A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6606

The group boarded the sky-barge and headed for the deep reaches of the far northern ice plains.

The enormous void rift still hung in the air. Inside it, black spatial turbulence churned in a frenzy, writhing like enraged black dragons.

The space around the rift was wildly unstable, and the sky-barge had to stop dozens of miles away.

Standing at the bow, Gareth fixed his red-gold eyes on the rift and sent his spirit sense inside.

The instant his spirit sense touched the rift, a powerful force hurled it back.

That power was terrifyingly strong.

Even at Golden Immortal Level Six, he couldn't force his way through.

"The entrance can't be entered."

Gareth drew back his spirit sense, his expression turning grave. "But I picked up traces of Cedric's aura at the edge of the rift. He went in.

And he never came back out."

His brow tightened even further.

If Cedric hadn't come back out, there were only two possibilities.

Either he had died inside.

Or he was still trapped there.

Either way, it was a devastating loss for the Abyssal Exchange.

"Find Claire."

Gareth turned and headed back into the cabin.

"She stayed outside to intercept the celestials. She never entered the Ancient Battlefield. If she's out there somewhere, we should be able to trace her."

For the next several days, Gareth led his people from place to place, investigating every lead he could find.

They went first to the outer reaches of the Ashford Range and found the valley basin where the celestials and the demon race had once clashed.

The scars of the battle were still there.

Dark red blood had seeped into the sand and hardened into a thin black crust.

Fragments of magical artifacts and shattered armor lay strewn across the ground, catching the sunlight with a dull, lifeless gleam.

Gareth swept the valley basin carefully with his spirit sense and found several abandoned corpses.

None of them were Claire.

They belonged to celestial cultivators.

After that, he went to the outer reaches of the Northern Abyss Frost Chasm and found the place where the Hall of Radiance cultivators had been slaughtered.

Their golden blood had already congealed into a dark-gold film that glimmered under the sun with an eerie sheen.

The broken artifacts and ruined armor scattered across the site still carried the lingering aura of chaotic force.

It was Jared's aura.

Gareth crouched, touched a fingertip to the lingering trace of chaotic force, and lifted it to his nose.

The power folded into that residue carried an overwhelming force of law—enough to make even a Golden Immortal Realm Level Six like him feel a flicker of dread.

"So this is chaotic force?" he murmured to himself.

Something unreadable flickered through his red-gold eyes.

The investigation dragged on for nearly ten days.

In the end, Gareth reached several conclusions...

Claire was dead.

Her aura vanished in one section of the outer Ashford Range, an area thick with the lingering presence of celestial cultivators.

Judging by the strength and number of those traces, the celestials had sent at least fifty people, led by a Golden Immortal Level Four expert.

The dozen or so people Claire had with her never could have stood against fifty celestial cultivators.

She had died.

Every person she took with her had died too.

As for Cedric, Gareth still couldn't determine how he died.

He had entered the Ancient Battlefield, and he had never come back out.

What had happened inside the Ancient Battlefield, no one knew.

But Gareth noticed one thing.

Jared had come out alive.

And more than that, his cultivation had broken through.

He had risen from True Immortal Realm Level Eight to an even higher realm.

Gareth didn't know what Jared had gone through inside the Ancient Battlefield.

But he knew this much: Cedric's death had to be connected to Jared.

Either Jared had killed Cedric, or he had stood by and let Cedric die.

Whichever it was, Jared wasn't walking away clean.

"Dead?" Gareth’s brow tightened. "How did he die?"

Aurelius shook his head. "I don’t know. Florian took men to hunt down Jared, entered the Ancient Battlefield, and never came back out. Just like Chapter Master Cedric, he died in there."

Gareth went silent for a moment.

Florian was dead too.

Jared had come out alive.

Cedric was dead. Florian was dead. Dozens of celestial elite cultivators were dead.

Jared was the only one who had walked out alive.

A guess began to take shape in Gareth’s mind: Cedric and Florian might both have died at Jared’s hands.

Jared had killed them, taken their resources, and left the Ancient Battlefield alone.

If that guess was right, then what Jared was capable of was far more terrifying than Gareth had first thought.

"Where is Jared now?" Gareth asked.

"Ashford Hollow."

Aurelius said, "He took the three hundred disciples of Ashford Hollow, wiped out the Hall of Radiance, and killed Lord Saintlight. His name is known across the entire Eighteenth Firmament now. Sooner or later, he'll come for the Ember God Palace. I know that."

A cold glint flashed through Gareth's eyes.

"Lord Aurelius, let's make a deal."

Aurelius narrowed his eyes slightly. "What kind of deal?"

"The Abyssal Exchange and the Ember God Palace join forces and kill Jared."

Gareth's voice stayed calm, but the killing intent under it was enough to chill the room.

"The Aureate Codex, the chaotic force in his body, and the secrets of the Chaos Sanctum all go to the Abyssal Exchange. Everything else Jared has on him, we split evenly. In return, the safety of the Ember God Palace will be guaranteed by the Abyssal Exchange."

Aurelius fell silent.

He understood exactly what Gareth meant.

What the Abyssal Exchange wanted was the Aureate Codex and the secrets of the Chaos Sanctum. What the Ember God Palace wanted was peace.

If they could kill Jared, the Ember God Palace could finally sleep without fear.

But was Jared really that easy to kill?

Back at True Immortal Realm Level Eight, he had already been able to kill Lord Saintlight, a Golden Immortal Realm Level Five expert. Now that his cultivation had broken through again, how strong had he become?

Aurelius didn't dare think too hard about it.