"No!"


    He roared and forced every ounce of lightning power in his body into motion.


    Golden lightning burst out of him and condensed in front of his body into a golden Lightning Dragon 100 yards long.


    The Lightning Dragon let out a thunderous roar and charged straight at Jared.


    Jared shoved the sphere in his hands forward.


    The sphere mmed into the golden Lightning Dragon.


    There was no explosion.


    No deafening crash.


    The sphere was like a ck hole, swallowing, absorbing, and converting the golden Lightning Dragon bit by bit.


    The dragon struggled against it for less than three breaths before the sphere swallowed it whole.


    Then the sphere kept going and crashed into Magnus Storme''s chest.


    "Aaagh!"


    A ragged scream tore out of Magnus Storme.


    Purple-ck lightning rampaged through his body, destroying his meridians, bones, and flesh inch by inch.


    His protective spiritual power met the chaos lightning like paper thrown into a storm. It tore apart in an instant.


    Then his body starteding undone. It began at his chest, cracks splitting open and racing out through his limbs.


    "No... impossible..." His eyes bulged wide, and even with death already on him, he still wouldn''t ept it. "High Immortal Realm... Level Eight... how is that possible..."


    Jared stood in front of him and looked straight into his eyes.


    "I told you. Killing you was a transaction."


    Magnus Storme''s body burst apart.


    It turned into a sky full of golden motes and scattered into the air.


    Body and soul were both erased.


    Thunderpeak went quiet.


    The lightning still rumbled overhead, but it sounded much weaker than before.


    Maybe it was because Magnus Storme had died. Maybe it was because Jared''s chaos lightning was so terrifying that even heaven and earth shook under it.


    Jared lowered his hand and let out a long breath.


    Some of the color had drained from his face.


    More than half of the lightning nascence and chaotic force inside him had been burned away.


    His right hand trembled faintly.


    The web between his thumb and forefinger had split open, and blood ran down his fingertips in slow drops.


    There was a scorched wound on his chest too, where Magnus Storme''s lightning had struck him.


    A dull throb kept pulsing from it.


    He was injured.


    Taking a full-force strike from a True Immortal Realm Level Seven cultivator head-on had never been something a person could do lightly.


    If chaos lightning hadn''t suppressed every other kind of lightning power, he might already have been dead.


    He turned and looked at the celestial cultivators.


    More than a dozen celestial cultivators stood rooted where they were, staring at him with their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.


    Their Deputy Hall Master, Magnus Storme, a True Immortal Realm Level Seven cultivator, had been killed in a single move by a human cultivator at the Top Level High Immortal Realm Level Eight.


    "Avenge the Deputy Hall Master!"


    A celestial cultivator in the True Immortal Realm Level Four was the first to snap out


    of it, roaring as he charged straight at Jared.


    The others moved too.


    Golden holy radiance split into countless attacks and sted toward Jared.


    Jared tried to move, but his body had already stopped obeying him.


    The lightning nascence and chaotic force inside him were almost drained dry.


    He could barely keep himself on his feet.


    Right then, an icy blue radiance dropped from the sky.


    Gwendolyn.


    She had been watching the battle on Thunderpeak from 100 miles away.


    The instant she saw Jared hurt and those celestial cultivators closing in to swarm him, she moved.


    Shended in front of Jared and formed seals with both hands.


    l.ne


    Ice-blue divine radiance surged out of her body and turned into a massive wall of ice, blocking every attack the celestial cultivators sent at him.


    Then she raised her right hand and struck out with her palm.


    "Winter''s Reach."


    Ice-blue divine radiance poured out like a rising tide.


    Everywhere it swept, the air froze, the rocks froze, and even the lightning in the sky froze solid.


    Those celestial cultivators didn''t


    even get time to react before blue


    ice crystal locked around them


    sealing them where they stood and


    turning them into frozen statues.


    More than a dozen of them.


    Everyst one was frozen.


    Gwendolyn drew back her hand, turned, and caught Jared before he could go down.


    "Come on. These people won''t stay sealed for long..."


    She took Jared with her and became a streak of icy blue light, vanishing into the horizon.


    Behind them, thunder still boomed across Thunderpeak, and the ice crystal threw back a harsh, blinding re under the sun.


    More than a dozen frozen statues stood on the mountain summit like grave markers. Gwendolyn carried Jared for about 2 hours before dropping into a hidden vale. The vale wasn''trge.


    Mountains hemmed in three sides, and only one narrow entrance led inside.


    A small stream ran through the valley, so clear the bottom showed through.


    Beside ity a patch of grass, thick with wildflowers no one had named.


    Gwendolyn lowered Jared onto the grass and checked his wounds.


    There was a scorched wound on his chest, left by the lightning Magnus Storme had struck him with.


    The wound wasn''t deep.


    But golden lightning still clung to it, chewing into his flesh bit by bit.


    "Don''t move," Gwendolyn said.


    She raised her right hand.


    An icy blue radiance gathered in her palm, and she pressed it gently against Jared''s


    chest.


    The icy blue radiance crept through the wound, freezing the golden lightning away


    piece by piece, driving it out little by little.


    The burning in Jared''s chest slowly ebbed.


    In its ce came a cool, clean spread of relief.


    "Thanks," Jared said.


    Gwendolyn said nothing.


    She pulled her hand back.


    Then she took out a healing elixir from her sleeve and held it out to him.


    "Take it."


    Jared took the healing elixir and put it in his mouth.


    It melted the instant it touched his tongue.


    A warm current flowed into his body, working through his damaged meridians and


    torn flesh, feeding life back into both.


    "Your injuries aren''t serious. Rest for


    a day or two and you''ll recover," Gwendolyn said. "But you pushed this too far. He was True Immortal Realm Level Seven and you still dared to go head-on with him."


    Jared smiled a little. "It wasn''t a blind sh. My chaos lightning suppresses his


    lightning power. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have dared fight him."


    Gwendolyn looked at him and went quiet for a moment.


    "Next time, don''t carry it all by yourself."


    Jared paused, caught off guard for a beat, then nodded.


    "Okay."


    The two of them sat on the grass and watched the clouds drift across the sky.


    The sun sank westward.


    It washed the whole sky in gold and red.


    Under thest light of sunset, the creek shimmered in broken shes, like liquid gold


    running through the valley.