A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6721

Gwendolyn stood close beside Jared, her ice-blue eyes just as tense.

One hand had closed around his sleeve so tightly that her fingertips had gone white.

Her gaze kept shifting between Aureon and Violet. Whenever a golden strike approached one of Violet's vital points, Gwendolyn's breath caught. Whenever Violet dissolved it with almost insulting ease, she quietly exhaled again.

"Violet..." she murmured, as though afraid a louder voice might disturb the balance of the fight. "How strong is she?"

"I don't know," Jared answered without looking away. "But Aureon isn't her equal."

"Then why not kill him now?"

"She's waiting."

Jared watched the sword lines crossing in the air. "She wants him to expose a real opening. And she's still testing what else he can do. A Grand Zenith Immortal shouldn't have shown only this much."

His judgment proved accurate.

Aureon's offense remained violent, but he still could not break Violet's defense. Every slash was intercepted. Every thrust was redirected. Violet moved through his sword light like wind no hand could catch.

Three exchanges became five.

Five became ten.

The harder Aureon pressed, the heavier every strike became. In his hands, the golden blade seemed to transform into a roaring dragon repeatedly smashing against Violet's sword. Gold filled the space around them with every blow, and each collision sent fresh cracks racing across the already-ruined ground.

Her defense did not crack.

Instead, she moved through the battlefield with the measured rhythm of a dance, stepping into the empty beats between Aureon's attacks. From the beginning of the duel until now, he had not touched so much as the edge of her dress.

On the fifth exchange, Aureon brought his blade down from above with crushing force. Violet slipped aside. The edge passed close enough to stir her hair, then buried itself in the ground and tore open a trench so deep its bottom could not be seen.

On the seventh, he swept from the left. A crescent of gold raced outward. Violet rose lightly over it, and the sword light continued past her to split a huge boulder more than a hundred feet away. The cut surface shone smooth as glass.

On the tenth, Aureon stabbed straight ahead. Blinding gold compressed into a point at the tip of his sword. Violet angled her own blade and guided the thrust aside. The condensed light detonated against a distant cliff, blasting open a massive hole beneath a cloud of dust.

The twelfth exchange changed everything.

Aureon's sword suddenly reversed direction and came up from a vicious, awkward angle, aiming beneath Violet's arm toward her heart.

It was fast, ruthless, and clearly one of the killing techniques he had kept hidden until now.

Violet turned her wrist.

Her sword slid against Aureon's blade like a living serpent and pulled his force off line. His attack stabbed into empty space.

The excessive momentum drew his body forward.

For less than a heartbeat, his defense opened.

The thirteenth exchange began.

Violet attacked for the first time.

Her purple blade emerged from an impossible angle like silent lightning. It passed through the dense web of golden sword light and drove directly toward Aureon's throat.

It was several times faster than anything she had shown before.

The angle was merciless.

The timing was exact.

It was as if she had identified his only opening at the instant he began the previous move and had already decided where this strike would end.

Aureon's pupils contracted to pinpoints.

He tried to recover.

It was a deeper silence than any that had come before. Even the wind seemed to vanish, and for one suspended moment the crowd appeared to forget how to breathe.

Demonic Cultivators, surviving celestials, and distant elders all stared at the golden corpse on the ground.

Shock and fear twisted their faces.

The being they had treated as a god, the Celestial Emperor who had ruled this Firmament for tens of thousands of years, had been killed by one sword through the throat.

Was it really possible for him to die so simply?

No one wanted to believe it.

The body did not lie.

The spreading golden blood did not lie.

The Sovereign Blade lying dark and silent beside him did not lie. Its once-brilliant sigils were completely extinguished, and the weapon looked like an ordinary piece of metal beside the man who had carried it for so long.

Aureon Suncrest was dead.

From behind the threshold of the hall, Jared watched the corpse, the fallen sword, and the gold spreading across blackened stone.

He felt no joy.

Instead, a thought struck him with sudden urgency.

He stepped forward sharply. "Violet! Keep him alive!"

Too late.

Her sword had already destroyed every trace of life in Aureon's body.

Without its soul, the body of the Grand Zenith Immortal began to crack. Fine lines spread outward from the wound like fractures in sun-dried clay, accompanied by faint snapping sounds. The damage traveled from his throat toward his chest, face, and limbs, making it look as though the entire body might crumble apart at any moment.