A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6469

The mist over the northern region of the Seventeenth Firmament had not yet cleared when Morgana personally led Jared and Master Wellspring onward. With morning dew underfoot, the three of them went straight for the deepest reaches of Beastmoor Ridge, toward the entrance to the Elder Soulborn Forest.

Along the way, countless beasts lay low, and spirit birds folded their wings tight. An ancient, strange spirit aura filled the air, heavy enough that even Master Wellspring, a Level Three Golden Immortal adept, kept his face set and did not dare let down his guard for even a moment.

The entrance to the Elder Soulborn Forest lay hidden in a gorge in the heartland of Beastmoor Ridge. It was no ordinary road in, but a massive stone door that had stood there for a thousand years.

The stone door rose about 10 yards high and stretched 5 yards wide. Its entire body had been built from some unknown black stone, its surface smooth as a mirror, yet carved all over with dense Elder Soulborn runes.

Those runes twisted and wound across the stone like rushing rivers, and also like spirit serpents coiling over one another. In the dim gorge, they flickered with a faint blue glow, carrying an ancient authority and a strange chill, as if they were silently warning every intruder that danger waited everywhere beyond this point.

Beneath the stone door stood two beast-folk adepts in black beast armor. Their bodies were straight as pines, their faces set in cold severity, and the aura gathered around them was dense and controlled; both possessed True Immortal Realm Level Nine cultivation.

Each guard gripped a pitch-black spear. The spearheads gleamed with a cold, severe light as they held the threshold of the Elder Soulborn Gate, not even blinking, like two stone statues stripped of all softness.

Morgana did not slow down. She walked to the stone door, swept her gaze over the two guards, and spoke in a flat voice that allowed no refusal. "Open."

The moment her word fell, the two beast-race guards showed not the slightest hesitation. At the same time, they drove their spears hard into the grooves set in the ground, and spiritual power surged violently around them, pouring without pause into the slots.

In that instant, the elder runes on the stone door seemed to wake. Blue light flared, at first only as faint motes of light, then brighter and brighter until it stabbed at the eyes. The blue radiance wove through itself, forming a huge net of light that covered the entire stone door.

"With a deep rumble of stone, the door slowly opened inward. From the widening crack rushed a darkness and spirit aura so thick it seemed to hit them in the face.

Inside, there was no ground and no sky. There was only endless black, like an abyss that swallowed everything."

In that darkness, narrow paths could barely be seen crossing and weaving through one another. They twisted like a labyrinth, leading into unknown depths, with no end in sight and no way to know how many killing traps lay hidden inside.

Morgana's voice came from behind him, carrying both warning and scrutiny. "The First Trial is the Elder Soulborn Labyrinth. This labyrinth is no ordinary maze of paths. Inside, it is filled with Elder Soulborn wards and illusion arrays.

"Touch a ward, and it will injure you. An illusion array can mislead your spirit, twist your senses, make you lose your direction, and finally trap you inside the labyrinth until your spirit is eaten away bit by bit.

"Only by holding fast to your true self, seeing through the illusion array, and finding the real exit can you enter the Second Trial. Remember this: when the heart falls into disorder, the spirit follows. Once the spirit falls into disorder, death is certain."

Jared's violet soul trembled slightly. He had no extra words to waste. At this moment, empty talk meant nothing; only by passing the trial could he obtain the Elderheart Soulwood, rebuild his body, and settle the hatred carved into him.

After the briefest hesitation, he became a condensed violet streak and rushed into the stone door without looking back. In the next instant, endless darkness swallowed him whole.

"Everything around him dropped into dead silence in an instant.

There was no wind. No light, no shadow. He could not even catch hold of his own existence. Only endless darkness remained, closing around him like a tide, pressing down until his spirit turned faintly heavy."

"Jared's soul hung suspended in the void.

The Aureate Codex's gentle golden radiance lit on its own, barely pushing back the darkness within 3 feet of him. In all that black, it became the only light. It also became the only thing he could rely on."

"He pulled himself together, drove his spirit forward, and tried to fly ahead.

But after only several dozen yards, the narrow path before him split sharply into three. Each road looked exactly the same. Each one led into bottomless darkness. There were no markings, no differences at all, as if the labyrinth itself were mocking how little he knew and how small he was inside it."

"Jared did not choose blindly.

He gathered his focus, kept his spirit still, and urged the Aureate Codex's golden radiance outward, trying to probe the aura of the three paths."

"But the moment the golden radiance stretched out, an unseen force inside the darkness blocked it.

It could not sense even the smallest trace."

"With no other way forward, he could only trust his instinct.

He chose the path on the far left, turned into the violet gleam, and shot down it at full speed."

"He had flown less than 100 yards when a pitch-black stone wall suddenly appeared ahead.

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