A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6524

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Beastmoor Ridge.

Thornwild Palace, side hall.

Jared, Morgana, Master Wellspring, Cloudspire, and the Grand Elder of the Myriad Arts Order sat around the stone table.

A defense map of Beastmoor Ridge lay spread across the table.

The red marks showed the camp of the Celestial Army. The blue marks showed Beastmoor Ridge's defensive lines.

Morgana's finger moved across the map.

"Starwick's army has already advanced to within 3,000 miles," she said. "According to the scouts, the two forces have joined up. Their total strength is now over 4,500."

Master Wellspring's expression turned grave.

"4,500 against our 2,000. They outnumber us by more than two to one."

"But we're the ones defending."

Morgana kept her gaze on the map.

"Beastmoor Ridge has the ninefold ward-ring, and Beastfolk warriors are lying in wait inside the Shrouded Wood. They won't get in so easily."

Jared said nothing.

He took the wooden casket out of his Storage Ring and set it on the table.

He opened it.

Inside, the black crystal tablet lay silent on a length of blue silk, about the size of a fist, black from end to end.

Its blackness was too absolute.

Light struck it and never came back, as if every trace of radiance had been swallowed whole.

Its surface held no sigil-lines, no carving marks, no trace of spiritual power at all.

It looked like nothing more than an ordinary river pebble someone might have picked up without thinking.

But the weight was wrong.

"I found this in the treasury of the Celestial Alliance in the Sixteenth Firmament," Jared said. "I don't know what it is. Take a look."

When Master Wellspring took it into his palm, his arm dipped slightly.

The thing was only fist-sized, but it weighed like a small mountain.

He turned it over again and again, studying it, then sent spiritual power into it.

The power vanished like mud sinking into the sea, stirring no response at all.

He tried again with his spirit sense.

The instant it touched the surface of the black stone, it was knocked back. The rebound was gentle, but it still sent a sharp throb through his consciousness field.

"Your servant has never seen anything like it."

Master Wellspring passed the black stone to Morgana and rubbed at his brow.

"The Archive Tower of Wellspring Order holds 3,000 ancient volumes, recording nearly every known heavenly treasure in the Seventeenth Firmament. But not one of them matches this black stone.

"It doesn't feel like stone, or jade, or metal, or wood. If anything... it feels like some kind of space fragment compressed to the absolute limit."

Morgana took the black stone and cradled it in her palm.

Her fingers were long and pale, stark against the pure black stone.

She closed her eyes and sent her spirit sense into it.

It was like plunging into a deep sea.

The farther it went, the darker it became. The farther it went, the heavier it pressed.

The inside of the black stone wasn't solid at all, but folded over itself in layer after layer of warped space, each fold sealed with an aura so ancient it felt untouched by time.

It was older than any ancient ruin in the Seventeenth Firmament—so old that even Morgana, a vulpine queen who had lived for tens of thousands of years, felt a flicker of awe.

She pushed deeper.

In the seventh layer of those spatial folds, she caught a fragment of something left behind.

It was so ancient that even the laws of the realm carrying it were on the verge of fading away.

She barely made out a few traces.

No—not words. Something older than words. A residue of will left behind by a person... or by some other existence.

An obsession that had endured from an age so distant it was almost beyond imagining.

"Chaos... Sanctum..."

"Eighteenth... Firmament..."

"Shatter... the void... ascend..."

That was where the remnant will cut off.

Everything after that had been worn away by endless time, impossible to make out anymore.

A gentle but irresistible force pushed Morgana's spirit sense out of the black stone.

Her eyes opened, and something intensely complicated flashed through their amber depths.

"Your Majesty?" Wellspring asked.

He'd seen the subtle shift in her face. That alone told him the black stone was anything but ordinary.

Morgana set the black stone back into the wooden casket and said nothing for a long time.

The side hall went so quiet that all that remained was the soft rustle of leaves outside in the wind.

Jared watched her without speaking.

He simply waited.

"This isn't from the Sixteenth Firmament. And it doesn't belong to the Seventeenth Firmament either."

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