A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5973

Caution stirred beneath Malcolm’s anger; Jared’s swift recovery from the Divine Bow’s backlash hinted at some hidden fortune.

After a breath he let sarcasm bleed through a thin smile. "Still, his timing is perfect. The Supreme Master gifted three Reincarnation Guardians—we need live trials."

"Sound the order. Raise the Mountain-Guarding Grand Array. Have every cultivator who pledged to us gather outside the gate. I will grind these traitors into dust while the whole level twelve watches."

A chorus of aides bowed. "Yes!"

Half an hour later Malcolm hovered above the mountain gate, wind tugging at his hair, the chill satisfying in its promise of violence.

Below, a dark tide of cultivators—more than ten thousand by his rough glance—pressed together, forming a living wall at his command.

Behind him the three pale Guardians floated in silence, along with the surviving hall elders, their combined aura amplified by the gray sheen leaking from the Door of Reincarnation’s phantom above the altar.

A ripple in the sky announced them.

Jared stepped from the air at the head of perhaps thirty allies, each presence compressed and steady, yet all attention snagged on the young man himself.

Though his cultivation hovered only at Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven, the world’s lines of force bent toward him: light, sound, even the subtle whisper of law, all tilting as if eager to serve.

The name tore through the stale air—“Jared!”

He didn't flinch. The syllables scattered against his ribs like dry gravel and fell away.

Malcolm’s voice followed, thin and slick, the sound of a viper tasting the wind.

“I didn’t think you’d dare crawl back to die,” Malcolm hissed. “The Divine Bow’s backlash should have buried you, yet you cling to fantasies.”

Jared exhaled, tasting iron on the back of his tongue. The accusation slid past him like cold water.

Morven stepped closer, smile carved wide, red seams glinting where flesh and metal met.

“Kid, my new arm needs a sacrifice. Your head fits the socket perfectly.”

Jared noted the mechanical joints grinding under Morven’s skin, but the words floated by, weightless.

Nothing inside him stirred; the calm felt too large, like standing in an abandoned hall.

He kept his gaze lowered, refusing the hook in their eyes.

His attention slipped past the two men.

Beyond their shoulders waited three Reincarnation Guardians—hulking, stone-white mannequins chained to silence.

Farther still, the altar shimmered, and above it the phantom Door of Reincarnation flickered like a torn veil catching moonlight.

"Only three puppets?”

“Seems even the Lord of Reincarnation doesn’t think much of you.”

He spoke as if remarking on weather, offering them nothing of himself.

"Insolent!”

Malcolm’s face darkened. “At death’s door and still boasting? Today you’ll taste the Supreme Master’s gift firsthand. Reincarnation Guardians—kill!”

His arm swept outward, a casual crescent that left the air ringing.

A low hum blossomed, like a hive waking all at once.

Light, the color of dead smoke, ignited in the guardians’ hollow eyes.

Jared felt the ground tick as their intent locked onto him.

They did not roar; they simply advanced one measured step, stone joints grinding like distant thunder.

The earth buckled with the impact, a blunt report that punched up through Jared’s soles.

Three ash-white pillars burst from their bodies and speared the sky.

High above, the beams wove themselves into a vast triangular lattice, humming with intent.

Within the lattice, reincarnation aura churned like a stormy tide.

Chains, swords, and phantom hammers assembled from the mist and cascaded toward him, a collapsing heaven of gray.

Each blow carried the heavy pressure of High Immortal Realm Level Two—power meant to crush mountains, quicken rot.

Worse, the aura itself wanted to seep into flesh, rewrite bone, make him part of its machinery.

He remembered stories of cultivators who touched that mist—their eyes went dim, their wills drowned, bodies jerking like puppets.

A collective gasp rose from the ridge below, sharp and ragged.

It washed over his back, insignificant as wind through tall grass.

"So that’s a Reincarnation Guardian’s strength?”

The disbelief trembled in a stranger’s throat; Jared filed it away without interest.

"Too terrifying!”

Voices stacked atop one another like falling tiles.

"No wonder the Malevolent Path Hall struts around!”

The shout was half awe, half resentment."

Even Aurelian, normally unshakable, tightened his grip on the jade blade at his hip.

Their combined strike, someone whispered, neared High Immortal Realm Level Four.

Jared let the number drift by, an irrelevant measurement.

He lifted his right hand, palm open, as though greeting rain.

The world seemed to pause, curious what such a small gesture intended.

Jared let his fingers uncurl.

In the hollow of his palm, the Chaos Vortex Mark breathed—just one muted wink of ash-colored light.

He breathed the command, "Scatter."

The beam gathered speed, a needle turned hammer, boring straight through the remaining veils.

It drifted on, almost lazy, and drew a single line through the torsos of all three guardians.

For a heartbeat the courtyard stopped breathing with them.

Then reality snapped back.

The first fracture rang out like ice splitting underfoot.

A second answered from the left.

A third, higher, thinner.

All three constructs froze mid-step, arms half raised in forgotten defense.

Their helmed heads dipped.

Aurelian followed their gaze to a hair-fine gray fissure running from brow to belly on each of them.

The line widened, hungry.

With a hollow boom the first guardian disintegrated.

Another boom chased it a breath later.

Then the third.

Power enough to match High Immortal Realm Level Two vanished in three breaths.

They did not explode so much as crumble, like sandcastles kissed by an unseen tide of chaotic force.

The pale grains rose, twinkled, and were gone—no ash, no echo.

Silence folded over the mountain gate.

Dead silence, deeper than night.

Ten thousand cultivators ringed the courtyard, mouths unhinged, sound lost somewhere between lungs and tongue.

Among them stood the Elders of Malevolent Path Hall and Aurelian himself, equally mute.

Three Reincarnation Guardians at High Immortal Realm Level Two, erased… Was that even possible?

Jared caught the rasping whisper, "One move…?"

Another voice stumbled after it, "No, it wasn’t even a move, just… a lazy flick?"

The air quivered with the unspoken question: What kind of power could do that?

A shaken spectator hazarded, almost pleading, "High Immortal Realm, level three?"

A thinner guess followed, "Level four?"

No one dared voice the highest possibility, yet the silence screamed it anyway.