Chapter 5944

Jared felt the sun still high but losing its warmth when his inner clock marked three quarters past noon.

A tremor shivered up the mountain. Far below, the first ranks of Malevolent Path Hall spilled into view, their banners a dark bruise against the valley floor.

The column thickened until it looked like locusts devouring the land. Wherever the mass rolled, grass browned, saplings folded, and every rabbit-trail went silent, as though life itself hurried out of their path.

Rotting breath rose from the army, a swirl of grievance, death, and raw demonic hunger. The fumes smeared the sky into a greasy gray, closing over the peaks like a lid on a coffin.

At the very front drifted the Soul-Devouring Puppet. Its chalk-pale eyes moved without hurry, raking across the range. When the gaze slid over Jared’s ridge, cold pinpricks needled his skin, as if the thing had tasted him already.

Behind the construct, three thousand Soul Hunters locked arms into the Soul-Seizing Grand Array. Gray-white currents surged between them, tides of starved spirits seeking flesh. The chorus of distant wails gnawed at Jared’s ear even this high up.

To the left, Morven lounged inside a black war-chariot dragged by nine horned dragon corpses. Three Ghost Kings and nine Grand Nether Envoys flanked him, while disciples of the Ninefold Nether Palace knotted into the Nether Styx Formation.