The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5980

His eyelids unpeeled with the stubborn weight of dried glue.

Blur and brightness wrestled for focus until a human outline swam in front of him.

He scrubbed his knuckles across both sockets; light smeared, but the figure stayed unresolved, haloed by a pale glow.

"Who are you? Where am I?" The questions came out thin, as if spoken from underwater.

The silhouette turned.

Recognition slammed through him; he lurched forward, arms closing around the blurred shoulders, tears igniting behind his eyelids.

"Mr. Sanders, I… I just had a terrible dream!"

Fragments of the beating rushed back—the taunting grins, the useless fists that wouldn’t summon power, the taste of blood he hadn’t earned.

Fresh fear crawled over the joy of seeing his mentor.

Mr. Sanders answered with a mild smile, palm brushing Jared’s hair the way one settles a startled dog.

"Foolish kid, that wasn’t a dream."

"Not a dream?" The words tasted like chalk; they stuck to his tongue.

"How can it not be? In that… place no one knew me. Anyone could hit me."

Mr. Sanders’s voice lowered to a teacher’s cadence.

"It truly wasn’t a dream. That was your other life. If you hadn’t carried the Golden Dragon’s True Form, the world you just saw would have been your only one."

Jared froze, bewilderment pooling behind his ribs.

"If I weren’t the Dragon… would Josephine, Lizbeth—would they really not know me?"

He stared at his own hands, as if fingerprints might confirm which world was dominant.

"Exactly. Without the Dragon’s blood you’d never have received the Focus Technique; without the Technique you’d be an ordinary man."

"And an ordinary life bends differently." Mr. Sanders’s tone was gentle, not apologizing, just stating the shape of things.

Jared’s tongue felt bitter as the truth settled. He exhaled and said, "I understand now. I got this far not because I'm brilliant but because of the Golden Dragon's True Form—and because my father is."

Jared’s mind flicked through bright faces—Josephine laughing, Lizbeth rolling her eyes—and he felt a hot sting of shame. They hadn’t fallen for him; they’d fallen for the golden badge of his bloodline.

If he had been plain Jared from the alley, not the dragon’s heir, Josephine and Lizbeth would have walked past him like street vendors they forgot to pay.

Mr. Sanders clicked his tongue, amusement hiding fatigue. "Good that you know. A man’s birth usually writes the ceiling above his head. Grind yourself against it anyway."

A dry warmth landed on Jared’s shoulder. Mr. Sanders’s palm lingered just long enough to be a promise, then slipped away.

Jared licked his lips, unsettled, and forced the question out. "Mr. Sanders, that Lord of Reincarnation, he…?"

"Over there." Mr. Sanders didn’t raise his voice; he only tilted his chin.

His finger cut the air like a quiet blade, locking Jared’s attention.

Jared followed the invisible arrow and froze.

Not ten paces away a neat-looking man, maybe thirty, knelt in the dust, shoulders twitching like paper caught in rain.

At his knees a dark damp halo spread—fear had squeezed the water right out of him.

"He’s the Lord of Reincarnation?" The words escaped before Jared could dam them.

His gaze crawled over the man’s pale cheeks, waiting for some hidden storm to reveal itself, and found only tremors.

Nothing about him matched the legend Jared had rehearsed—the conqueror who bent reincarnation to his will.

Wasn’t he the ruthless pioneer who carved a brand-new path through the cycles of life and death?

Mr. Sanders burst into laughter, the sound rolling like loose stones down a hill.

"Lord of Reincarnation, my foot. He’s just a ghost playing dress-up, flaunting the Ghost Clan’s Door of Reincarnation to scam the crowd."

"Ghost Clan?" The term scraped Jared’s mind raw; he had never heard it before.

Entire libraries he’d skimmed, yet not a single page had whispered of such a race.

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