Behind him, the mes in the Pyre Chasm started to go out.


    Not all at once.


    It faded like a long, drawn-out sunset.


    Starting from the bottom of the pit, the fire dimmed, cooled, and dispersedyer byyer. Bright red sank into dark red, dark red into ashen ck, and ashen ck into dead stillness.


    The heavenfire beasts let out low hissing cries. There was no grief in the sound, no fury either, only the quiet weight of a final farewell.


    As the mes died, their bodies faded with them. They broke apart into fire sparks that drifted through the darkness.


    The Pyre Chasm, which had burned for tens of thousands of years, finally went dark in that moment.


    Jarednded on the ridgeline and turned to look back at the Pyre Chasm behind him.


    It was no longer the Sea of me.


    All that remained was a massive pit, ck and lifeless, sunk into silence.


    The rock at the bottom had been burned into a ssy sheen, throwing back a faint, ghostly glimmer under the moonlight.


    There was no fire there anymore, no heavenfire beasts, none of that scorching presence.


    Only silence remained.


    Jared stood there and looked at it for a long, long time.


    He thought of the old man.


    Then the fire spirits.


    Then the gifted child with the highest talent of them all.


    That child hadter be the Inferno Devil.


    He had chased the limit of power, and in the end, power had swallowed him whole.


    Thest trace of purity he left behind had burned in the Pyre Chasm for tens of thousands of years, waiting for someone who carried the primal fire-essence. Maybe the old man had known this day woulde a long time ago.


    Maybe this was what he meant when he said, "When you understand what the me is."


    The me wasn''t power.


    It was life.


    And life was something that had to be passed on.


    Jared turned and started walking toward Moonshade Realm.


    Behind him, the Pyre Chasmy silent under the moonlight.


    Wind rose from the bottom of the pit with a thread of warmth in it, like the old man''s sigh.


    By the time Jared returned to Moonshade Realm, dawn had already broken.


    At the city gate, ric, Gwendolyn, Edric, and several hundred Ghost n warriors were all standing there waiting.


    The moment they saw him appear on the mountain path, everyst one of them finally let go of the breath they''d been holding.


    "Mr. Chance!" ric hurried forward. "Are you all right?"


    Jared shook his head. "I''m fine."


    "The Pyre Chasm..." Edric pointed east, his voice unsteady. "The Pyre Chasm went out."


    Everyone looked east.


    The sky there was no longer dark red. It had gone back to a normal gray-ck, buried under ck mist.


    "I did it. I absorbed the quintessence of heavenfire inside the Pyre Chasm. The Pyre Chasm won''t exist anymore after this," Jared said.


    Silence.


    All of them looked at him with somethingplicated in their eyes.


    This young man—a human cultivator in the High Immortal Realm-had first carved


    his way through the Pyre Chasm by himself and rescued the Princess.


    Then he had gone back in alone and absorbed the essence the Pyre Chasm had gathered over tens of thousands of years, wiping out the most dangerous ce in the Fifteenth Firmament for good.


    What kind of person was he?


    "Uncle Jared!"


    A crisp voice cut straight through the silence.


    L ran out of the crowd and threw herself into Jared''s arms.


    "Uncle Jared! You''re back! You promised you''d tell me a story!"


    Jared bent down, lifted her up, and smiled.


    "All right. I''ll tell you a story."


    Holding L in his arms, he walked toward the ancient city.


    Behind him, ric, Gwendolyn, Edric, and the several hundred Ghost n warriors


    kept their eyes on his back and did not move for a long time.


    "This man..." Edric murmured. "Where did hee from, exactly?"


    ric said nothing.


    He watched Jared''s retreating figure, and something he couldn''t put into words rose quietly in his chest.


    Lydia, you made a good friend.


    Gwendolyn stood at the very back of the crowd, watching Jared''s back as the corner of her mouth lifted slightly.


    This man always managed to surprise people.


    She turned and headed for the stone hall.


    *****


    News that the Pyre Chasm had gone dark swept across the entire Fifteenth Firmament like a violent wind.


    The first to notice was the Celestial Tribunal, the closest major power to the Nether Mountain Range.


    The Pyre Chasm had existed for tens of thousands of years, and


    glow of its mes has the


    marked the eastern sky of the Fifteenth Firmament.


    So when that dark red light suddenly vanished, the cultivators standing watch at the


    Tribunal caught the anomaly at once.


    "The Pyre Chasm... went out?"


    The report passed upward level by level until it finally reached the Tribunal


    Venerable.


    The Tribunal Venerable stood at the highest point of the Tribunal and looked east.


    The sky there was no longer dark red.


    It had turned into a normal stretch of gray-ck.


    His brows drew tight.


    Something sharp flickered through his eyes.


    The Pyre Chasm had existed for tens of thousands of years.


    Countless powerhouses had gone into it, and not one had evere back out.


    How could it have suddenly gone dark?


    Who did it?


    "Send people to investigate," he said coldly. "If they''re alive, bring me the person. If


    they''re dead, bring me the body."


    At the same


    time, the demon


    Shadow Hall, the beast-race Skywolf


    Tribe, the human Wandering


    Cultivators Alliance and hundreds of other forces big and small across the Fifteenth Firmament all received the same news.


    The Pyre Chasm had gone out.


    Thatnd of death that had squatted in the Nether Mountain Range for tens of


    thousands of years had vanished.


    No one''s first response was shock.


    It was greed.


    The Pyre Chasm had existed for tens of thousands of years, and inside it, the


    quintessence of heavenfire had been building for just as long.


    And even if that quintessence was already gone, the rocks at the


    bottom of the chasm had been


    scorched by heaventire for tens of thousands of years.


    There was no way they hadn''t changed into something else.


    Those rocks might very well be extremely precious forging materials.


    More importantly, no one had dared go near the area around the Pyre Chasm for


    tens of thousands of years.


    Who knew what other natural treasures might be hidden there?


    For a time, scouts from countless forces poured toward the Nether Mountain Range.


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