Chapter 5950

Oswald felt the air catch in his chest; heat rose through the cold as he drew breath past blood-flecked teeth.

“Heavenly Sword Pavilion disciples, heed me. Nine Heavens Sword Array-slay the fiends, purge the wicked! If the swords live, we live; if the swords die, we die!”

The shout left his throat like shattered ice, yet beneath the chill he felt magma pushing upward, hungry for daylight.

For years discipline had been his skin; now rage peeled it away, and the world narrowed to red mist and moving targets.

The battered iron sword in his grip no longer remembered its original color; layer after layer of enemy blood had dried to a dull garnet crust.

Fine cracks webbed the blade-souvenirs from his last clash with Morven-but when he tested the edge it still whispered of death.

A wall of voices surged behind him, nine hundred throats fused into one resolve.