A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6551

The two of them went downstairs to check out.

The elderly cultivator behind the counter had been dozing, but the sound of their footsteps jolted him awake. The instant he saw Jared, he hurried to his feet, a smile spreading across his face.

"Leaving already, sir?"

"Mm."

Jared set the key to the room on the counter.

"If we head out by the north side of the city, is there anything on the road we should watch for?"

The elderly cultivator thought for a moment, then lowered his voice.

"If you leave by the north side and cut northeast, that’s the road into the Ashford Range. It hasn’t been peaceful lately. Quite a few people have been showing up around there. Be careful, sir. Don’t get involved in other people’s trouble. If you can avoid it, go around."

Jared nodded and didn’t ask anything else.

The two of them left the inn, wound through the city’s narrow streets, and headed for the north gate.

Rookfire’s north gate was much smaller than the south gate, and the city wall there was lower too.

Only two True Immortal cultivators stood watch, both of them slouched against either side of the gate passage, barely sparing the traffic in and out a glance.

Beyond the north gate, a dirt road stretched toward the north, its surface full of ruts and holes.

On either side lay sparse dead grass and scattered patches of brush.

Far off, the hills rolled one after another.

Not a blade of grass grew on them. Gray-brown stone lay exposed in the morning light, making the whole landscape look even more desolate.

According to the map, if they kept going north from here, about two days on foot would bring them to the outer reaches of the Ashford Range.

From there, they would need to keep pushing northeast through an area marked as demon-beast territory.

Another three days north beyond that would bring them to the edge of the Northern Abyss Frost Chasm.

Jared didn’t choose to fly.

Not because he couldn’t.

Because he didn’t want to.

What had happened in the Godfall Wastes had made one thing painfully clear to him: the dangers of the Eighteenth Firmament went far beyond the powers everyone could see.

Ancient remnant souls sleeping in the depths of the wasteland, spatial fissures scattered across the land, demon beasts and demonic cultivators lurking out of sight—none of them could be ignored.

Flying was faster, but it made too obvious a target.

Walking was slower, but safer.

And it gave him a better chance of catching whatever was hiding in the dark before it struck.

The two of them followed the dirt road north at an even pace, neither fast nor slow.

Jared kept his spirit sense spread to its limit the entire time.

Everything within a hundred miles stayed inside his awareness.

When they were roughly three or four miles out from Rookfire, hurried footsteps broke the quiet behind them.

Jared tilted his head slightly.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a group racing out from the direction of Rookfire’s north gate.

There were around twelve or thirteen of them.

They wore robes of different colors, but every one of them carried the same weapon at the waist—a crimson short blade, its sheath carved with flame patterns.

Most of them were between True Immortal Realm Level Nine and Golden Immortal Level One.

The one in front was a little stronger, at the peak of Golden Immortal Level One.

They moved fast, and their steps matched too cleanly to be random.

This was an organized group—disciplined, trained.

As they passed Jared and Gwendolyn, the man in front flicked a glance at Jared.

His eyes paused for a heartbeat on the Dragonslayer Sword at Jared’s waist, then moved on. He said nothing, only led the others onward at speed, straight toward the north.

In no time, the whole group vanished into the distant hills, leaving behind only a trail of deep footprints and dust hanging in the air.

Gwendolyn watched the direction they’d gone, a slight frown gathering between her brows.

"They don’t look like wandering cultivators."

"They don’t."

Jared nodded.

"Their formation was too tight. Their robes and weapons weren’t all the same, but those short blades at their waists were standardized. That means they came from the same organization. And..."

He paused.

"They were carrying the aura of the celestials."

The moment they crossed over a low rise, Gwendolyn sucked in a sharp breath.

A broad, relatively flat valley opened up before them, boxed in on all sides by steep rock walls.

The floor was littered with shattered stone and dead grass, churned so badly it was pitted everywhere.

At the center of it, an enormous demon beast was roaring.

It stood about 10 feet tall and stretched more than 5 yards long.

Its shape was that of a lion enlarged to a terrifying scale, except there wasn't a trace of fur on it—only dark red scales plating its entire body.

Crimson flames burned across those scales, flowing over them like lava running through cracks in the earth.

Its head was massive. From the center of its forehead rose a curved horn wrapped in even fiercer fire.

The color had already shifted from red to dark gold, and the heat pouring off it was so intense the air around it warped.

Its four claws were buried deep in the ground.

Every swipe carved yard-deep trenches through the rock, and the stone inside those gouges had already been melted by the heat into glowing molten fire that oozed slowly forward.

Its tail was about 2 yards long, ending in a spiked bone hammer that burned with fire as well.

Every time that tail whipped down, the bone hammer blasted a crater about a yard deep into the ground, sending shattered stone and fire flying.

"That's..." Gwendolyn stared at the beast, shock flashing through her eyes. "The Lava Lion King?"

"You know it?" Jared asked under his breath.

"I've seen it mentioned in an old tome," Gwendolyn said, keeping her voice low. "The Lava Lion King is an ancient demon beast. Supposedly, it carries the bloodline of the primeval fire-beast."

"An adult Lava Lion King can fight at the level of a Golden Immortal Realm cultivator of the third or fourth tier. Its scales have extremely strong resistance to both holy radiance and divine fire, so it's notoriously hard to deal with.

This thing was already nearly extinct back in the elder age. I didn't expect one to still exist in the Eighteenth Firmament."

The third or fourth tier of the Golden Immortal Realm.

Jared's gaze moved over the Lava Lion King as he measured its strength.

Obviously, this Lava Lion King wasn't fully grown yet. It hadn't reached Golden Immortal Level Four strength.

If it had, these cultivators would already be dead.

As for him, though, killing this beast wouldn't have been difficult at his current strength.

But the cultivators surrounding the Lava Lion King clearly weren't on that level.