Chapter 5426

I will never forget this day. For every drop of blood the demons spilled, I will demand a river in return.

Jared had no idea how long he had been running. His lungs burned, calves on fire, yet he kept sprinting until the silhouette of Cloud Valley finally surfaced through the dim haze ahead. At its mouth, veils of mist drifted like living curtains. Every few breaths, the vapor rippled, showing faint tremors in the air-echoes of that forbidden spatial technique Aurelius had once told him about. Relief cut through Jared’s exhaustion. He pushed himself faster, shifting Aurelius on his back to a steadier grip and charging for the valley’s threshold.

Then, without warning, the clash of steel and roars behind him fell silent. His body locked. Jared turned, each vertebra creaking, and stared into the dark forest they had just escaped. The tar-black miasma had dispersed. In its wake lay more than a dozen beast race cultivators-brothers in arms-sprawled across blood-soaked roots. Their leader, a mighty bear beast cultivator, was pinned upright against an oak, a bone spear punched straight through his chest. His eyes, white and furious even in death, still glared as if cursing the unseen demon who had felled them.

“Ah-!” A strangled roar tore from Jared’s throat, raw enough to taste iron. He dropped to one knee, facing the fallen cultivators, and bent in a deep bow that trembled with grief. “Brothers,” he rasped, voice sandpapered and steady, “rest easy. I will avenge you. I swear I’ll drive every last demon from level six.”

Stirred by the tremor in Jared’s chest, Aurelius cracked open heavy eyelids and whispered, “Jared… what happened?”

His words floated like cobwebs, thin and weightless.

Jared dashed a sleeve across the tears gathering at his lashes and forced calm into his tone. “Nothing to worry about.”