When Jared re-entered the forbidden ground, the magma pool still boiled, yet its ancient, regal aura felt even denser, as though centuries had thickened in minutes.


    Above the moltenke hovered the Pentacarna Tower, its surface humming with soft silver-gray light.


    At the entrance waited Lindsay. The moment she spotted him, her crimson robes shed forward like a spark meeting tinder.


    Her eyes swept over him, worry flickering like candlelight in a draft. "Jared, are you okay?"


    Jared smiled, taking her hand with deliberate gentleness. "I''m fine. They were just some pesky flies."


    Lindsay exhaled, relief melting into bright admiration. "Word is everywhere you defeated three Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine cultivators with just one strike! People are saying a god walked among us."


    Jaredughed, the sound low and honest. "Myth makers love a good exaggeration. Anyway, how is Great Elder Earthfire?"


    Lindsay''s expression sobered. "His soul is now honed to its limit. Re-forging a body has reached the final hinge. He said he''ll need at most seven days."


    Jared nodded, confidence settling over him like well-fitted armor. "Seven days. huh? Good. We''ll make it."


    He lifted his gaze to the hovering tower and called out, voice echoing across magma and stone. "Great Elder Earthfire, I''m back."


    The tower shivered, a deep timbre answering from within. "Enter, young one."


    Jared stepped through the threshold into a vast inner chamber. There, Gerald''s soul stood nearly corporeal—white hair, kindly lines, and only the faintest translucence betraying his immaterial state.


    He sat cross-legged at the heart of a slowly turning array, gemstones and rare herbs dissolved into motes of color that flowed into his waiting form.


    Gerald''s eyelids lifted. "The uproar outside did not escape me," he said; golden mes swirled in his pupils, then softened into approval. "One sword, three foes— well done, well done."


    Jared mirrored the elder''s posture across the array. "Those deputy leaders were nothing. Even if Malcolm Vayne himself appears, I can meet him de for de."


    There was no boast in his tone-only iron certainty.


    Gerald chuckled, yet a shadow cooled the molten air. "It''s good to be confident, but one should never belittle Malevolent Path Hall. You think killing three deputy leaders would cripple their strength? Hardly."


    Jared''s brows drew together. "What do you mean, Great Elder Earthfire?"


    "The true terror of that hall has never been the number of Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine cultivators itmands," Gerald replied, voice dropping to a forge-low rumble. "It has to do with a magical item they possess... the Door of Reincarnation."


    "Door of Reincarnation?" Jared asked, having never heard of such a relic before.


    "Think of it as a gateway... One that opens directly into the Reincarnation Realm," Gerald murmured.


    As he leaned closer, the ruddy glow


    of his fire-forged eyes flickered


    across the cavern walls. "Legend has it that the Reincarnation Realm is the resting ce of everything that has ever died. Every sout every flicker of nsciousness, drifts there


    in the end. The Door of


    Reincarnation can tear open a


    forced passage to that forbidden


    shore."


    A cold spark skittered down Jared''s spine. "It can open up the Reincarnation


    Realm? Doesn''t that mean they can bring the dead back to life?"


    Gerald gave a somber nod. "In a manner of speaking, yes. But the cost is monstrous. And what returns through that gate may wear a familiar face, yet it is seldom the same soul."


    His gaze bored into Jared''s. "Do you understand now why Malevolent Path Hall has spent years butchering the living and harvesting souls wherever it roams?"


    "They''re using those souls to feed the Door of Reincarnation, aren''t they?" Jared whispered, horror blooming in his chest.


    A razor-thin smile split the elder''s


    weathered lips. "Exactly. Every batch of one hundred thousand souls buys of the door the


    them one opening of the door.


    soul they drag back wears a body again, but it returns as


    puppet-eternally shackled to the portal."


    Jared steadied his voice, though it rumbled like thunder behind his ribs. "So those three deputy lords we killed today—there''s a chance they were already corpses, revived by the Door of Reincarnation?"


    Gerald nodded. "Yes. That''s highly likely. That''s also why Malevolent Path Hall''s ranks seem endless. y a puppet today and, so long as Malcolm Vayne pays the toll in souls, the door will spit the same monster back at you tomorrow."


    A hiss of air slid between Jared''s teeth. The light around him suddenly felt thin, fragile.


    If an enemy could never truly die, then victory itself became a lie—and nothing in war was more terrifying than that.


    "There''s another thing..." Gerald warned, his tone sinking into the embers. "I suspect that Malevolent Path Hall itself is only another puppet."


    Jared''s pupils contracted, twin pinpricks of rm against themplight. "What?"


    "Beyond the Door of Reincarnation lies a realm whispered about in broken scriptures," Gerald continued. "There, unfathomably old powers linger beings so vast that even eras cannot fully erase them. Some may already be dead, others survive in forms we cannot name. Yet none ept eternal silence. They need proxies—hands to harvest wandering souls, feed the door, and keep their vestiges flickering. Malevolent Path Hall is likely their doll, and Malcolm Vayne-grand as he pretends-is nothing more than their tool."


    Jared fell silent.


    The revtion hit him like thunder, far beyond anything his mind had prepared for.


    Until this moment, he had pictured Malevolent Path Hall as nothing more than a powerful cult of darkness.


    Never had he imagined a secret so monstrous crouching in its shadow.