Chapter 5609

“I honestly don’t know,” Jared murmured at last, shaking his head while the question still echoed between them. His uncertainty wasn’t feigned; even he could not swear whether Arthur had intervened or not. Yet the doubt gnawed at him, an invisible thread tugging at the edge of his thoughts.

Rowena’s gaze softened-just a fraction-before she turned away. “Come with me to level nine,” she said, voice low, as though the very name might summon unseen winds.

With a curt gesture, she gathered her white-clad guards, pivoted on booted heels, and set off. Jared fell in beside her, footfalls mingling with theirs as they slipped into the vast corridors of cloud and stone that led toward level nine.

Moments after they vanished, the surrounding void rippled like a pond struck by a sudden stone. From that distortion a lone silhouette stepped forth-the same shadowed figure who had first tried to waylay Jared.

He stared at Myles’ crumpled corpse; a shiver rattled down his spine. Had he followed Myles into that slaughter, he, too, would now be cooling on the ground, ignorant even of how the killing blow had landed.

“Report,” he whispered, the single word snagging in his throat. Then, like smoke, he faded back into the trembling air.

Reporting was all that remained to him; whatever predators the Nethergate Sect might unleash upon Jared were matters far above his pay grade. One thing he knew for certain-he was no longer a match for Jared.