The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6520

*****

The day Elder Cillian was brought back to Freevale, the weather could not have been better.

The people Jared sent reached the depths of Evershade and found the scattered remnant Sylvan Kin one by one, where they had been hiding in the forest for months.

The Sylvan Kin were naturally closer to the wild than humans, which made it easier for them to survive in the deep forest.

It also made them harder to find.

They hid in the gaps between great trees, in root-caves beneath the earth, blending their auras into the plants around them until they were almost impossible to detect.

At first, they did not dare come out.

Only when they heard Jared's name did they finally emerge, one by one, cautious and thin as sticks, their eyes bright despite everything.

Elder Cillian wore a tattered gray robe. His white hair was whiter than before, the lines on his face deeper too, but his eyes were still bright.

When he stepped out of the deep forest and saw Freevale being rebuilt in the distance, he stopped cold.

He stood there with tears streaming down his face, his body shaking so hard it looked like he was about to drop to his knees.

Jared went to the city gate to receive him in person.

Elder Cillian shook off the support of the Sylvan disciples beside him, hurried to Jared, and dropped to his knees.

His knees struck the flagstones with a dull, heavy thud.

If Jared had not caught him, his forehead would have hit the ground next.

"Mr. Chance..."

His voice shook. Clouded old tears slid down the deep grooves of his face and splashed onto the flagstones.

"This old man thought... thought I'd never see you again in this lifetime... The Sylvan Kin thought... thought we'd never live to see the day you came back..."

He cried like a child.

A Sylvan elder who had lived for hundreds of years was sprawled on the ground now, sobbing so hard he could barely get the words out.

Behind him, the rest of the remnant Sylvan Kin dropped to their knees as well, dozens of them kneeling together and bowing their heads to Jared.

Jared hauled Elder Cillian back to his feet and kept a steady grip on his arm until the old man found his balance.

"Elder Cillian, the Sylvan Kin are not gone."

Elder Cillian looked up at him, his clouded old eyes shining with tears.

"As long as even one of us is still alive, the Sylvan Kin still live."

Jared's voice wasn't loud, but it landed like stone.

"Elder, no one will ever hunt your people again."

Elder Cillian nodded hard.

He raised a sleeve to wipe his eyes, and by the time he lowered it, the cuff was soaked through.

Then he turned to the remnant Sylvan Kin behind him.

"The rebuilding of the Sylvan Kin begins today. Every brick we raise, every tile we lay, we remember who gave us this chance."

The Sylvan Kin answered as one.

Elara Winter stepped out of the crowd.

Her face was pale, and she had thinned down so much she looked an entire size smaller than before, but her eyes were still as clear as ever.

She stopped in front of Jared.

She didn't kneel. She only looked at him for a long, deep moment, then smiled.

"Mr. Chance."

Jared gave her a small nod.

Then she turned away, walked to the stretch of rubble that belonged to the Sylvan Kin, bent down, and lifted the first stone.

*****

News of the Celestial Alliance's destruction tore through the Sixteenth Firmament like a shockwave.

No one could believe the strongest power ruling the Sixteenth Firmament had really fallen so completely.

Not until people went to see the burning great hall with their own eyes.

By then, the great hall was nothing but a charred skeleton.

The roofs that had once blazed with splendor had collapsed into the ground, and melted gold had hardened into twisted shapes.

Those once-arrogant saintlight adepts had all burned to ash.

Not even bones remained.

Only the violet chaos-flame still flickered across the ruins, steadily devouring the last traces of holy radiance until nothing was left.

The onlookers stood before the wreckage, staring at one another.

"The Celestial Alliance... it was really wiped out."

Jade slips were embedded across the walls in row after row, from the most basic cultivation methods of the True Immortal Realm to secret manuals at the Golden Immortal rank.

Quite a few had already yellowed with age, obvious relics from tens of thousands of years ago.

At the very back of the treasury stood a separate stone platform, and on top of it sat a black iron casket.

There were no wards on the casket, yet the aura it gave off was the oldest thing in the entire treasury.

Jared walked over and opened it.

Inside lay an ancient jade slip.

The material was strange—not ordinary jade at all, but a kind of black crystal he had never seen before.

Jared put the casket away. When he returned to the Seventeenth Firmament, he would have Master Wellspring and the others take a look at it.

Then he turned back to the mountain of wealth filling the treasury.

This time, he wasn't careful the way he used to be.

He wasn't going to pick things up one piece at a time, one item after another.

He opened his Storage Ring and started sweeping in huge quantities of crystals, elixirs, artifacts, and jade slips.

Tens of thousands of crystals. Tens of thousands of elixirs. Thousands of artifacts. Tens of thousands of jade slips.

This was the Celestial Alliance's accumulation over tens of thousands of years—enough for every cultivator in Freevale to train on for centuries.

He took everything without mercy, without politeness, and without the slightest hesitation.

As far as he was concerned, it was his right.

Because he knew where all of it had come from.

This wealth had been wrung from the blood and sweat of the cultivators of the Sixteenth Firmament.

How many had the Celestial Alliance killed?

How much had they stolen to build a treasury like this?

This stuff should have been returned to the people of this land a long time ago.

In the Sixteenth Firmament now, there was no one left who could stand against him.

He could take every last thing in the treasury.

He could bring it all back to Freevale, and put it in the hands of the people who actually needed it.