"Ha-ha-ha-ha! Fire Spirit fossil, bullying a half-dead phantom proves nothing. Face me, the demon lord!" Theughter rolled like thunderced with inferno.


    A mountainous hand-forged entirely from pitch-ck me-lunged from the rift and mped around the descending column of starlight as if seizing prey.


    "Fire Demon Lord?" The Fire Spirit Lord''s voice, for the first time, betrayed a note of stern fury.


    me-wrought fingers collided with cosmic light—no deafening st followed, only the hiss of two absolutews gnawing at one another. Starlight tried to cleanse the demon me; the demon me strove to consume the starfire. For a breathless span, neither side yielded, deadlocked in silent annihtion.


    Jared watched the Fire Demon Lord''s arrival, brow knotting tight.


    For crying out loud-why does that walking bonfire always pick my battles to crash?


    Back in the cataclysm of level six, the Fire Demon Lord had appeared from nowhere, ripping the Soul Devourer out of the Fire Spirit Lord''s grasp.


    Now, just as starlight was about to erase the fiend forever, that same zing tyrant tore the heavens open once more.


    Within the single heartbeat of stunned silence, the Soul Devourer''sst shred of essence—thin as a needle, ck as midnight-shrieked like a cornered beast.It wriggled free of the star-forged shackles, then shot downward in a hair-fine streak and vanished into the boiling sea of blood below, leaving only echoing terror behind.


    "Ha-ha-ha! I live—I live! Fire Spirit Lord! Jared Chance! You crawling Draconians! Mark my words when I return, you will repay this humiliation a hundredfold!" Soul Devourer howled from the depths, its voice bubbling up through the crimson waves like a curse.


    Hope, so recently kindled in Jared and the Draconian army, guttered out in a single icy gust. The future that had seemed within reach was stomped t beneath the returning tread of the Fire Demon Lord.


    High above the battlefield, fury zed across the Fire Spirit Lord''s starlit visage. "Fire Demon Lord—your meddling ends now!" His words rang out, cold enough to freeze suns.


    From the ragged wound in space, the Fire Demon Lord''s voice rolled forth, molten with contempt. "Spare me the speeches, old star-keeper. I''ve long hungered to test your so-called Cosmic Purifying me. Dare you meet me beyond the heavens?"


    "Name the ce," the Fire Spirit Lord replied three calm words that cracked like thunder.


    Two supreme auras locked, the universe itself shivering beneath their gaze. The pir of starlight folded inward. The colossal hand of ck me clenched and withdrew. In silent agreement, one figure zed like a silver river, the other like a charred sun. Together they ripped through the Ninth Heaven''s wall and streaked into the uncharted dark, shifting the war to realms unseen.


    They had arrived like passing storms and vanished just as abruptly-celestial titans who treated worlds as casual chessboards.


    Soulgrave Abyss fell mute again, its air thick with iron gloom. Only Jared, the battered Draconian army, the unseen remnants of the Soul Devourer, and a slowly healing rift remained.


    Despair that arrives after hope is the heaviest stone a heart can bear.


    Jared scanned the suddenly quiet chasm, every breath rasping against cracked ribs while his spirit flickered like a dyingmp. Around him,rades bled and sagged, and yet a bitter smile still tugged at his lips.


    "Fire Demon Lord, you ming bastard! The moment I have the strength, you''re the first name on my list!" Jared rasped, forcing the threat past torn lungs and into the echoing dark.


    "Mr. Chance, what do we do now?"


    Coall''s broad shadow fell across Jared''s armor as he turned, worry sharpening the lines around his eyes. A single question left his mouth, low and gravelly, yet brimming with unspoken urgency that seemed to echo against the war-scarred stones.


    "We head back to Nethergate Sect," Jared answered, resolve tempered by fatigue. "When Mr. Swanson and the others heal well return and make Soul Devourer pay Right now, just the two of us-and the other candidates-are nowhere near his level."


    "Understood." Coall dipped his head once, the gesture as solid and weighty as an iron gate mming shut.


    The brash confidence Jared had


    unted on arrivaly in ruins. One


    strike from Soul Devourer had


    shattered it, hurling him back intet


    harsh reality. Yes, he had marched a evet fine.


    n army across levet fine,


    am


    Draconi yet before a true titan he remained


    insignificant-a child swinging wooden swords at thunder.


    He had even dreamed of storming level thirty-six.


    What a fool I was. An utter fool.


    Determination, stripped of


    arrogance, crystallized. He had to return to Nethergate Sect and forge greater strength, or he would never


    surviv@another sh with Sou


    Devourer-let alone challenge


    Malevolent Path Hall or survive the


    higher levels. He had arrived


    swaggering. He would depart


    chastened, the tail of his cloak


    dragging through dust like a beaten


    banner.


    So Jared, bedraggled yet unbowed, led the Draconian army in a ragged arc back toward Nethergate''s ck peaks, every wingbeat and footstep a quiet vow of redemption.


    On arrival, hemandeered everyst resource—elixirs, spirit ores, fracturedw shards—and vanished into the yawning mouth of Pentacarna Tower, sealing its gates behind him with a ng that rang like final judgment.