Inside the void passage, the three of them were wrapped in endless force of Space Law as they sped toward the Fifteenth Firmament.


    This was not Jared''s first time traveling through the void passage.


    Thest time, when he went from level thirteen to the Fourteenth Firmament, his palms had gone slick with sweat.


    The whole way through, he had been braced for the passage to copse without warning and send him dropping into a spatial rift to be torn to pieces.


    This time, though, he was far steadier.


    Maybe it was because he had grown stronger.


    Maybe it was because this time, he was not alone.


    Lydia was on his left, ck ghostly miasma rolling over her body as it held back the erosion of the force of Space Law.


    Her face stayed calm.


    If anything, there was a trace of anticipation there. She had been away from the Fifteenth Firmament for so long. Now she was finally going back.


    Gwendolyn was on his right, ice-blue divine radiance flowing across her body, freezing the force of Space Law into fine ice crystals before shattering them apart with a light tremor.


    Her eyes were closed, as if she were resting.


    Or as if she were sensing something.


    "What''s the Fifteenth Firmament like?" Jared asked.


    Lydia gave it a moment''s thought. More deste than the Fourteenth Firmament, and more dangerous. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth is denser there, but thews of the realm are harsher.


    "There, cultivators in the High Immortal Realm can barely protect themselves. Only those in the True Immortal Realm really have a ce to stand."


    "Then how did you get from the Fifteenth Firmament down to the Fourteenth Firmament in the first ce?" Jared asked.


    Lydia went quiet for a moment, as if weighing her words.


    "The Ghost n was ughtered by the celestials. My nsmen were either killed


    or scattered. We were left clinging to what little was left. For the Ghost n''s future,


    I could only ce my hope on the Door of Reincarnation. Once the soul and sense


    of the Ghost n cultivators trapped in the Reincarnation Division were released, the Ghost n would still have hope," Lydia said.


    "I did everything I could to help you. I got you in touch with Mr. Sanders and helped you get the Door of Reincarnation."


    Jared let out a quiet breath.


    He knew that feeling.


    Being hunted. Running from ce to ce. Never able to stop long enough to breathe. He had lived through that himself.


    That crushing helplessness wasn''t new to him. He knew it too well.


    Lydia nced at him.


    The corner of her mouth lifted a little, but she didn''t say anything.


    Right then, Gwendolyn suddenly opened her eyes.


    "Something''s wrong."


    Her voice came out cold enough that the air around them seemed to drop a few degrees Celsius.


    Jared felt it too.


    The void passage was shaking.


    Not the normal, faint tremor that came from the natural fluctuations of the force of Space Law.


    This was violent. Forced. Something from the outside was interfering with it.


    Fragments of space along the passage walls began to peel away, letting out sharp, piercing shrieks.


    "Someone''s interfering with the passage!"


    Lydia''s expression changed at once. "That''s impossible. Void passages are torn open at random, not fixed routes. How could anyone interfere with one?"


    She hadn''t even finished speaking before a terrifying force mmed through the outer wall of the passage.


    Boom!


    The entire void passage twisted violently.


    Space fragments sted outward like a storm of shattered ss.


    Jared felt an irresistible force tearing at his body.


    Lydia and Gwendolyn were getting farther and farther away in his sight.


    "Jared!" Lydia''s voice reached him from far off, growing fainter by the second. "Lydia! Gwendolyn!"


    Jared threw his hand out desperately, trying to grab anything.


    There was nothing around him except empty space, drifting fragments, and endless darkness.


    The spatial storm caught his body and dragged him down toward an unknown destination.


    As he plunged through the void, Jared caught a faint trace of something.


    Demonic aura.


    ck. Cold. Packed with endless malice.


    He knew that demonic aura. It belonged to Skr.


    No.


    Notpletely.


    Skr''s demonic aura was a pure ck, but this one carried something else inside


    it too—a streak of scorching heat, like molten fire running through the dark.


    Could it be the Inferno Devil?


    That thought hit Jared hard enough to make everything in him tighten. If the Inferno Devil was reallying for him, then with strength like his, he wouldn''t even count for much.


    Jared gritted his teeth and tried to steady himself, but the space storm was too strong.


    His chaotic force tore through his body at full speed, and violet radiance burst from his skin, barely shielding his vital points.


    Then everything in front of him went ck.


    He lost consciousness.


    *****


    Jared came to from a burst of brutal pain.


    He opened his eyes and found himself staring at an unfamiliar sky.


    The sky was a deep violet, and high above hung two suns-one gold, one silver.


    Their light poured down together, washing the earth in a strange gold-violet glow.


    The spiritual energy in the air was at least ten times denser than in the Fourteenth Firmament, and it felt purer too, heavier somehow.


    But Jared had no room to care about any of that.


    There wasn''t a single part of his body that didn''t hurt.


    The bone in his left arm seemed cracked. His right leg had twisted badly


    yound across his chea


    shoed open by a space fragment, was still leaking golden blood.


    More than


    alread his chaotic force had


    already been burned away, and


    the de of the Dragonyed


    had picked up several tiny cracks.


    He braced himself with one hand and forced his body upright, every movement dragging pain through him. Then he lifted his head and looked around.


    He was in the Wastnds.


    Gray-ck scorched earth ran all the way to the horizon. Not a single de of grass


    broke through it.


    The ground was split everywhere by dried, cracked gullies, with rocks that had been weathered for ages scattered across it.


    Farther off, low hills stretched under the purple sky, throwing long shadows across thend.


    A faint sulfur smell hung in the air.


    Under it was something else too, something rotten he couldn''t quite put a name to.


    "Lydia? Gwendolyn?" he called out twice.


    No one answered.


    The spatial storm had torn him apart.


    He had no idea where Lydia and Gwendolyn had been flung.


    Jared drew in a slow breath and pressed himself to settle down.


    Lydia was Ghost n. The Fifteenth Firmament was her home. She ought to know


    how to stay alive here.


    Gwendolyn''s strength was too deep to read. In the whole Fifteenth Firmament, the people who could injure her could be counted on one hand.


    Compared to them, he was the one worth worrying about.


    He checked his injuries again.


    None of them were fatal, but none of them were light either.


    Even with the recovery of his Golden Dragon Bloodline, it would probably take two


    or three days before he was fully healed.


    He had just started looking for a ce to treat his wounds when a sound suddenly


    carried over from the distance.


    Metal striking metal.


    Shouts mixed with screams.


    People were fighting.


    Jared paused for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet anyway and started


    toward the source of the noise.


    He wasn''t the kind of man who stuck his nose into other people''s business.


    But this was the Fifteenth Firmament, and he knew nothing about it.


    Finding a local and figuring out what was going on would be a lot better than stumbling around blind by himself.


    He walked for about half an hour, climbed over a hillock, and finally saw whaty


    below.


    Below the hillocky a dried-up riverbed.


    What was happening on it wasn''t a fight. It was a one-sided ughter.


    One side had a dozen or so warriors in ck armor.


    Their armor was battered to ruin, covered in de marks and blood.


    The weapons in their hands didn''t even match. Some held sabers, some swords,


    some long spears.


    They were shielding a cluster of old people, women, and children.


    The weak and helpless were huddled in a corner of the riverbed, curled up tight and


    shaking.


    The other side had thirty or forty cultivators in white robes.


    Golden sacred sigils were embroidered across those white robes, and under the


    purple sunlight they shed with a cold gleam.


    Their gear was polished andplete.


    Their movements matched from one man to the next. They had inly been drilled


    hard.


    Jared''s eyes narrowed a fraction.


    He had seen those sacred sigils on the white robes before.


    He had seen simr patterns in the Celestial Basilica of the Fourteenth Firmament.


    He had seen them in the Celestial Pce too.


    Celestials.


    The ck-armored warriors were resisting with their lives on the line.


    But there were too few of them, and the gap in strength was far too wide.


    Leading them were a few warriors at True Immortal Realm Level One.


    Leading the other side was a grim-faced middle-aged man at True Immortal Realm Level Three.


    One Ghost n warrior in the True Immortal Realm was surrounded by three


    celestial cultivators.


    He hacked down two of them with everything he had left, and the third drove a


    sword straight through his chest.


    Even as he fell, his hand locked around that celestial cultivator''s ankle.


    He bought the nsmen behind him a little more time to run.


    "Fall back! Move!"


    The old steward in the ck armor shouted it at the top of his lungs.


    His voice came out rough and worn thin, but the force in it still left no room to question him.


    As he shouted, he swung his sword up and blocked an iing strike from a


    celestial cultivator.


    Then he turned his wrist and forced the man back with a backhand sh.


    But the drag in his movements was in to see.


    His left arm hung limp at his side, and blood dripped from his fingertips. The wound


    was already heavy.


    The old people, the women, and the children stumbled as they ran upstream along


    the riverbed.


    They were too slow.


    A little girl of seven or eight was bringing up the rear.


    Her foot caught, and she pitched to the ground.


    One celestial cultivator rushed forward, grabbed the little girl by the cor, and


    yanked her off the ground.