The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5448

5448 /5455

Keeping low behind Onneas' radiant wake, the party advanced—step by punishing step—into the palace's wounded heart.

Every pace forward meant enduring another lash of Soul Devouring Threads and another breath of corrosive miasma. Progress felt like wading upstream through broken glass.

The floor was littered with cultivators' corpses—faces drained of color, eyes frozen wide, lips still twisted in silent terror.

Their spirits had been stolen clean away by the Soul Devourer. Their bodies were nothing but discarded shells.

Artemis stared at the fallen, her chest heaving with powerless fury.

Once, as Celestia's royal physician, every heartbeat she saved had mattered. Now she could only watch as all those cultivators lay butchered by Demonic Cultivators.

"They were Celestia's cultivators," Aurelius whispered, the words breaking inside him.

His gaze swept the uniforms he recognized. "They're heroes who sacrificed themselves to protect Celestia City..."

Jared's knuckles whitened on the hilt of Dragonslayer Sword. Golden light surged, circling him like an avenging halo, and murder kindled behind his eyes.

Memories flashed—Rylan sacrificing himself, innocent townsfolk crushed beneath Demonic Cultivators—and the anger inside Jared flared hotter than any furnace.

Soul Devourer, your head will grace my blade.

With that oath burning in his mind, Jared lengthened his stride, boots striking the cracked marble with new purpose.

A thunderous boom erupted ahead. A powerful aura, ancient and vicious, spilled from the inner sanctum like a tidal wave. The entire palace shuddered—pillars groaning, chandeliers swaying—threatening to crash down on friend and foe alike.

Onneas gasped. "No—this is bad!" she blurted, the warning tearing from her chest before she could catch her breath. "His phantom body is solidifying faster than before!" Every syllable quivered with dread, as though she could already feel the shock of what was coming.

The shout galvanized the others. Jared, Aurelius, and the rest sprang forward, boots hammering the marble while they chased the baleful aura boiling ahead.

They swung around a bend, and an icy gasp ripped through the group—air dragging across teeth like the first touch of winter.

At the palace's lightless core, Soul Devourer hung in mid-air, a dreadful idol frozen in worship. Ebony threads coiled from his frame, latching onto thousands of black urns arrayed in concentric rows beneath him.