ine shouted, "Jared, my young friend, be careful!"
He caught the shift first-the puppet''s ash-gray eyes flicked away from ine and locked onto him. The ck spear shivered in its grip, then darted straight for the center of his forehead.
No flourish, no tell-only murderous precision, the kind forged for battlefields not
arenas.
He had spent thest heartbeat begging for that lunge.
"Chaos Evolution-Return of the Five Elements."
The Dragonyer Sword stayed silent at his hip; instead, his hands folded before his chest, fingers weaving a seal so intricate it burned behind his eyes.
Light bubbled up inside him-gold, green, indigo, crimson, ochre-five colors racing along his veins, converging between his palms until theypressed into a single murky bead.
He recognized the weight of it at once-the Five-Element Unification Pearl, humming like a newborn world.
The instant the pearl surfaced, the charging spear jerked as though yanked by invisible chains.
Its tip hovered three inches from his skin and quivered, unable to close the distance while the reincarnation aura threading the shaft bled into the pearl and vanished.
"Your strengthes from reincarnation," he murmured, eyes fixed on the puppet''s hollow stare. "But even reincarnation was born out of chaos."
He lifted his right hand, fingers curling as if seizing something no one else could
see.
The pearl detonated into five torrents of color that snapped around the puppet''s limbs, neck, and midsection, knotting tight like living fetters.
"Chaos... strip away."
At the whispered verdict, the reincarnation sigils etched across the puppet''s gray scales flickered violently, as though the carving itself screamed.
Then the battlefield forgot to breathe.
A translucent veil unfurled from the center of the puppet''s brow, spilling cold light like a projectoring to life.
Within that screen, Jared watched a younger Soul Devourer hurled through a stone gate, assaulted by three gray figures that peeled mind from flesh and rebuilt the remainder as a shell.
The cruelty of the process-ripping soul, erasing will, forging a new body-red in unbearable rity, every second tattooed into his sight.
"No... avert your eyes!"
Malcolm lunged to block the image, but Gerald''s molten chains coiled around him and dragged him back.
The projection refused to fade.
It continued past the forging—showing the puppet submerged in a dark pool among countless others, each one rising and sinking like discarded weapons awaiting deployment.
Finally, the helpless construct was handed to Malcolm, no thoughts left, only reflexes honed for ughter.
There had never been immortality here, no resurrection-only theft, dissection, and remaking.
The phantom image snapped dark, leaving only the battlefield roar and the Soul- Devouring Puppet staring into space.
Gray-white spirals churned behind its empty pupils, tightening until, for one horrid heartbeat, something like pain twitched across the dead face.
Jared felt the hair on his arms prickle; that wasn''t programmed reflex—it was memory, wing upward, then copsing as unseen chains yanked it down.
A heartbeat only, yet enough to rip the lie wide open.
Across the torn in, every cultivator who had pledged themselves to the Malevolent Path Hall saw that flicker of agony.
Silence fell harder than any war-drum.
For a breath and another, nothing moved-no spell, no scream.
"T-That was the Soul Devourer?!"
"They turned him into a puppet?!"
"So immortality means turning us into that?!"
The first tremor of panic rippled through the ranks like frost racing over steel.
Eyes that moments ago burned with zeal now shimmered with doubt, fear, and a dawning, murderous fury.
"He lied to us! The Door of Reincarnation never granted life evesting-it''s a trap!" "We were fools-cheated!"
The cry spread like gue fog, swallowing order wherever it touched.
"Hold the line—steady!" Witherbone Demon bellowed, but themand reached no ears willing to obey.
Pockets of soldiers broke away, some fleeing, others whirling to drive their des into the bewildered Soul Hunters beside them.
The coalition''s formation disintegrated into a storm of shing agendas.
"Now!" Jared''s voice cut through the uproar like a thrown knife. "Counterattack!"
The word echoed back from thousands of throats, raw, hungry, united.
A surge of bright resolve washed over Jared''s side, electric and undeniable. ine seized the opening.
His Three-Headed me Lion King roared, hurling three fused beams of crimson, gold, and blue that battered the Soul-Devouring Puppet backward.
Without missing a beat, ine swung into the cluster of Soul Hunters, Beastbone Battle Axe carving gore from bone.
Oswald''s sword intent red, a silent howl that multiplied his in iron de into a storm of mirrored edges.
Morven stumbled under the thousand-fold assault, retreating step after desperate step.
Aurelian poured everything into the Five-Element Barrier.
Five ribbons of light arced overhead, sealing the panicked deserters within a dome that rained relentless elemental fury on their pursuers.
Gerald, bleeding from a split pauldron, detonated a scarlet fire-lotus that hurled Malcolm a hundred yards away.
Nine lesser dragons of me spiraled together, forging a single leviathan that tore through the enemy ranks in howling delight.
Jared tightened his grip on the spear, the moment he''d prepared for finally within reach.
Jared left the Soul-Devouring Puppet drifting behind him and pivoted toward the upper sky.
Far above the Vermilion Demon Lord traded brutal blows with the towering Fiend Ghost king, one of the Ninefold Nether Pce''s three dreadedmanders.
The demon lord''s courage held, but the sh of High-Immortal strength had already carved exhaustion into every motion.
Cracks webbed across his armor, dark blood sizzled through dulling fire, and Jared could taste the moment slipping away.
"Mr. Vermilion, fall back." Jared''s voice threaded through the chaos, quieter than thunder yet impossible to ignore.
The demon lord''s shoulders hitched. "Kid, those three ancient wraiths aren''t something you just shoo away..."
"Leave them to me." The certainty left no room for bargain.
He stepped once, and the step folded distance; in the next blink he stood at the
fight''s molten center, air still rippling behind him.
Facing him loomed the Fiend Ghost King—a two-story mass of emerald flesh and tusks, brandishing a bone hammer big enough to tten a hill. "Another morsele to die." The wraith''sugh rattled like chains in a well.
He hurled the white-bone hammer downward, the sky shrieking around the blow. Jared did not bother to draw his sword; the gesture felt unnecessary, almost vulgar. He raised his right hand instead.
Five colored fments red across the back of it, converging in his palm where the Five-Element Unification Pearl pulsed into being once more.
This time the pearl''s heart churned with a thin spiral of ashen haze-something new, something hungry.
Softly, he named the technique: "Return of the Five Elements, second tier."
He flicked the sphere forward with a motion gentle enough to dismiss dust from his
sleeve.
The pearl arced in aet''s curve, painting the air in five muted hues before kissing the descending hammer.
No thunder followed, no shockwave; instead the hammer simply began to unmake
itself.
Metal, bone, and malice turned liquid-thin, then vapored away faster than snow beneath a forge''s breath.
In the blink it took Jared to exhale, the decay raced up the haft toward the wraith''s colossal arm.
"No!" The Fiend Ghost King shrieked, trying to release the handle, but time itself refused to give him that mercy.
The pearl lung like a disease of light, advancing along sinew and
shadow, wherever it passe
flesh
crumbled to gray dust that scattered on a wind only it could feel
Three breathster, the mighty High-Immortal wraith was gone-body, hatred, even
spirit erased without a trace.
Silence rolled across the battlefield, raw and sudden.
Even the falling ash seemed to pause, unsure what sound dared follow.
Every gaze snapped toward Jared. In his open palm, the Five-Element Unification Pearl turned in slow deliberate orbits, ribbons of coloryering until they resembled a silent
storm.