A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6559

Jared stopped so abruptly that Gwendolyn almost ran into his back.

"What is it?" she asked in a low voice.

Jared didn't answer right away. He closed his eyes instead and pushed his spirit sense outward with everything he had, sending it sweeping in every direction.

After more than a dozen breaths, he opened his eyes again, and something complicated flickered through those violet eyes.

"I can feel Demonic Cultivators," he said. "About 20 miles ahead. More than one—at least a dozen."

Gwendolyn's hand went to her sword hilt. "The same group from yesterday?"

"No."

Jared shook his head, his voice low. "That group already left with the Lava Lion King's corpse. This group... they only just entered this area, and their path lines up with ours."

He paused, his eyes narrowing. "And one of those auras... belongs to Josephine."

Gwendolyn fell silent for a moment.

She understood exactly why he was reacting like this.

Yesterday, in that brief glimpse in the valley basin, he had looked like a different person. She had seen it clearly—the violent urge of emotions he'd suppressed for far too long, all of it surging toward the surface in an instant.

And now that presence was only 20 miles ahead.

"Should we go take a look?" Gwendolyn asked carefully.

Jared stood where he was and said nothing for a long time.

His hand tightened around the hilt of the Dragonslayer Sword, loosened, then tightened again.

In the end, he drew a deep breath and shook his head.

"No."

His voice had gone calm again, but it was the kind of calm that only came after something had been forced down hard—like dark currents trapped under ice, the surface smooth while everything underneath churned. "We stay on the original route. We're going to the Northern Abyss Frost Chasm."

"But..."

"She lost her memory. Even if she saw me, she wouldn't know who I was anymore."

Jared cut Gwendolyn off. "And if she's here now, that means they're headed to the Northern Abyss Frost Chasm too. If we're going to the same place, we'll meet again."

He turned and headed north again, his stride much faster than before.

Gwendolyn watched his back, the corner of her mouth lifting in the faintest, almost invisible smile.

Then she followed.

So he could say he wasn't going to see her all he wanted.

His feet were telling the truth.

So this was what it meant to say one thing and feel another.

The two of them picked up speed and cut through the deep forest.

Jared kept his spirit sense locked on that familiar presence ahead.

It flickered strong, then weak, as if it were being released on purpose—or as if the person carrying it simply couldn't keep it contained.

Little by little, the distance closed.

Twenty miles. Fifteen. Ten...

When the gap shrank to ten miles, Jared slowed again.

He was sensing more now.

There were sixteen demonic cultivators in all.

Besides Josephine, there were three Golden Immortals—two at Golden Immortal Level Three, and one at Golden Immortal Level Two.

The remaining thirteen were all True Immortal Realm Level Nine.

This wasn't a loose pack of stragglers.

It was a disciplined unit.

Their auras resonated with each other in a strange, unmistakable way—the kind of field that only came from training together for years, fighting side by side again and again.

What bothered Jared even more was their direction.

They were moving on the same line he was, straight north, straight toward the Northern Abyss Frost Chasm.

They were heading north too.

And they didn't seem to be in any hurry.

Their pace was steady, neither fast nor slow, always keeping roughly ten miles between themselves and Jared.

It wasn't some natural aurora. It was frost energy, frozen and compressed into physical form over hundreds of thousands of years.

Any cultivator below the Golden Immortal Realm who came within 100 miles of that ice-blue radiance would be frozen solid into an ice statue.

"The Northern Abyss Frost Chasm," Gwendolyn said from beside him, staring at the ice-blue glow with naked awe in her voice. "We're finally close."

"Yeah." Jared tore his gaze away. "Keep moving. We'll get as close to the edge of the Northern Abyss Frost Chasm as we can before dark, then go in first thing tomorrow."

The two of them kept going.

Behind them, the demon auras stayed with them—never too near, never too far, always holding at around 10 miles.

Jared noticed something then. Among those demonic cultivators, Josephine's aura was growing clearer and clearer.

Not because she was getting closer, but because she no longer seemed to be hiding her presence.

The feeling of it was strange, almost deliberate—like she knew he was sensing her and was letting him.

His heartbeat kicked faster before he could stop it.

He drew a slow breath, forced the turbulence in his chest back down, and never broke stride.

Another hour passed, and dusk began to fall.

The golden and crimson suns of the three blazing suns had already dropped near the horizon, staining the western sky in layered gold and red.

The bright moon had risen, its cold silver light pouring across the land and mingling with the evening glow in the west.

Jared found a relatively flat rocky shelf and decided they would spend the night there.

The shelf wasn't large, only a few dozen yards across.

Sparse pines ringed it on all sides, their trunks draped in gray moss, and the air carried the clean, resin-rich scent of pine sap.

From there, looking north, the ice-blue radiance had sharpened into something far more distinct.

He could even make out faint ice crystals glittering inside it, like countless diamonds suspended along the horizon.

Gwendolyn set several warning wards around the rocky shelf, then took out some spirit fruit from her satchel of holding and handed them to Jared.

He accepted them, but he didn't eat.

Instead, he sat cross-legged at the edge of the shelf and looked north at the ice-blue radiance.

Its shifting glow reflected in his violet eyes.