Yvette''s gifty with shadows. In this realm of searing light, her talent shrank to nothing. Only the sliver of celestial power Jared had slipped into her veins earlier kept her heart from stalling outright.
Around them, the rest of the Myriad Beast Sect looked defeated. Eagle nsmen watched their own feathers curl to charcoal. Tiger youths'' fur became charred. Snake-blooded novices listened to their scales crack open like old pottery. Choked groans rolled through the troop, one after another, the mournful rhythm of an army tossed alive into a smelter.
ra might be a disciple of Reiner and practiced a top me-type technique, but due to the injury she suffered, her meridians were thin ice under a torrent ofva. Pale as bleached parchment, she shook and coaxed her art into motion, each cycle buying only another moment before annihtion.
Despair enveloped them yet again. They had outrun pursuit, crossed into a sanctuary whispered of in legends, only to discover the sanctuary itself eager to burn them down.
Death stood one step away, its hot breath already licking their souls.
"Calm down."
The words drifted clear and bell-bright, yet they carried authority that silenced pain itself. It pierced scorched ears, rang against nearly broken spirits, and nailed every cascading me in midair.
Jared had spoken. He did not so much as nce at the carnage behind him. He simply lifted one elegant hand toward the tidal world of fire and pressed his fingers down like a painter smoothing canvas.
Nothing exploded. No arc of spell-light shattered the sky. Yet the moment his palm descended, something deeper than power rippled out. A hush of ultimate energy spread from Jared in widening rings, the way a pebble troubles a mirror-stillke— silent, unstoppable, perfect.
This was not cold battling heat. It was amand-an edict from a higherw. Under that whisper of supremacy, the mes bowed, their roar fading to a humble crackle, as if the entire realm had remembered who truly ruled it.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the impossible became real.
From the spot where Jared nted his boots, an unseen radius rolled outward, as though a colossal hand had stroked the very air.
mes that had moments ago screamed hot enough to melt iron fell silent, tamed, settling at a warmth almost pleasant.
Chaotic tongues of colored fire_once battering everything in their path-lined up like soldiers answering a sovereign call.
The violent impurities were skimmed away, leaving only the gentlest, most refined core of fire-element essence.
Even the blinding re dimmed, passing through an invisible sieve until the light shone bright yet harmless.
The raw scorch on every skin receded like a tide; lungs that had burned cooled, drawing slow, luxurious breaths.
Wide-eyed, the crowd stared at the neat divide this wonder had carved into the world around them.
Beyond the boundary, the inferno still howled, heat waves twisting the air into a furnace of light and terror.
Inside it, temperate breezes drifted over a pool of mellow aura and gentle radiance —a pocket of paradise.
An invisible frontier separated inferno from oasis as cleanly as knife ss.
Beneath their feet, the dark-red, ssy soil remained, yet its buried fury now purred rather than roared.
Not far away, a fissure—once vaporized by heat-burbled with milky springwater that smelled faintly of wildflowers and cool stone.
Around that newborn spring, tufts of jade-green, me-shaped spirit grass sprouted in seconds, dew gleaming on every alien de.
"What... What kind of sorcery is this?" Paxton breathed, feeling the searing ache inside him dissolve into a warm, vibrant tide of bestial power.
To rewrite thews of such a savage realm and so utterly-could not be exined by any ordinary array or divine art Paxton had ever studied.
It felt instead likemand of Heaven itself, a decree uttered and instantly fulfilled.
Behind Jared, ra stood transfixed, those pale eyes dancing between awe and a trembling thrill she could not name.
She, more than anyone, understood the weight of what had just urred. The core rule of the zefire Secret Realm was simple-fire, raw and supreme.
Her own master, Reiner, had cultivated here for millennia, yet could only carve a tiny, fragile
pocket of safety for meditation,
Jared bad conjured an oasis with a casual flick of the wrist, wide as a city square and wless in stability. The featy beyond every framework of strength or doctrine she possessed.
Gavin and Yvette exchanged a nce, reverence and relief shimmering openly between them.
The elder''s depth, they realized, was oceanic-immeasurable and best left untested.
Catching the stunned gazes that circled him, Jared answered with nothing more than a calm, almost yful smile.
I''m an expert at ying with fire.
The fire nascence housed in his core was a tapestry woven from countless fires.
The demonic fire within him dwarfed the zefire Secret Realm''s inferno a thousand times over.
Without that, Jared wouldn''t have been able to show off.
"We stay here," Jared said, his tone calm yet unquestionable. "Use every breath to mend what has been broken."
He turned-unhurried, unruffled as though shattering a hell-level formation were nothing but stretching stiff joints.
His gaze swept the newborn celestial spring and the curls of me spiritual nt edging the pool. He nodded.
"Those waters carry gentle life-essence. Bathe your wounds in them; you will heal twice as fast."
"Thank you sir! You''re beyond amazing!"
Dozens dropped to their knees. Their
voices trembled, a single, quavering
chord of gratitude. They had their
lives snatched from the jaws of
certain death, then delivered a pocket of paradise to
recuperate-such grace could never be repaid.
Paxton, eyes bright with unshed
tears, bowed. "Myriad Beast Sect will never forget this favor. Should we
one day
build, you will stand as out Supreme Lord. At your word every beast son and daughter shall rise or fall." s?novel
Jared lifted an open palm. A hush of gentle force pulled them to their feet. "Enough ceremony. Every heartbeat spent kneeling is a heartbeat stolen from recovery."
At Paxton''s barked orders, the others quickly settled down.