The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5498

"Flaxseed, you've grown bold, haven't you?" Jared turned, voice soft but edged. "Vanishing without a word and charging up to level seven with power that flimsy—you nearly lost your soul back there."

Behind the rebuke lay a current of concern that ran deeper than the words allowed.

"I... I just didn't want you worrying," Flaxseed muttered, scratching at his scalp. "And I thought, maybe if I hurried I'd find my clan's wandering spirits sooner..." The last syllables dwindled to a childlike whisper.

Guilt clouded his features, shoulders slumping beneath the weight of his own recklessness.

"Not worry?" Jared's sigh slipped free. "Running alone into a nest like this is exactly what makes me worry."

His tone softened. "Tell me everything you uncovered from start to finish."

His eyes held steady on Flaxseed, offering the reassurance of a fortress despite the gathering storm around them.

"I pieced it all together at a teahouse, then saw the altar myself," Flaxseed said, voice shaking with fury. "Those priests advertised some grand sermon—cultivators flocked in, hoping for enlightenment. Instead, their souls were siphoned off! If I found out days later, who knows how many more would be hollow husks by now!"

Rage vibrated through him, raw and roaring, like a cornered lion forced to watch its pride fall.

Jared's expression grew grave, shadows pooling beneath his eyes.

The Celestial Palace—supposed keepers of divine order—consorting with Demonic Cultivators and butchering cultivators. If word spread, the entire heavenly realm would quake.

Visions flashed behind his eyes: citadels burning, refugees spilling across shattered roads, the sky itself torn by warring factions.

He understood the stakes. This darkness had to be cut out before it poisoned every corner of the realm.

Unseen at the fringe of the crowd, Jared let a thread of divine sense slip from his brow. Like an invisible hand, that thread swept across the platform, brushing every hidden corner.

Almost at once, he felt the wrongness—a ring of black runes buried beneath the dais, oozing a sinister pulse as though guarding ancient secrets.

Those runes fed a narrow recess at the center, and from that cavity drifted the sickly scent of a Soul Urn. Even the jade scepter in that cultivator's hand breathed a faint, soporific mist, coaxing the gathered cultivators into languid trust. That narcotic aura, as soft as spider silk, wrapped itself around every robe and wrist, lulling its victims toward sleep.

"Watch the centers of their brows," Jared murmured.

He kept the words low enough for only Flaxseed to hear, as though a louder breath might awaken something hungry in the air.

Flaxseed focused and saw it—threads of pale blue soul essence seeped from each meditating forehead, drifted toward the jade scepter, and slipped unseen into the waiting recess.