The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5504

Jared ignored the rising panic behind him. His right hand lifted from the stone recess, bringing with it the half-man-tall Soul Urn.

A thread of Black-White Flame danced at his fingertip. With almost casual grace, he touched it to the vessel's clay skin.

The flame looked fragile, a candle flicker—yet power rumbled inside it like a star held in cupped palms.

Soul-engraved runes webbing the urn split apart with a brittle crack. Pale blue soul threads seeped out, drifting upward, and the instant they tasted open air, they scattered like spooked sparrows, fleeing into the distance.

They were only remnants, spirits torn from former owners, now weightless and lost, drifting on invisible currents in search of a home they would never find.

"S-Soul threads..." the white-haired elder whispered, voice quavering with disbelief.

In a single breath, he grasped the awful truth: everything Jared had warned them about was real. Their so-called advancement had been nothing more than the siphoning of their very souls.

Remorse struck him like a hammer. How could he have swallowed the golden-robed stranger's promises so easily?

"Friend, please, return our souls!" the middle-aged cultivator who had earlier wept now collapsed with a thud, forehead striking stone.

Blood soon streaked his face, yet he kept bowing, crimson drops spattering the ground in pitiful rhythm.

One after another, the other cultivators fell to their knees, tears mixing with dust. "We were wrong! Have mercy! Give our souls back!"

Their voices tangled into a single thread of despair, clinging to any chance of undoing their fatal mistake.

Jared regarded the pleading crowd without a flicker of sympathy.

The Black-White Flame unfurled again, this time enveloping the entire Soul Urn. He drew a long, steady breath and set his Heart-Focusing Sutra into motion.

They snapped at the hand that tried to save them, so why should I rescue them now?

They might have spotted the plot, yet lust for a "breakthrough" blinded them. They even turned their blades on Jared, and now their misery was of their own making.

A flicker of pity stirred in him, but disappointment weighed far heavier.

"You monster! I'll hound you, even in death!" the burly, bearded cultivator roared. He glared as though he could flay Jared alive, yet not a single muscle obeyed him.

Jared's eyes turned arctic. One casual flick of his finger released a spark.

The spark unfurled into a dragon of living flame, its coils swallowing the bearded man in a single rushing breath. No scream had time to form; the body collapsed into a lonely mound of ash.

The chamber fell silent. Every remaining cultivator trembled, lips sealed by raw, urgent fear. In that instant, they understood—this was no soft-hearted savior but a man who killed as decisively as he breathed.

Jared closed his palm. The Black-White Flame winked out, and more than half the soul energy inside the Soul Urn was already his.