The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6270

"Those three things you mentioned."

Jared's body went rigid.

"You promised me you'd do three things for me," Gwendolyn said. Her voice stayed flat, flat enough to turn cold. "A man's word, once spoken, can't be taken back. That's what you said."

Jared turned around and looked at her.

Gwendolyn didn't look away. She met his eyes head-on.

"The first thing, I've already done. I took your blood for research. The second thing..."

She paused. Her voice shook slightly, but she still forced the words out.

"Dual cultivation with me."

Jared said nothing.

He knew she'd pinned him with that.

Gwendolyn wasn't wrong. He had agreed to it.

No matter what the situation had been back then, the words had come out of his own mouth, and the promise had been made by his own hand.

If he went back on it now, then what made him any different from those faithless little men who broke their word?

"And you're not worried I'll go back on it afterward?" Jared's voice came out rough.

Gwendolyn gave him a faint smile.

There was a trace of bitterness in it, and something else that wouldn't settle into words.

"You won't. You're not that kind of man."

She turned and walked toward the door of the stone chamber.

When she reached it, she stopped without looking back.

"Tonight. Beneath the Worldtree. I'll wait for you."

Her figure disappeared through the doorway.

Jared was left alone in the stone chamber, standing there in front of the seven glass phials on the table, silent for a long time.

Night fell.

Night in the Voidreach wasn't like night anywhere else.

The aurora overhead burned brighter, its pale color deepening into a rich blue-violet, like a river flowing across the sky.

The Worldtree's golden leaves swayed softly in the night wind, rustling against each other.

The sound was like an ancient song, and like a low sigh.

Jared stood at the entrance to the hollow, looking at the aurora reflected on the lake's surface and the tree's golden shadow.

Everything inside him was knotted tight.

He didn't want to go.

But he had to.

A promise was a promise.

Of all things in his life, that was what Jared had always held highest.

A man's word.

If he could toss aside his own promise whenever it suited him, then what made him any different from the kind of people he looked down on?

He drew in a long breath, then stepped out of the hollow.

On the other side of the Worldtree's trunk, there was a small clearing.

Gwendolyn was already there, waiting in the middle of it.

She had changed clothes.

She was no longer wearing that plain white dress from the day. In its place was a pale blue gauze robe, and under the aurora and the golden leaves, it gave off a dim, cold sheen.

Her long hair hung loose, spilling down her back like a waterfall. A few stray strands rested by her ear and drifted softly in the night wind.

She stood with her back to Jared on the largest root of the Worldtree, her face tilted up toward the canopy overhead.

Golden leaves drifted down around her, settling on her shoulders and in her hair, as if placing a golden crown on her head.

At the sound of footsteps, she slowly turned around.

Moonlight, aurora light, and golden radiance fell across her face all at once. It made her features look a little unreal, like someone who had stepped out of a painting.

"You came." Her voice was very soft, so soft the wind nearly swallowed it.

Jared walked up to her and stopped.

The two of them looked at each other.

"I've thought it through," Jared said, his voice rough. "I agree. But I have one condition."

Gwendolyn's brow lifted slightly. "What condition?"

It wasn't the quiet winter-plum fragrance from earlier in the day. This was richer than that, more intoxicating, a cold scent like the first snowfall of deep winter, clean and sweet at once.

Gwendolyn raised a hand and rested it lightly against his chest.

Her hand was cool.

But something strangely warm pulsed at her fingertips.

That warmth sank through the skin over his chest and poured into him.

It spread through his limbs, through every part of him, until the Golden Dragon Bloodline inside him started boiling on its own.

"Close your eyes."

Her voice drifted out like something spoken in a dream.

"Relax. Don't resist."

Jared did as she said and closed his eyes.

In the next instant, he felt Gwendolyn's body press against his.

Her body was cool, as cool as a piece of glacial jade steeped in moonlight.

But beneath that coolness, something deeply warm moved through her.

It was like a hidden hot spring running under solid ice.

Two completely different forces began to move between their bodies.

One was Jared's golden draconic energy, burning hot, overbearing, and packed with the power of destruction and rebirth;

The other was the icy divine radiance flowing out of Gwendolyn, cold and soft at once, carrying ancient laws of the realm that could freeze time and space.

The two forces moved through both of them in ceaseless cycles.

They wrapped around each other. They sank into each other.

At first, they pushed against each other. Jared's draconic energy burned hot, and Gwendolyn's icy divine radiance ran cold. Inside their bodies, the clash hit like fire and water slamming together.

Jared felt like his body was being torn in half.

One side was molten fire. The other was bitter frost.

Gwendolyn's brows drew tight as well, and a fine layer of sweat slowly surfaced across her forehead.

But she tightened her grip on Jared's hand, their fingers locking together, palm against palm.

"Don't resist," she said by his ear, and there was something in her voice that steadied him. "Let them merge."