again."

Luther’s shoulders sagged beneath both chains of expectation and the tremor of his wounds.

Luther managed a rueful smile that broke at the edges. "My line is down to me alone. Without Jared standing beside me, the celestials would have finished that tally weeks ago."

Jared felt the weight of the older man’s gratitude settle on him like a cloak he had never asked to wear.

Morvane faced Jared squarely. His gauntlets rasped as he pressed one fist to the other.

"Thank you for saving a clansman’s life. Our Ghost Clan may be bruised, but we still repay debt. Whatever you require, Nether City will try its utmost."

The formal promise hummed between them like a drawn bowstring.

Jared shook his head. Chain scars still throbbed beneath his sleeves, yet his answer came steady.

"There’s no need for thanks. The celestials and I have blood to settle as well. Helping Luther was simply on the way to that reckoning."

The words tasted plain, but a faint relief crossed Morvane’s storm-blue eyes.

Conversation carried them to the heart of the city, where the streets widened into a silent plaza.

Their steps slowed at the foot of a colossal structure, shadows climbing its angled sides like restless spirits.

Before them rose a pyramid-shaped temple forged from midnight stone, its peak stabbing nearly 1,090 ft into the dim vault overhead.

Two statues of the Sovereign of the Netherworld—each with three heads and six arms—guarded the entrance, their stone eyes drilling into every approaching soul.

The sheer scale pressed on Jared’s lungs, as if the building itself judged his worth.

"This is Nether Hall," Morvane said, the low timbre of pride threading through fatigue.

"Great Elder waits inside." He gestured toward the shadowed doorway where cold torches hissed with ghost-blue halos.

Crossing the threshold, Jared felt space open like a lung.

The interior dwarfed the exterior shell, aisles stretching wider than any mortal cathedral he had seen.

Echoes of their footsteps vanished into unseen heights.

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