But for Jared now, that step was already within reach.


    All he needed was one opening, and the next breakthrough woulde as naturally as water running downhill.


    These years in seclusion had turned disaster into fortune.


    Jared slowly opened his eyes.


    Two dazzling beams of golden light shot out of his eyes like two golden sacred swords, and in an instant they lit up the entire Pentacarna Tower.


    Under that light, the demonic aura inside the tower vanished at once, wiped clean without a trace.


    He slowly rose to his feet.


    The aura around him drew back without leaking even a thread, but the authoritying out of his very bones still carried the kind of pressure that could make heaven and earth shake.


    "The peak of High Immortal Realm Level Four..."


    Jared murmured it under his breath. His voice stayed even, but it carried a faint note of approval.


    He slowly raised his right hand and lightly closed it into a fist.


    As his fingers tightened, he measured the power surging through him, vast and relentless, like it could never be exhausted. He also felt the dragon''s might rushing through his blood, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a small, calm smile.


    This time, the heavy injuries had looked deadly, the kind of ordeal that left almost no road back.


    But that same brush with death had also forced his cultivation to settlepletely, shattered the bottleneck in his path, and pushed his strength to a higher level.


    A loss could turn into a gain. After surviving a disaster, something better could still be waiting on the other side.


    He flicked his hand.


    The Pentacarna Tower, floating in midair, instantly turned into a streak of light and shot straight into the Storage Ring, vanishing from sight.


    Then he turned around and looked calmly at the door of the hidden chamber.


    He lifted his foot and slowly walked toward it.


    During these past days, he knew nothing about what had happened outside.


    Jared reached out and gently pressed his hand against the hidden chamber''s stone door.


    "Creak..."


    The heavy stone door slowly opened under that light push from his hand.


    Blinding light poured in from outside the doorway.


    With it came a thick, choking stench of blood, mixed with the smell of smoke and dust, hitting him head-on.


    Jared''s brows drew together slightly, and a cold glint shed through his eyes.


    He stepped out of the hidden chamber.


    The instant he saw whaty in front of him, he stopped cold.


    The city lord mansion before his eyes had long since stopped looking the way it had before he entered seclusion.


    Pavilions and towers had been burned down to ckened wreckage.


    The carved beams and painted eaves were snapped apart and copsed. The garden had been reduced to ash. Cracks split the ground, blood stained it everywhere, and broken walls and shattered stoney scattered in every direction. The whole ce was a mess.


    The city lord mansion, once crowded with life and wrapped in celestial energy, had turned into a silent ruin.


    Everywhere he looked, the damage ran deep. The whole ce carried that bleak, emptied-out stillness left behind after everything worth protecting had been torn apart.


    In the air, the stink of blood, smoke, and demonic aura twisted together.


    It came in harsh and heavy, thick enough to press on the chest and make breathing hard.


    But what made Jared''s pupils tighten even more was the sky.


    Spread across it,yer afteryer, was the Demon Dragon host, dark red and endless, so vast he couldn''t see where it stopped. The rolling demonic aura had nearly swallowed the whole sky, and that savage presence was sweeping across heaven and earth.


    Jared''s gazended first on Rnd atop the city walls.


    His whole body was drenched in blood, and what little breath was left in him had already gone weak.


    Jared kept looking at him.


    Rnd was nearly spent, nearly at the very end, yet he was still holding his ground


    by force. The blood on him had not even dried. The weariness in his eyes was in


    to see, and so was the resolve still locked there.


    A killing intent cold enough to cut to the bone surged up in Jared at once.


    Rnd was his brother.


    He was therade who had followed him into battle.


    And now, just to protect him, just to protect the city lord mansion, Rnd had been beaten into this state.


    Every bit of it had been done by the ones in the sky.


    Jared''s heart locked tight, as if an invisible hand had grabbed it and would not let


    go.


    The force building inside him crashed together so hard it nearly tore out of his chest. Then his gaze slowly lifted.


    It passed over the Demon Dragon host and finally settled on the ck-d figure at the edge of the sky.


    At that instant, Jared''s whole body jolted, as if a thunderbolt had struck him head-


    on.


    He froze where he stood.


    That face.


    That face carved into him so deep he could never forget it for as long as he lived.


    That faint, taunting curve at the corner of the mouth.


    Those deep, icy eyes filled with poison. That familiar presence hidden inside the demonic aura, the one he hated down to the bone...


    There was no mistake.


    There was no way he could be wrong.


    Skr!


    It was actually Skr!


    Jared''s pupils shrank hard.


    The look in his eyes turned savage in an instant, the kind of hatred and killing intent


    that felt like it could take shape and swallow Skr whole.


    The hunt in the mundane world, the blood debts in the Ethereal Realm, and most of all the fact that Skr had been with Josephine-those thoughts had pressed on him over and over again.


    More than once, Jared had been driven to that same edge: if Josephine had been vited by Skr, he would not have gone on living.


    Now that Skr was right in front of him, Jared wanted nothing more than to charge


    up there on the spot and tear him into pieces.


    But right then, his gaze shifted by ident andnded on the purple figure standing beside Skr.


    In that instant, time seemed to lock in ce.


    Every sound between heaven and earth dropped away.


    Jared stood there as if a bolt of lightning hade down and hit him head-on.


    His whole body locked up, and even his breathing stopped.


    Purple robes stirred in the air.


    She looked cold and untouchable, almost unreal. Her figure was slender, and her


    face was devastatingly beautiful.


    That face.


    The face that had stayed with him


    through countless days and nights. e he had longed fo


    The without end The face he had believed he


    would only see again after crossing countless heavens and surviving countless brushes with death... Cóntent


    Josephine.


    It was Josephine!


    Jared''s heart mmed wildly against his ribs, like it was about to break straight


    through his chest.


    His eyes reddened at once.


    Tears spun out of control along his lowershes, and his vision blurred in an instant.


    His lips parted. He tried to call the name carved into the deepest part of him, but something seemed to jam his throat shut. It turned dry and tight, and no sound came out.


    All those years of missing her, all those years of worrying, all those years of being worn down by it, all those years of moving through life like his soul had gone missing every bit of it crashed over him at once like a broken floodbank.


    Whatever reason and control he had left vanished under it.


    He had believed Josephine had vanished somewhere in the depths of the celestial realm, with no way to know whether she was alive or dead.


    He had believed he would have to climb to a higher cultivation level and search every corner of the celestial realm before he found even a trace of her.


    He had believed he still had countless brushes with death ahead of him, and


    endless lonely years to endure, before he could see her again.


    But now she was right there.


    She was standing in the sky not far from him, clear and real in front of his eyes.


    There had been no warning.


    No time to prepare.


    The person he had longed for day and night was right in front of him.


    "Jo... Josephine..."


    Jared finally forced the words out. His voice came rough and shaking, and every syble seemed dragged up from the bottom of him.


    He couldn''t hold himself back anymore. He couldn''t spare a thought for the Demon


    Dragon host in the sky, or for Skr, or for any danger around him.


    His feet moved.


    Then he shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, throwing everything aside as


    he rushed straight toward that purple figure in the sky.


    "Josephine!"


    He shouted it raw, the sound tearing out of him as he charged at her with nothing


    left in him except that one fixed pull.


    At that moment, his eyes held nothing but the woman in violet.


    The whole world seemed to fall away until she was the only one left.


    In that instant, he was no longer the Dragon Emperor whose killing edge had


    shaken the Fourteenth Firmament.


    He was no longer the calm powerhouse who had made countless forces pale at the


    mention of his name.


    He was only Jared.


    Just Jared, a man driven so far by longing for the woman he loved that all restraint


    had broken and nothing else mattered anymore.


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