Chapter 324: Chapter 323 - Life Sacrifice.
The night had changed.
Where once Jake’s shadow had drowned the sky in fear, now his breaths were ragged, every inhale scraping his chest like broken glass.
His shadow wings were gone—burned away into smoke—and even the form that had cloaked him like death itself was thinning, slipping through his skin like sand through a cracked hourglass.
He stood not above but on the dome now, his boots trembling on the barrier he had sworn to protect.
His body swayed, half held together only by the astral glow of his left hand and left leg—the sacrifices he could not afford to dismiss, the only anchors keeping him upright.
Across from him, the demons circled.
Seven remained.
All of them scarred, wounded, their armor cracked, their flesh rent—but they were healing.
Slowly, terribly, their twisted bodies knit together in steaming patches of muscle and sinew, arrogance returning with each breath they regained.
"See?" The fire demon hissed, stepping onto the dome with a smirk, flames licking his scars as though sealing them. "I told you. He was bluffing."
Another demon laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "He burned everything for nothing."
The scaled one dragged his jagged, regenerated arm across the dome, sneering, "Humans are all the same. Pretend to be strong until their little tricks run dry."
None of them mentioned why Jake was in that condition. Not because they forgot it, but because they felt shame for using that method.
One of them had to sacrifice himself by exploding his body, causing Jake to focus all of his powers on stopping the explosion from reaching the dome.
One must know that the explosion caused by the self-destruction of an entity that could destroy a city was no less than a nuclear explosion.
And Jake had to hold it all in one place.
Now, with all of his powers exerted, he couldn’t do anything else but stare at the demons.
The demons, however, stepped down onto the dome one by one. Their claws dug into its trembling surface.
Shadows splintered like cracks in glass.
They were going to destroy the barrier.
Inside, Duchess Elvarine’s hands shook as she poured ice into every fissure she could find. "No... No, hold, damn it, hold—!"
Vairan’s voice trembled with strain. His veins stood out across his forehead as his arms locked in place. "I—I can’t keep it...!"
Both of them burned all of their mana, not trying to conserve anything, yet all they could do was stop it all for a few seconds.
Then, the dome shuddered violently.
An instant later, with a scream that echoed across the city, the dome split. Shards of shadow and ice cascaded downward, and the citizens shrieked as the night air poured in, raw and cruel.
Jake’s footing collapsed beneath him. His body, already spent, slipped. He fell.
But in a streak of azure, thunder cracked the sky. Duke Astazin shot upward, lightning trailing his body like a comet.
His arms closed around Jake mid-fall, and with a thunderous crash, he landed square on the ground, boots crushing through cobblestone as sparks scattered.
"Hold on, kid," Astazin growled, his jaw clenched as he let Jake down, and then he rushed to save the citizens who were about to be crushed.
Above, the demons watched, and their snickers rumbled low and cruel.
"Look at that. Just like before."
"Back where we started."
"Pathetic. Even his ’miracle’ meant nothing."
Their voices thickened, gleeful now, no longer wary.
"Let’s make him watch." The scaled demon grinned, his scaled arm scraping sparks as he dragged it across the broken barrier. "One by one. Every human here. We’ll tear them apart, slowly."
"Make him understand how worthless his sacrifice was," another jeered. "We’ll break him... before we kill him."
Astazin’s teeth clattered as he moved across the field, thunder still humming across his skin.
As he heard those words of the demons, he wanted to leap, to fight, to tear them down himself, but he knew he wouldn’t be of any help.
So, he did what he could do.
Jake, on the other hand, was no longer trembling from exhaustion.
He was still.
The boy’s grey eyes opened, faint light glowing deep inside, steady and unshaken.
He pushed himself off the ground, forcing himself upright on legs that were barely flesh anymore.
He recalled words that Raven had told them during their training in Arietta’s domain.
"Never. Sacrifice. Your. Life."
That was the first order Raven ever gave him.
But today, he was going to break it.
Because if he didn’t, then it wouldn’t just be him dying, but also the past, present, and future of the kingdom.
The current nobles and their children, who were supposed to take over their position later, would all die.
So, his eyes hardened with resolve as he muttered, "...Life."
The word left his lips like a tolling bell, low, steady, and final.
Before anyone could even realize what was going on, Jake was already moving.
He stepped forward, each motion deliberate, shadow and light unraveling from his frame in threads that hissed like burning incense.
He knew it.
Despite being only an eighth rank, he had stood against ten generals. He had fought them equally, torn down two of their kind, and survived the self-destruction of one.
By all rights, that should have been enough. Enough to prove that he was strong. Enough to earn rest.
But there were still people here—his people.
His father, whom he had met not long ago, was also here, and the last thing he wanted to see was his death.
So, the demons would not touch anyone while he still had breath to burn.
He would burn it all.
Every drop.
Every heartbeat.
Every second left in him.
His voice carried, echoing through the broken dome and trembling city, "If sacrifice is all I have... then I’ll give it all."
The shadows around him surged violently, spiraling upward, spiraling inward, a vortex of black and silver flame as his very life ignited.
The demons, once sneering, froze.
They had mocked. They had gloated. But now, staring into those eyes—those grey, unyielding eyes—they remembered fear.
Because what stood before them now was no longer a boy, no longer even human.
It was a soul burning itself into a weapon.
It was death, reborn.
Jake’s body was gone.
What remained was a silhouette of midnight, a man-shaped void bleeding shadow and silver flame, with only his eyes gleaming through the darkness—cold, gray lanterns that held no hesitation, no humanity, only purpose.
He hovered above the ruined dome without wings, without effort. Every movement he made was unbound by weight, unbound by flesh.
The scaled demon snarled, throwing his jagged arm like a spear. It tore across the air with a crack of thunder, slamming straight through Jake’s chest.
It was a quick, instinctive action by the demon, which he didn’t even realize that he had done until he saw it pass harmlessly through Jake.
Jake blinked, his glowing eyes widening faintly.
Even he couldn’t believe the level of power he had right now. He felt invincible.
’Would I be able to defeat Raven in this form?’
This was the first thought that appeared in his mind.
The demons, on the other hand, stood frozen. Their laughter died. Their sneers curdled into silence.
"...That level," one whispered, his voice shaking.
"He’s reached it," another choked, stumbling back.
"That level beyond the tenth."
Their words made the air heavier, and for the first time since the battle began, they did not sound triumphant. They sounded afraid.
Because if physical attacks didn’t faze Jake, that meant he had reached a level they hadn’t been able to touch their whole lives.
Jake’s feet never touched the ground. Slowly, almost lazily, he lifted one hand and swept it outward.
Where moments ago Duchess Elvarine and Vairan had bled themselves dry to hold the barrier together, now another dome surged back into place—woven of pure black flame and silver-edged shadow.
This one did not tremble, did not crack. It shone like glass forged from the void itself.
Inside, the citizens gasped. Outside, the demons’ claws scraped against its surface and failed to leave a mark.
Jake’s other hand rose, and with it, his scythe was reborn—no longer metal, no longer bound by craft. It was carved from shadow, its edge bending the air like a crescent of eternity.
He moved.
A single sweep.
Stillness.
Then a black line split the sky behind one of the generals. For an instant, it seemed harmless.
But then the line widened, and the demon’s body split neatly in half, black blood spraying as the very sky behind him erupted in a violent implosion of flame and shadow.
The city shook. The heavens screamed.
The remaining generals staggered back, panic writ plain across their monstrous faces.
Another sweep. Another demon collapsed in silence, severed before his magic even formed.
Now they trembled. All of them. Their arrogance shattered like glass beneath a hammer.
The scaled demon’s voice cracked as he roared, desperation bleeding into fury, "We have to summon him!"
The others recoiled as if struck. "Are you insane?! For a child? That will mean our true death by his hand!"
"He’ll erase us—!"
But the scaled demon jabbed a claw toward Jake, just as another general fell, his body unraveling into nothing under that deathly scythe.
"LOOK AT HIM!" the scaled one bellowed. "Even if we all explode, even if we burn everything, he won’t flinch! At this level, we are already dead. He’s the only one who can kill him! Above all, we can’t let this boy grow anymore!"
None of them knew that Jake had to sacrifice his life to gain this power, and in a while, not only his power but also his life would slip away.
So, their faces twisted, torn between terror and rage, but one by one, they ground their teeth and obeyed.
They clasped their palms together, demonic energy surging. A vortex of corruption ripped the sky as the air itself cracked like glass under pressure.
Then—
Crk-rrrk—!
From the split heavens, fingers clawed their way through, black and jagged, gripping the edges of reality like a doorframe.
They pulled, tearing the crack wider, as something vast and terrible pressed against the world from beyond.
The citizens screamed, feeling primal fear despite not being able to see anything.
The nobles faltered. Even the demons shuddered at what they were calling forth.
Jake’s gray eyes locked on the breach.
’It’s the same as that time...’
He recalled how his whole group had faced another such moment.
The only difference was—
’This one is weaker.’
Jake didn’t hesitate.
His shadow flared, expanding, his silhouette stretching tall and titanic until it mirrored the monstrous hands above. Like them, he too clawed at the edges of the crack—but not to widen it.
To force it closed.
The air trembled, two titanic forces grinding against each other—Jake’s burning life against the abyss, trying to claw its way in.
The generals saw their chance.
"Now! Kill him while he’s bound!"
Magic surged, infernos of black fire and storms of corrupted lightning slamming into Jake’s vast, shadowy form.
His chest tore open. His arm cracked. His legs burned away. But still he held the breach, his shadow-forged hands locked against the abyssal ones.
He was immune to physical attacks, but not magical attacks—not without being able to defend against those attacks.
Blood sprayed from his mouth, sizzling away before it could touch the ground. His body was breaking. His time was ending.
But his eyes never wavered.
He would not let this gate open.
Not while he still had a single second left to give.
Below him, the barrier he had been trying to keep in place faltered, flickering, as the citizen below caught glimpses of the sight above.
It wasn’t that he wanted to let them die, but he knew that if he didn’t focus on the entity on the other side of the crack, then it wouldn’t just be the capital that would be destroyed.