Chapter 5419

Blades collided-clang!-gold light tangled with midnight haze. Spathe’s arms numbed; the jolt drove him back two paces, and pain blossomed across his palms.

Anepan slid in beside his brother, twin swords darting like fanged vipers toward Jared’s flanks.

Their synchronized art wove black lines into a suffocating lattice, a cage of wind and steel that closed around him.

Yet Dragonslayer Sword seemed alive in his grip-slashing crosswise, stabbing upward, spinning in flashes so bright they seared the eyes.

He flowed through the net’s gaps, footwork light as flame, hunting for the single strand whose break would unravel it all.

Jared twisted at the final heartbeat. The old man on the enemy’s right drove his longsword straight for Jared’s heart, but steel met air as Jared slipped sideways. In the same fluid beat, he chopped at the attacker’s wrist, forcing the blade off- line. Before the elder could recover, Jared’s boot hammered into the man’s chest. Armor rang. The elder staggered back several paces, ribs shuddering under the impact, disbelief widening the folds around his eyes.

Across the churned earth, Aurelius seized the opening Jared had carved. He sprinted at the mounted Soul Devourer, golden soul energy flooding his sword until it reared into a towering arc of light. The phantom blade cracked the air, descending with the weight of a falling sky.