A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6123

"Come on!"

He roared again, raised the Heavenstep Blade, and charged once more into the press of foes.

Sword light flared; blood scattered through the air.

He drove the blade through a Wagner guard's heart, then sent a Celestial Palace soldier hurtling away with a palm strike.

But the wounds carving his own body were too many to count.

Blood poured away, breath shortened, every motion slower than the one before.

At last, the white-haired elder closed the distance.

With eyes colder than iron, the elder slammed his palm into Garrick's back, landing the blow dead-center.

Splurt—!

Garrick spewed a thick gush of blood, pitched forward, and slammed onto the ground so hard the earth shook. He never managed to lift himself again.

"Father!"

Vivian screamed and, like someone unhinged, tried to hurl herself back toward him.

Garrick summoned the last fleck of strength, forced his head to turn, and fixed his fading eyes on her. His voice was little more than breath: "Go… run… find Jared… tell him… Dad wronged him… Dad caused this… ask him… to keep you safe…"

He paused; a shadow quivered across his gaze, the corners of his eyes tightening as though something inside tore wider.

"And… tell the ancestors of The Janis Family… Garrick was powerless… Garrick ruined ten millennia of heritage… I… regret it… truly regret it…"

Each word thinned, lighter and lighter, the sound nearly stolen by the night wind.

At last his eyelids drifted shut.

His body slackened, every spark of life slipping away without a ripple.

Master Garrick, patriarch of The Janis Family, had fallen.

"Father!!!"

Vivian's scream ripped through the night, raw enough to scrape stone.

Dominic strolled up to Garrick's corpse, nudged it with a contemptuous kick to be sure the man was dead, then slowly lifted his gaze toward Vivian standing not far away.

A greasy, covetous glimmer slid back into his eyes.

"Miss Janis, your father is gone and The Janis Family is dust. From now on, you belong to me."

He snapped his hand forward and barked, "After her! Alive if possible—dead or alive, I want her found! Don't let her slip away!"

Vivian stared at her father's cold form, at the carpets of family blood, at Janis Manor twisted into a private hell. Something coiled tight inside her, like steel wire biting into flesh.

She understood.

The Janis Family was finished.

A heritage of a thousand years had been wiped out in a single night.

She clamped her teeth together, swallowed the white-hot throb under her ribs, whirled, and dove into the boundless darkness, running like a hunted beast.

Behind her, Dominic led a swarm of pursuers; their roar of weapons and footfalls rolled after her like thunder.

"Vivian Janis! You can't escape! Do yourself a favor and give in!"

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