The King Of Warriors novel (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6573

She had lost her memory. She didn't remember him.

In her eyes, he was only someone she knew.

A youth she'd once met in the Fourteenth Firmament. The man who had just helped her kill those Hall of Radiance cultivators.

Nothing more.

"All right," Jared said, his voice steady again. "Be careful."

Josephine nodded, then turned and headed northeast.

After a few steps, she stopped.

She didn't look back. She only said, very softly, "Thank you."

Then she kept walking. Her dark-crimson figure faded deeper into the pine forest until the shadows beneath the canopy swallowed her whole.

Jared stood where he was, staring at the place where she had disappeared, without moving.

Something churned in those violet eyes.

In the end, it all settled into stillness.

Gwendolyn stood beside him and said nothing.

She simply stayed there with him in silence.

A long time passed before Jared finally looked away.

"Let's go," he said, turning and walking southward.

Gwendolyn followed behind him. After a brief hesitation, she asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Jared said.

His voice was calm—too calm to sound natural.

Gwendolyn didn't press.

She knew he needed time.

Some things didn't disappear just because someone said they were fine.

The two of them followed the dry riverbed southward for about an hour. Little by little, the ground leveled out, and the pine forest thinned around them.

Ahead lay a small clearing littered with gravel and dead grass.

Several massive rocks sat scattered along the edge, as if someone had arranged them there on purpose.

Jared was just about to cross the clearing when he stopped short.

His spirit sense had found someone.

A man stood in the middle of the clearing with his back to them, motionless as a carved statue.

Jared's hand settled on the hilt of the Dragonslayer Sword.

His violet eyes narrowed.

The man wore plain blue-green robes of the Way. He was lean-faced, with a wooden sword strapped across his back.

Its blade was crowded with dense, intricate sigils. They weren't ordinary sigils of the Aureate Way, but ancient sacred sigils of the Aureate Way—even the Aureate Codex recorded them.

A follower of the Aureate Way.

Jared's gaze paused on the wooden sword for a beat, then lifted away.

He felt out the man's cultivation.

Golden Immortal Level Two.

Not too high, not too low. Just enough to move around the Eighteenth Firmament without drawing much attention.

But that wasn't what caught Jared's attention.

The man had no hostility in him at all.

His aura ran deep and steady, like still water hidden in the mountains—no ripples, no killing intent. Only one thing.

Waiting.

And the person he was waiting for was Jared.

Jared could feel it now—a thread of the arts of the Aureate Way buried in the man's aura, so faint it was almost nothing, yet it stirred a subtle resonance with the Aureate Codex.

This was the first time since coming to the Eighteenth Firmament that Jared had run into someone from the Aureate Way.

He let go of the Dragonslayer Sword and walked toward him.

Gwendolyn followed at his back, one hand resting on her sword hilt, her eyes fixed warily on the man's unmoving figure.

Jared stopped about 3 yards behind him.

The man turned around.

He looked only a little over twenty. His face was thin, and there was a steadiness to him—an easy calm that didn't belong to someone that young.

His skin was pale, as if he rarely saw the sun, but it wasn't the pallor of sickness. It had the clean, jade-white cast of someone shaped by a particular arcane art.

His eyes were very dark, like two pools of deep water with no visible bottom and no visible ripple.

His gaze rested on Jared for an instant.

Then he gave a slight nod, as if confirming something.

"This one is Adrian Vale."

He bowed slightly. His voice wasn't loud, but it reached Jared with perfect clarity. "A disciple of Ashford Hollow. By order of my master, Alaric Vale, I have come to invite Mr. Chance to Ashford Hollow for a conversation."

Ashford Hollow.

Master Alaric Vale.

Jared had seen both names on the map from the Abyssal Exchange. Ashford Hollow was the Aureate Way's foundation in the Eighteenth Firmament, and Master Alaric Vale was its Chief Preceptor—a Golden Immortal Realm Level Five.

A Golden Immortal Realm Level Five powerhouse had sent his own disciple to invite a youth at True Immortal Realm Level Eight.

Not seize him. Not bring him in.

Invite him.

Now that was interesting.

Jared gave no answer. He only looked at Adrian, his violet eyes holding neither hostility nor trust—only cool scrutiny.

Adrian didn't urge him.

He simply stood there, still slightly bowed, like a green bamboo stalk holding straight in the wind—unhurried, unflustered, neither humble nor arrogant.

After a moment, he reached into his robes, took out a jade slip, and offered it forward with both hands.

"This is a letter from my master for Mr. Chance." His voice stayed perfectly calm.

Jared took the jade slip and sent his spirit sense into it.

Inside was a thought-message so brief it was almost stark—just a single sentence.

But every word hit like a spike, driving deep into Jared's mind.

"The three hundred disciples of Ashford Hollow are willing to honor the heir to the Aureate Codex as the next Chief Preceptor of the Aureate Way, and we will do so even unto death."

Jared's hand trembled, just once.

He pulled his spirit sense back out of the jade slip and looked up at Adrian.

Something complicated flickered through his violet eyes.

Honor the heir to the Aureate Codex as the next Chief Preceptor of the Aureate Way.

Even unto death.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

The followers of the Aureate Way wouldn't harm him.

Jared couldn't have said exactly why he was so sure.

But his instincts had always been sharp, and they had rarely led him wrong.

"Lead the way," he said.

A flicker of light flashed through Adrian's eyes.

Just as quickly, it was gone, and his expression settled back into calm.

He bowed slightly, then turned and headed south.

Jared and Gwendolyn followed behind him.

The three of them crossed the clearing and stepped onto a flagstone path hidden among the pines.

The path was narrow, only wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

Moss covered the stones from end to end, a clear sign that very few people came this way.

Dense pine forest pressed in on both sides.

Gray moss hung from the trunks, and the canopy knitted so tightly overhead it blotted out the sun, leaving only thin strands of light to slip through the leaves and scatter across the ground in broken patches.

The air smelled of pine resin and damp earth.

Now and then, a few birdcalls drifted down from deep in the treetops, making the silence feel even deeper.

Adrian walked in front, neither fast nor slow.

Every step he took was steady.

His back stayed perfectly straight.

His plain robes of the Way stirred lightly in the breeze, and the wooden sword on his back rocked with his stride. In the thin light under the trees, the ancient sacred sigils of the Aureate Way etched into the blade gave off a faint glow, like sleeping dragons beginning to wake.

Jared walked behind him, his gaze fixed on Adrian's back.

Thought flickered in his violet eyes.

"What else did your master say?" Jared asked suddenly.

Adrian didn't look back.

His voice carried from ahead, calm and clear. "My master also said that Mr. Chance has many questions, and every one of those questions will be answered for him."

Jared's brow lifted slightly.

He did have a lot of questions.

Who had left behind the black stone token, and how had it ended up in celestial hands?

Where exactly was the Chaos Sanctum?

And what was inside it?

What had really happened between the Aureate Way and the celestials?

Maybe in Ashford Hollow, he would finally get some of those answers.

Ashford Hollow lay hidden deep within the Ashford Range, concealed by an ancient grand array.

From the outside, all anyone would see was an unbroken sweep of green mountains and water, with nothing unusual to give it away.

But the instant they stepped into the array, the world changed.

The green mountains and clear water vanished.

In their place spread an immortal paradise so vast it seemed to have no end.

With Adrian leading them, Jared and Gwendolyn found Ashford Hollow quickly enough.

Without a guide, even if they had passed right by this place, they never would have guessed a hidden world existed here.