A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 5448

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.

"Watch out!"

Onneas cried out, hurling a torrent of teal spiritual energy to meet the onrushing darkness, a shield conjured in the breadth of a heartbeat.

A detonation like a mountain shearing open shook the hall.

Teal brilliance and pitch-black night collided, vomiting a shock wave that cracked flagstones and sent dust billowing upward.

The backlash tore through Onneas' arms. She staggered three paces, copper flooding her tongue as blood traced the curve of her lip.

"What?" Her eyes widened in shaken disbelief. "You've grown this powerful in mere moments?"

Brows knitted tight, she tasted the grim truth. Seconds into the fight, she was already bleeding.

Yet, Soul Devourer was still unfinished. Once his body was fully formed, one strike might be all it would take to drop her.