Among them were ordinary cultivators at True Immortal Realm Level Two, squad captains at True Immortal Realm Level Three, deputy elders at True Immortal Realm Level Four, and even two Elders at True Immortal Realm Level Five.
They closed in and surrounded Jared on all sides.
Golden holy radiance came surging at him like a tide.
"Jared! Surrender now! The Hall Master might spare your life yet!" one Elder at True Immortal Realm Level Five shouted.
Jared nced at him.
Then he smiled.
It was the faintest smile, so faint it was almost impossible to see.
But in that instant, every one of them caught the same chill, shooting from the soles
of the feet straight up to the crown of the skull.
"Spare my life?"
Jared''s voice stayed level. "You think you''re worthy of that?"
He moved.
This time, he did not stay where he was and wait for them to rush him.
He charged straight into the crowd himself.
Chaos-me burned around his body.
Violet radiance and golden me twisted together and swallowed every trace of the holy radiance around him.
He tore through the golden sea like a violet meteor.
One punch. A celestial cultivator at True Immortal Realm Level Two flew backward.
His chest caved in. Blood sprayed from his mouth. By the time he hit the ground, there was no breath left in him.
One palm. A squad captain at True Immortal Realm Level Three had his protective holy radiance smashed apart, and his body burst open in midair into a cloud of blood.
One finger. A strand of chaos-me punched through the head of an Elder at True Immortal Realm Level Four.
His eyes bulged wide, and even at the moment he died, he still could not believe it.
One sword strike-but he had no sword in hand.
His Dragonyer Sword was still recovering.
But his fingers were the sword.
Chaos-me condensed along them into a de-re, and everywhere that streak of light passed, celestial cultivators dropped in rows like wheat under a sickle.
One. Two. Three... Ten. Twenty. Thirty...
In less than half an hour, more than half of the hundred-plus celestial cultivators had gone down.
The ones still left finally broke.
"Run! Run now!"
"He''s not human! He''s a devil!"
"Help! Help!"
They spun around and fled, scrambling over each other as they rushed for the top of the gorge.
Some fell to the ground and got trampled by the people behind them.
A scream tore out once, then cut off.
Others shoved their ownpanions to the rear to use as shields while they wed upward for all they were worth.
Jared did not chase them.
He stood in the middle of the corpses and watched those figures fleeing in a wrecked, ugly scramble.
There was no mercy in his eyes. No satisfaction either. Only a t, cold stillness.
Then he turned and walked out of the gorge.
News from Soul Abyss reached the Tribunal that very same day.
The Tribunal Venerable sat on the ck throne and listened to the report from below.
As it went on, his face darkened by degrees.
"What did you say? Jared broke into Soul Abyss? Killed the Frostwyrm Guardian? Killed more than a hundred of our cultivators?"
"Y-Yes, Hall Master."
The cultivator kneeling on the floor shook from head to toe, his forehead pressed hard against the ground, not daring to lift it.
"Why did he go to Soul Abyss?"
"He... he picked the soulbind herb."
The Tribunal Venerable''s eyes narrowed.
Soulbind herb.
That was the main ingredient for refining the sense-gathering pill.
The old chieftain of the Skywolf Tribe had been unconscious for 300 years.
The only thing keeping him alive all this time had been the Soulkindling me.
Jared had taken the soulbind herb, refined it into a sense-gathering pill, brought the
old chieftain back to life, and then taken the Soulkindling me.
The whole chain fell into ce.
In that instant, the Tribunal Venerable understood everything.
"Jared."
His voice came out level, so level it made the skin crawl.
"And Mchy Vane. And Hadrian Wolfhowe."
He rose from the ck throne and walked down from it.
His golden robe dragged across the floor with a dry, whispering rustle.
He stopped in front of the kneeling cultivator and looked down at him.
"What about the wards in Soul Abyss? Those wards came from an ancient legacy. Even a True Immortal Realm Level Seven couldn''t break through them. He''s only at the Top Level High Immortal Realm Level Eight. How did he get in?" S
"This subordinate... doesn''t know."
The Tribunal Venerable said nothing for a moment.
"Chaotic force," he murmured. "His chaotic force can suppress every other kind of
power."
He turned and walked back to the ck throne.
"Pass down my order. Starting today, every cultivator on patrol duty outside is forbidden from engaging Jared on sight. The moment anyone finds him, report back
at once. I want his movements in my hands at all times."
"Yes!"
"And one more thing. Notify Shadow Hall and the Skywolf Tribe. Tell Mchy Vane and Hadrian Wolfhowe I''ve taken note of their cooperation with Jared. Once I''ve dealt with Jared, I''ll settle the score with them too."
"Yes!"
The Tribunal Venerable closed his eyes and leaned back against the ck throne.
His fingers tapped lightly on the armrest in a steady rhythm.
The sound carried through the empty great hall like the tolling of a funeral bell.
"Jared... you''ve cost me a Deputy Hall Master, the spirit beast of Soul Abyss, more than 100 cultivators, and one stalk of soulbind herb."
His voice stayed low, almost like he was speaking to himself.
"You will pay the price."
*****
By the time Jared returned to Moonshade Realm, night had already fallen.
ric and Lydia were waiting at the city gate. The moment they saw Jareding back, both of them let out the breath they had been holding.
"Mr. Chance, did you get it?" ric asked.
Jared reached into his Storage Ring, took out the soulbind herb, and handed it over
to him.
Then he went over Hadrian''s request from start to finish.
ric took the soulbind herb, and his hands were already shaking.
The small silver-white herb trembled faintly in his palm. Its pale blue flower swayed
in the night wind, giving off a dim, ghostly glow.
"Th-This... this is the soulbind herb?"
Jared nodded.
"But..." ric''s face tightened again.
"Who is going to refine it? The
sense-gathering pill is a Level Six
vel
elixir. It takes a Grandmaster Alchemist to make one. In the Moonshade Realm... we don''t have anyone like that."
Jared was quiet for a moment.
"I will."
Every eye turned to him.
"You know pill refinement?" Lydia''s eyes went wide.
"A little," Jared said. "I learned in the Ethereal Realm. It''s been a long time since I
What he didn''t say was that he had done more than just learn pill refinement. He also had an ancient divine cauldron in his possession-the Verdant Crucible.
The Verdant Crucible wasn''trge. It was bronze from top to bottom, and every inch
of it was carved with ancient runes.
Those runes weren''t any known script. They belonged to something older, something more primal-the elder sacred runes.
Legend said the Verdant Crucible could refine all things under heaven. Not just pills, but weapons, alchemical substances, and even souls.
ric parted his lips as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, nothing came
out.
He turned and walked into the Council Hall, then set the soulbind herb on the table.
"Mr. Chance, what supporting materials do you need? I''ll go get them ready."
Jared thought it over, then listed the spirit herbs one by one. "Three stalks of redme herb, two frostheart è lotuses, one slice of amaranth cloud cap, one Golden Dragon fment, and one drop of millennial spirit milk."
ric wrote every item down, then turned and hurried off to prepare them.
Jared found a corner in the Council Hall and sat down cross-legged.
He reached into his Storage Ring, took out a cauldron, and set it in front of him.
It was the Verdant Crucible.
Jared looked at the crucible, and something old and tangled rose in his chest.
This crucible had followed him for years, from the mundane world to the Ethereal
Realm, from the Ethereal Realm to the Ethereal Realm, and from the Ethereal Realm to the celestial realm.
He had kept it with him the whole time, yet in the celestial realm, he had never once
used it.
He set the Verdant Crucible before him, then ced the soulbind herb and the supporting materials into it one by one.