A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6298

By the time they returned to the Moonshade Realm, night had already fallen.

Lydia was taken back to the stone hall Jared had been staying in.

That room had been hers to begin with.

Healers moved in and out without stopping, changing her bandages, feeding her medicine, and channeling ghostly miasma into her.

Alaric kept watch at the bedside, holding his daughter's hand and refusing to leave for even a moment.

Jared was arranged to rest in another stone hall next door.

Gwendolyn was in the room on the other side.

Only one wall stood between them.

Jared lay on the bed and turned over again and again, but sleep wouldn't come.

It wasn't because the bed felt unfamiliar.

That pull was still there.

Whatever was inside the Pyre Chasm was still calling to him.

It wasn't a voice. It wasn't language.

It was something more primitive than that, more direct.

It was like blood answering blood, like a soul picking up another soul's vibration.

The moment he closed his eyes, he could see the flames in the Pyre Chasm. He could even sense the breathing of those heavenfire beasts.

They were waiting for him.

He sat up, pulled on his clothes, and walked out of the stone hall.

Moonlight spilled through gaps in the black mist, washing the ruins of the ancient city in a layer of silver-gray.

A Ghost Clan warrior on night watch spotted Jared and started to bow, but Jared lifted a hand and stopped him.

"Couldn't sleep. Came out to walk around."

The warrior nodded and didn't ask anything else.

Jared made a full circle through the ancient city's ruins and ended up at the city gate.

He stopped there and looked east.

The sky in the east had been dyed a dark red by the glow from the Pyre Chasm, like a slab of iron heated until it burned.

That glow flickered in and out behind the black mist, eerie and strangely hard to look away from.

"You felt it too?"

A cool voice came from behind him.

Jared didn't turn around. He knew it was Gwendolyn.

"You felt it too?" he shot back.

Gwendolyn walked up beside him and stood shoulder to shoulder with him, both of them looking at the dark red sky in the east.

"I felt it back when we were inside the Pyre Chasm."

"There's something at the bottom of that pit," she said softly. "Not a heavenfire beast. Something deeper than that. Something older. It's calling to you."

Jared turned to look at her. "How do you know it's calling to me?"

"Because before you showed up, it never called," Gwendolyn said, glancing at him. "Then you came, and it woke up."

Jared said nothing.

"The Pyre Chasm has been there for tens of thousands of years. Countless powerful cultivators went in and never came back out," Gwendolyn went on. "But you went in, came back alive, and even killed the heavenfire beast king. Don't you think that's strange?"

"I got lucky," Jared said.

The corner of Gwendolyn's mouth tipped up a little. There was a trace of mockery in that smile. "That's what you always say. Every time, it's luck. All the way here, every time, it's luck. Jared, don't you think you're being a little too modest?"

Jared still didn't answer.

Gwendolyn kept her eyes on the eastern sky, and when she spoke again, her voice had eased some. "You have the primal fire-essence inside you. The heavenfire in the Pyre Chasm comes from the same source. And you carry chaotic force, something that can contain all things. I can tell the thing inside the Pyre Chasm is waiting for someone. It waited for tens of thousands of years. Now it's finally found you."

Jared drew in a deep breath. "Do you think I should go back?"

"Do you think you should go back?" Gwendolyn shot back.

Jared stood there for a long time without saying a word.

"I think I should," Jared said at last. "But I don't know what I'll be facing once I go back."

Gwendolyn nodded. "Then go back. Your instincts have never lied to you."

She turned and headed for the stone hall.

After a few steps, she stopped again.

She didn't look back.

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