“Look out!” Jared shoved Flaxseed aside and took the blow himself. Fabric split with a wet rip. Five grooves, bone-deep and oozing black miasma, painted his back crimson.

“Jared!” Flaxseed’s howl cracked through the haze of embers. Desperation filled his eyes. Dozens of talismans spiraled outward, some rose as earthen bulwarks, others speared into ice lances, still more unraveled into binding vines.

For a fleeting breath, they stalled the guards’ and Drystan’s advance. Yet Flaxseed was only a first-tier Earthly immortal. Reincarnated strength unfinished, his spirit drained like water through a cracked jar. Sweat the size of pearls glittered on his forehead.

Drystan’s smile thinned. The next claw strike blurred, tearing through vines and slamming against Flaxseed’s chest.

Flaxseed spat blood as cartwheeled across the courtyard, talisman papers scattering like dying leaves before landed at Jared’s side.

“Now then, tell me, who is left to rescue the lot of you?” Drystan drawled, his words scraping across the rubble-strewn street like iron on stone.

He moved in measured strides. Each step rolled out eighth-tier Earthly-Immortal pressure, hammering Jared and Flaxseed so hard their ribs rattled and breath came only in ragged gasps.