The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6277

"Alive." Jared nodded.

What Jared said drained the color from Gwendolyn's face in an instant.

"Aldric... is still alive? Still alive?" Her voice shook. Her eyes locked on Jared's chest, like something terrible might tear its way out of him at any second.

Jared closed his eyes and carefully searched for that faint presence inside his body.

It really was coming from the Heart of the Northern Abyss.

No. It was coming from a wisp of remnant soul buried deep inside the Heart of the Northern Abyss.

It was too weak, so weak it was almost impossible to notice.

But it was there. It was real, like a flame seed buried deep in ashes, something that could flare back up again with the slightest stir.

"It's not alive in the full sense."

Jared chose his words carefully. "It's a wisp of remnant soul, sealed inside the Heart of the Northern Abyss. When I absorbed the pearl, it fused into my body with it."

Gwendolyn pressed a hand to Jared's chest.

Ice-blue divine radiance poured into his body, trying to find where that remnant soul was hiding.

But after her divine radiance made a full circuit through Jared's meridians, it found nothing at all.

"I can't find it." Gwendolyn's brows drew tight. "It's hidden too deep."

Jared opened his eyes, his gaze heavy.

"It's near my spirit well, lying dormant. It isn't a threat for now, but I can tell... it's waiting for something."

"Waiting for what?" Gwendolyn pressed.

Jared shook his head.

He didn't know.

But his instincts kept warning him that whatever that remnant soul was waiting for, it wasn't going to be anything good.

"We have to get out of here."

Jared got to his feet and worked the stiffness out of a body that still hadn't fully loosened up.

After absorbing the Heart of the Northern Abyss, most of his injuries had already healed.

The power moving through him now was on a completely different level from what it had been before he came here.

Gwendolyn rose as well, her gaze sweeping across the surroundings.

The Sea of the Dead was still surging, and ghostly green flames roared at the bottom of the basin.

Under Jared's chaotic force, the three skeletal hands had been badly damaged and had withdrawn for the moment into the depths of the Sea of Flame.

But there was no telling when they might come tearing back out again.

"Do we go back the way we came?" Jared asked.

Gwendolyn shook her head. "We've already used up the Ice-Seal Talisman. There's no way for us to cross the Sea of the Dead again. And..."

She lifted her eyes to the three moons hanging in the sky, her voice dropping low. "I can feel it. The Ancient Battlefield is waking up. The longer we stay here, the more dangerous it gets."

She took out the jade slip and projected the map again.

This time, her finger came down on a spot at the edge of the map.

"There's a hidden passage here. The records left behind by the ancestors of the Frost Deity Branch say this hidden passage leads straight to the bottom of Voidreturn Lake. We won't need to pass through the Sea of the Dead again."

Jared looked over the route marked on the map, then gave a short nod.

"Move."

The two of them left the lone isle and sped along the edge of the basin, heading for the direction marked on the map.

All around them, the bones started stirring again.

The bone dragon, the ancestral remains of the celestials, and the ancestral remains of the demon progenitors that had retreated earlier seemed to sense the change in the aura around the two of them and woke from their slumber once more.

They didn't attack right away. They stayed far behind, trailing them, the ghostly green flames in their eye sockets flickering like they were weighing something.

"They're wary of the Heart of the Northern Abyss inside you."

Gwendolyn spoke under her breath. "Aldric was one of the most powerful beings in the Ancient Battlefield. His aura naturally suppresses these bones."

Jared said nothing and only picked up his pace.

He could tell those remains didn't dare come close for now, but they wouldn't keep hesitating forever.

The moment they pushed past their dread of Aldric's aura, they would swarm in.

The stone door slowly opened.

Beyond the door was the dark sapphire lake.

At the bottom of the Voidreturn Lake.

The two of them stepped out through the stone door.

Behind them, it shut without a sound. The glow in the runes faded little by little, and before long the whole door blended back into the surrounding rock until there was no trace of it left.

The waterward pearl was still in Jared's mouth, and that blue film spread over his body again.

Gwendolyn had no need for the waterward pearl. She was an heir of the Frost Deity Branch. In this lake, the water moved around her like air.

The two of them swam toward the lake's surface.

They had gone less than 300 yards when Jared caught that something was off.

The water around them had turned thicker than before, as if something hidden in the dark was stirring the currents.

Deep at the bottom of the lake, those two masses of golden radiance lit up again—brighter than when they came in, sharp enough to sting.

Return to the Void had awakened.

Not that half-awake state from before.

This time, it was fully awake.

Those two masses of golden radiance kept growing larger.

They kept coming closer.

The entire lakebed shook. The dark sapphire lake churned into violent surges, and a massive vortex rose from below, ripping up the surrounding rocks and silt and hurling them through the water.

Jared and Gwendolyn were dragged by the force of the vortex, their bodies thrown off balance in the current.

"Hold steady!"

Gwendolyn's shout tore through the water, and ice-blue divine radiance burst out of her, freezing the currents around them into a great mass of ice.

The great mass of ice rocked hard inside the vortex, shuddering back and forth, but it held together. At least for the moment, it stopped them from being torn away.

Then Return to the Void slowly rose out of the darkness at the bottom of the lake.