Chapter 5827

Beyond the mountain range, at the ragged fringe of the Blood-scar Plains, the once-ominous coalition limped homeward.

A day earlier, they had been arrogant. Now clusters of survivors skulked like strays, ripping off sect insignia and cursing the slow gift of two legs.

At the head staggered Sheldon, skin the color of grave dust, eyes unfocused, gait that of a man centuries older than sunrise. Jared’s indifferent stare kept spooling through his mind; the casual flick that erased a demon elder to ash; the single sweep of sword-light that turned hundreds of elite cultivators into drifting sand.

Again and again, the same fragments replayed inside Sheldon’s bruised mind. He saw Jared’s sword split the sky. He saw Mordain once the immovable pillar of the Infinite Soul Demon Sect-vanish in a single, merciless flash. Each recalled image felt like a shard of ice boring straight through his pride.

He had lost.

No-he had been utterly, humiliatingly crushed. More than seventy percent of his elite forces lay dead or scattered, and the sect’s strongest protector was nothing but drifting ash.

Their once-dominant stronghold on the Blood-scar Plains was in ruins. Whether the sect could even keep its gates open beneath the hungry gaze of rival powers on level ten had become a terrifying unknown.