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The Ashford Hollow company moved slowly through the mountain forest.
The company of three hundred stretched through the mountains in a long, winding line, their blue-green robes standing out sharply against the deep green forest.
Jared walked at the very front, the Dragonslayer Sword hanging at his waist, his violet eyes fixed on the path ahead.
Everything that had happened that day kept replaying in his head.
Leaving at dawn.
Marching straight to the Hall of Radiance.
Killing Lord Saintlight.
Watching the Hall of Radiance fall.
It had all happened too fast.
So fast it barely felt real.
But he had no regrets.
The people from the Hall of Radiance had hurt Josephine.
That alone was enough to condemn them.
That was his rule.
That was his line.
No one was allowed to cross it.
Gwendolyn walked beside Jared, the ice-white gown she wore striking against the sea of blue-green around them.
She watched his profile, watched the emotions churning in those violet eyes, and something rose in her chest that she couldn't quite name.
This man had wiped out a celestial power that had stood for tens of thousands of years for Josephine's sake.
If the day ever came when she was the one in danger, would he do the same for her?
Gwendolyn didn't know.
She didn't dare ask.
So she simply kept walking at his side, silent and close, like an ice-white leaf drifting gently through a blue-green river.
Adrian Vale walked near the front of the formation, the wooden sword on his back catching the last light of the setting sun.
His face gave nothing away, but inside him, everything was in upheaval.
He was Golden Immortal Level Two, the most outstanding disciple of this generation of the Aureate Way.
He had always believed he was already someone extraordinary.
But after seeing Jared kill Lord Saintlight with his own eyes, he finally understood what real power looked like.
A True Immortal Level Eight had killed a Golden Immortal Level Five.
Among everyone he had ever known, only Jared could have done something like that.
Master Alaric Vale walked at the very back of the group, his white hair and beard stirring in the evening wind.
As he looked at Jared's back in the distance, a trace of quiet satisfaction passed through his aged eyes.
He had waited tens of thousands of years.
At last, he had found the one he had been waiting for.
The heir to the Aureate Codex.
The inheritor of the forebears of the Aureate Way.
The new Chief Preceptor of the Aureate Way.
He believed that with Jared leading them, the Aureate Way would rise again.
It would break the celestials' oppression of countless years and once again become the most powerful force in the heavens and the myriad worlds.
As the sun sank lower, the golden and crimson light from the three blazing suns disappeared beyond the horizon, leaving only the silver-white moon hanging high in the sky.
Cold moonlight spilled through the forest and wrapped the company of three hundred in a wash of silver.
Far off, the Ashford Range drifted in and out of view beneath the moon, and the snow on its peaks flashed with silver light.
By the time the group returned to Ashford Hollow, night had fully fallen.
The silver-white moon hung high above them, its cold light pouring over the endless peaks of the Ashford Range and bathing the entire vale in silver.
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