A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6546

"This time, three."

Jared drew the Dragonslayer Sword.

Violet chaos-flame rolled slowly along the blade, warping the air around it with heat.

"Last time it was two. This time it's three." Gwendolyn drew her longsword too, cold silver light flashing hard along the blade. "The celestials really do get more generous every time."

"Not generous. Arrogant."

Jared's gaze passed over the golden motes racing closer and settled on a patch of warped space even farther off.

The spiritual essence there moved differently from everything around it, faintly twisting into a half-transparent vortex.

At the center, something flickered with a weak golden glow.

"Someone's watching us from over there,"

he said quietly. "Not very strong. Golden Immortal Level Three. But she's carrying some kind of arcane implement that blocks spirit sense. She's not one of the celestials, and she's not from the Aureate Way either."

Gwendolyn followed his line of sight and saw nothing.

Still, she trusted Jared's judgment.

"Do we deal with her?"

"Not yet." Jared pulled his gaze back and locked onto the golden motes that had already closed to within 300 miles. "Let's deal with these first."

300 miles.

200 miles.

100 miles.

The golden motes swelled, sharpened, resolved.

Three figures in front. Thirty smaller ones behind. Every one of them burned with golden saintlight flame, like 33 fallen meteors tearing across the dark red wasteland.

The one in the lead dwarfed the others, built like a moving iron tower.

Saintlight flame had condensed over his body into solid armor, its surface flowing with dense war sigils.

He stopped 30 miles from Jared.

Behind him, the other 32 golden lights halted at the same instant, spreading into a fan-shaped battle formation that sealed off every route of retreat for Jared and Gwendolyn.

30 miles.

For Golden Immortal cultivators, that kind of distance was no different than standing face-to-face.

Emberbane looked down from above at the young man and woman standing on the dark red sand, a flash of contempt passing through his red-gold eyes.

True Immortal Realm Level Eight. True Immortal Realm Level Nine.

These two ants were the ones who had killed Elliot and cut off one of Hadrian Ember's arms?

"You're Jared?" His voice rolled across the wasteland like muffled thunder.

Jared lifted his head, and his violet eyes met Emberbane's red-gold stare.

He said nothing.

He only tipped his chin up a fraction, as if that alone was answer enough.

Garrick's brow tightened.

He'd seen plenty of arrogant young fools in his time.

He'd never seen one dare face him like this.

Even a Golden Immortal Level One showed him proper respect.

What gave a True Immortal Realm Level Eight whelp the right?

"The Court Master gave an order," Garrick said, impatience creeping into his voice. "Alive, we bring you in. Dead, we bring back your body. So what's it going to be? Do you come with us, or do we make you?"

Jared still didn't answer.

He simply brought the Dragonslayer Sword across his body.

The violet chaos-flame running along the blade surged higher in a violent rush, and every lick of it burned against the surrounding holy radiance with a savage hiss.

Garrick's pupils contracted.

He felt it instantly—that power utterly opposed to holy radiance.

Worse, it suppressed it.

Chaotic force.

Not a legend.

Not some crooked side path.

The real thing.

"Move!"

Garrick wasted no more words.

He shot forward, a war-glaive blazing with golden saintfire condensing in his hand as he moved, then brought it down on Jared with enough force to split a mountain in half.

Vaughn lunged in from the left at the same instant Silas struck from the right.

Vaughn wielded twin blades wreathed in dark red judgment flame—the Punishment Hall's torture fire, meant to burn not just flesh, but the soul itself.

The violet chaos-flame on the Dragonslayer Sword condensed into a sword energy nearly a hundred yards long.

Where it passed, the saintlight flame recoiled like it had met its natural predator, peeling away to both sides on its own.

Even the war sigils on Garrick's armor began to flicker wildly, as if they were warning their bearer that the threat in front of him had already exceeded what they could endure.

Gritting his teeth, Garrick drove every last surge of holy radiance out of his body.

The golden fire on his war-glaive flared upward and hardened into a hexagonal saintlight shield in front of him.

A phantom of the ancient Flame Deity surfaced on the shield.

Its eyes burned red, and when it opened its mouth, a torrent of golden divine fire poured out and fused into the shield itself.

This was the Flame Deity Branch's ultimate life-saving art, the Divine Fire Aegis.

Rumor said it could withstand even a full-force strike from a Golden Immortal Level Four.

But the instant Jared's sword energy slammed into the Divine Fire Aegis, the phantom of the ancient Flame Deity let out a shrill, miserable scream.

Before the chaos-flame, that golden divine fire met its natural bane and was devoured in a heartbeat.

The shield shattered.

The sword energy didn't slow.

It kept driving straight for Garrick's chest.

At the last possible instant, Vaughn's twin blades came slashing in from the side.

The dark-red judgment flame crashed against the violet sword energy with a harsh metallic screech.

At the same time, Silas's Spiritbreaker Stiletto slid toward the back of Jared's neck without a sound.

In the purple glare of the sword energy, its silver sheen was almost impossible to see.

Jared shifted just slightly.

The Spiritbreaker Stiletto skimmed past his ear, slicing away a single strand of black hair.

His left hand snapped out in a palm strike.

Chaotic force condensed into a fist-sized violet orb in his palm, then shot free and slammed into Silas's chest.

Silas grunted, and the blast hurled him hundreds of yards through the air.

He crashed into a heap of bones, kicking up a storm of bone ash and dark-red sand.

A fist-sized crater caved in his chest.

Golden blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, and the panoply over his torso had been blown completely apart, exposing flesh underneath that the chaotic force had burned black.