A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5651

Finally, a bank of silver mist parted, and an enormous hall materialized ahead—its spires spearing so high they vanished into low-rolling clouds.

It was as if the main hall was the dwelling of an ancient deity.

Walls of fitted stone blocks rose in solemn grandeur. Each block carried carvings of mythical beasts, coiled spells, and intricate array-work that seemed ready to breathe at any moment.

Jared and Sylvia drew closer. The main doors, sealed tight, were smothered in overlapping glyphs that pulsed with a forbidding, unspent charge.

Studying the carvings, Jared noticed familiar patterns—echoes of the very runes they had decoded throughout the stone forest—threaded here in a far more complicated tapestry.

"To open this door, we'll have to dismantle its seal as well," he murmured.

Closing his eyes, he began to run countless possibilities across the theater of his mind, searching for the single thread that would unravel the enchantment.

Sylvia waited in silence, gaze locked on the doors, her shoulders held rigid between eager anticipation and the fear of what might lie beyond.

At last, Jared's eyes snapped open. After much difficulty and trials, he finally found the method to break the rune restriction.

His fingers flashed through a rapid series of hand seals while a whispered chant spilled from his lips. Needles of light burst from his palms and struck the door's runes.

As the light shone, the rune began to undergo gradual changes. The once interlocked lines loosened like tangled vines coming free, and a surge of pressure thundered from within the hall.

"Now!" Jared barked. He shoved with both hands. The colossal gates groaned, surrendered, and drifted apart, releasing a breath of age-old air that smelled of forgotten worlds and boundless promise.

Jared and Sylvia felt as if they had stepped into a whole new world.

Inside, the chamber proved vast enough to swallow a cathedral. The marble floor, polished to a mirror's sheen, bore labyrinthine etchings that whispered beneath their boots.

Colossal statues ringed the walls—some austere, some enigmatic—all guarding the inner sanctum.

At the exact center stood a monolithic stone dais, and upon it rested a single tome bathed in soft golden radiance.

Jared met the void-shrouded gaze without flinching. "We stumbled in by chance, no malice intended," he said, tone calm but unyielding. "Yet those ancient records are ours for the taking."

The stranger let out a ragged chuckle. "You? Seize my ancient records?" The laugh curdled into menace. "I have guarded them for years beyond counting. None of you leaves with so much as a page."

With a violent sweep of his arms, ribbons of night burst from his sleeves, surging toward Jared and Sylvia like collapsing tides of ink.

Jared answered in kind, flooding the air with luminous power that hardened into a dome of gold, folding Sylvia inside its radiant shell.

At the same time, he swiftly performed a series of hand seals. From his fingertips streaked spears of crackling energy, each bolt a sun-hot arrow that collided head-on with the encroaching dark.

The collision hit with a thunderous blast that rocked the hall.

Light and shadow canceled in a blinding bloom, sparks hissing out like dying stars before silence rushed back in.