The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6474

In the heart of the Elder Soulborn Forest, the last afterimage of the Second Trial's Wraithbeast Ordeal scattered completely. The violent aftershocks of soul-force slowly died down, and the entire chamber sank back into dead silence.

Thin black-and-white mist rolled and drifted, like smoke, like low haze. It covered the road ahead, neither cold nor scorching, neither forceful nor baleful.

It did not carry the bone-deep chill from the first two trials, the kind that devoured the spirit. It did not carry the bewitching chaos of the illusion array either. It was so plain it nearly crossed into the unnatural.

Jared's violet soul withdrew every trace of its edge and put away the Aureate Codex's protective golden radiance. It carried not the slightest defense, not the slightest guard.

Bare and weightless, it followed the direction of the drifting mist and floated slowly toward the necessary entrance to the Third Trial.

This was the choice he had reached after weighing it over and over.

The first two trials had been different kinds of death. One had been labyrinthine wards that attacked the heart; the other had been soul-beasts and slaughter. Both had locked him down with outside force and exposed their killing intent in the open. Only the Aureate Codex's protection, his movement skills, and a last-thread refusal to fall had let him claw out alive.

Yet the more openly vicious a trial was, the easier it was to answer. The truly lethal trials had never been the blade-flash, the clashing weapons, or the impact against the spirit laid out in plain sight. They were the silent ones, the formless ones, the heart tribulations that left no mark until they had already entered.

The Third Trial stood as the final trial. It was bound to be different from the first two trials, those hard, brutal passages that could be fought through head-on. If he still held to a mindset of turtling behind defense and smashing the problem apart with raw force, he might step straight into the hidden trap of the Elder Soulborn Trial. His heart's guard would collapse first, his spirit would fall into disorder first, and he would break without the trial ever needing to strike.

So he simply set every defense down. He let the current carry him, answered the Elder Soulborn Trial with his true heart, and used his spirit to sense Heavenly Law.

The mild mist brushed strand by strand over the surface of Jared's soul. Its touch was cool and damp, like thin dew still clinging to a deep mountain morning. It settled lightly against the texture of the soul, neither corroding nor tearing nor disturbing it, without the faintest trace of malice.

Instead, it held an ancient presence, long and distant, as though the quiet foundation of endless ages had settled inside it. It seemed able to contain every past and accept every sorrow and joy.

There was no stabbing pain. No trembling. No illusion. No whisper from the inner fiend. There was only quiet.

Jared moved forward at an even pace, neither rushing nor slowing. His soul hovered in the middle of the mist and drifted with the current, letting the ancient presence around him soak into his badly depleted soul-nascence.

As he flew, he emptied his mind. He did not turn back toward blood-deep hatred, did not dwell on rebuilding his body, did not weigh the luck or danger of the road ahead. He only felt the rare stillness of years resting inside that mist.

After roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the churning black-and-white mist ahead suddenly parted to both sides. It moved like a tide making way for a sovereign, and at the end of his sight, a warm, gentle gate of light appeared.

This gate of light was not grand or towering. It stood only one yard tall, its entire body condensed from pure pale-golden radiance. The halo flowing over it was soft and restrained, not dazzling, not overbearing, not oppressive. Warmth seeped from it in fine threads, sinking quietly into the spirit.

Compared with the black oppression of the First Trial labyrinth and the blood-hungry killing chill of the Second Trial's soul-beast chamber, the entrance to the Third Trial seemed to belong to an entirely different world. The contrast was so sharp that a person could loosen inside in an instant, and nerves drawn tight for days would start to ease on their own.

There was no hesitation, no testing, no guard. Jared's soul stirred slightly, became a condensed, gentle violet gleam, and plunged straight into the pale-golden gate of light.

In the next instant, heaven and earth spun. Light and shadow streamed past, and the space around him switched in a flash.

The scene before him opened wide. Everything changed completely.

The Third Trial was not an underground labyrinth full of tangled paths and mind-bewitching tricks. It was not a sealed, cramped trial chamber where soul-beasts closed in to kill him. It was not a lethal dead end filled with killing intent and wards at every step. Instead, it was a quiet, gentle woodland sanctuary, untouched by the world.

The forest was not large, barely 100 yards across in every direction. The ground rose and dipped gently, its soil soft and rich. Green grass spread like a carpet, and tiny spirit flowers bloomed quietly everywhere, releasing a faint fragrance.

The forest trees stood sparse and scattered, not dense, not crowding each other. Their branches stretched freely, full of green life, without the slightest trace of the eerie scene in the outer reaches of the Elder Soulborn Forest, where dead trees stood thick and the cold yin energy bit to the bone.

Warm sunlight filtered down through layers of gaps in the crowns. It spilled over the ground like broken gold, mottled light and shadow swaying softly with the wind, gentle enough to draw the eye.

There was no vicious air from spirits fighting. There was no blood-hungry stink from soul-beasts. Only the clean scent of grass and trees tangled with the faint fragrance of spirit flowers, soaking into the breath and nourishing the soul.

From somewhere deeper in the woods, crisp birdsong rang out now and then. Each call turned sweetly and echoed at leisure, adding a few bright traces of life to the quiet forest.

"How could this place have been some lethal checkpoint of the Elder Soulborn Trial?

"The safer it looks, the more danger it’s hiding. The test in this trial can’t be slaughter. It has to be somewhere else."

"Deep in the consciousness field, Aldric's remnant soul slowly woke.

His voice echoed softly, carrying the weight of endless years worn down into clarity. ""You’re seeing it correctly. The Soulwood Harvest, the Soulwood Harvest—everyone in the world believes what they harvest is wood, what they seize is a treasure, what they seek is the chance to rebuild the body. But that is not the truth."

"This final trial has never been about taking wood. It has never been about tempering cultivation. It has never been about protecting the spirit. What it tests is your heart."

"The heart?" Jared's soul shifted faintly as the question left him.

"Yes. The heart."

Aldric explained slowly, his tone sinking heavier with each word. "On the road of trial, every external force can be broken. The inner fiend is the hardest crossing. If your combat strength is great enough, you can meet slaughter head-on;

"if your wisdom is high enough, you can see through an illusion array. But the obsessions of the human heart, love and hate, debts and grudges, the ties that must be cut and cannot be cut—those are the hardest to see through, and the hardest to let go."

"Follow the guidance of my spirit sense and look toward the center of the forest. That is the end of this journey, and it is also the inner fiend of this calamity."

"Jared moved as instructed.

Following the direction Aldric's spirit sense had indicated, he lifted his eyes and looked ahead. His gaze passed through the sparse forest trees and reached the very center of the forest."

"At the heart of the clearing, the venerable ancient tree stood in silence.

It stood alone, leaning on nothing, depending on nothing, neither lowered nor defiant, rooted at the central point where all the spiritual essence in the woodland gathered."