Sunny stood before the altar, tracking the terrifying blue data fras projected by the Supre rge System.
He was currently reviewing the required material list for his next theoretical fusion.
[Evolutionary Requirent (Commander Tier): Blood-Lotus Roots (100 lbs), Abyssal Sludge Residue, Soul of a Condemned...]
Sunny felt a familiar, throbbing migraine blooming behind his eyes. He explicitly possessed the required toxic roots and the sludge residue, but the concept of actively harvesting a human soul was profoundly repulsive to his civilian sensibilities. He explicitly did not want to butcher anyone. However, if he did not constantly escalate his power, the veteran executioners surrounding his pavilion would undoubtedly dissect him to uncover the secret of his flawless ascension thods.
"Supre One."
A trembling, gravelly voice broke Sunny’s internal spiral of panic. He slowly shifted his gaze toward the heavy iron cage occupying the darkest corner of the room.
The Shadow-Ghoul Ape was crouched low, its necrotic, skeletal fingers gripping the iron bars. The sickly green flas burning within its hollow eye sockets flickered erratically. It had just consud the entirety of the extorted Blood-Lotus Roots.
Sunny imdiately noticed the profound shift in the creature’s aura. The ape was no longer a hunched, pathetic scavenger. Its skeletal fra had violently expanded, growing nearly two feet taller. The previously brittle, grey bone was now coated in a dense, shimring layer of dark-tal plating, radiating an intense, suffocating pressure of raw death Qi.
It had successfully absorbed the massive influx of dark essence and ascended to the Commander tier.
"Speak," Sunny commanded, his voice a freezing, emotionless rasp. He explicitly rembered that Commander-tier fiends often developed rudintary telepathic communication with their masters.
"Hunger... The void within the core remains absolute," the Ape projected directly into Sunny’s mind. Its psychic voice was a horrific grinding sound, like tombstones dragging across wet gravel.
Sunny observed the beast with chilling apathy, though his heart hamred violently against his ribs. A talking, armored skeleton monkey was objectively terrifying. He casually gestured toward a discarded, rune-carved iron shield resting near the altar. It was a heavy, defensive artifact confiscated from a slain Orthodox Paladin, weighing nearly two hundred pounds.
"Demonstrate your new physical density," Sunny ordered.
The Shadow-Ghoul Ape did not hesitate. It reared back, its dark-tal arm blurring with impossible velocity, and struck the heavy iron shield with a closed fist.
The impact sounded like a detonating spirit-cannon. The reinforced iron shield did not simply dent; it completely shattered into thousands of jagged, twisting shrapnel fragnts that embedded themselves deep into the pavilion’s obsidian walls.
Sunny maintained his perfectly still, unbothered posture, projecting an aura of absolute boredom. Internally, he was screaming in sheer horror. If that thing ever decided to punch , my ribcage would instantly vaporize into bloody mist!
He imdiately pulled up the System’s diagnostic overlay to assess the newly ascended horror.
[Monster Na: Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape]
[Monster Level]: Tier 4 (Commander)
[Monster Grade]: Elite
[Monster Attribute]: Necrotic / tal
[Special Characteristic]: Marrow-Shattering Resonance (Upon striking a solid object, the Ape can channel its dark Qi to create a localized seismic vibration that bypasses external armor, directly liquefying the internal organs and bone marrow of the target.)
Sunny stared at the blue text, utterly stunned. A special characteristic? He had previously encountered this rare phenonon when observing the unkillable Sludge-Horror during the Vanguard drills. Now, his own beast possessed an innate, reality-breaking trait.
A strike that bypassed armor to directly liquefy internal organs. This was an explicitly terrifying assassination tool. If the Ape punched an Orthodox Paladin’s heavy shield, the Paladin’s heart would instantly explode inside their chest while the shield remained perfectly intact.
Sunny explicitly realized that this new characteristic perfectly countered the heavy, defensive phalanxes utilized by the righteous sects.
Before Sunny could formulate a strategy to test this horrifying new ability, the heavy entrance flap of his warded pavilion violently tore open.
Disciple Zhao sprinted into the room, collapsing onto his knees and sliding across the ash-covered floor until he hit the base of the obsidian altar.
"Supre One! A catastrophic breach!" Zhao scread, his voice cracking with absolute, mortal terror. He was hyperventilating, his eyes wide and completely bloodshot.
Sunny did not flinch. He rely slowly turned his head, his glowing crimson eyes boring into the panicked disciple.
"..." Sunny offered absolutely no verbal response, utilizing the heavy silence to amplify his intimidating aura.
Zhao explicitly misinterpreted this silence as profound anger over the interruption. He firmly believed the Young Master was already calculating the exact angle to sever his head.
"Forgive this worthless interruption! The camp is under assault!" Zhao babbled frantically, pressing his face into the toxic dirt. "A horde of mutated, subterranean Sand-Wyrms has bypassed the outer arrays! They are burrowing directly beneath the Vanguard sector! Commander Vile’s pavilion has already been swallowed into a sinkhole!"
Sunny felt a massive wave of cold dread wash over him. Subterranean monsters? The Vanguard was actively under attack by burrowing fiends while stationed deep within the Demonic Sect’s own territory? This explicitly ant the Orthodox armies had deployed elite beast-tars behind enemy lines.
Sunny knew definitively that his Phantom Ash Scorpion, while a flawless surface assassin, was entirely useless against armored creatures burrowing deep underground.
"Where are the Enforcers?" Sunny rasped, forcing his voice to remain flat and freezing.
"They are engaging the primary horde at the main gates! But several massive Wyrms have already penetrated the command sector! One is tunneling directly beneath this pavilion!" Zhao sobbed, explicitly pointing a trembling finger at the center of the room.
As if on cue, the heavy obsidian tiles beneath their feet began to vibrate violently. A low, concussive rumbling echoed from deep within the earth, rapidly escalating in volu.
Sunny explicitly wanted to sprint out the front flap and run screaming into the ash-fog. However, fleeing like a panicked civilian would instantly destroy his terrifying reputation, marking him as weak prey in the eyes of every surrounding slaughter-captain. He would be assassinated by his own side before the sun rose.
He explicitly needed to project absolute, unbothered supremacy.
Sunny remained standing near the altar, his dark robes perfectly still. He simply shifted his gaze toward the heavy iron cage.
"Ape. The ground," Sunny commanded softly.
The Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape imdiately understood the unspoken order. It did not roar or posture. It simply stepped out of its cage, its heavy, tallic bones clanking nacingly.
It walked to the exact center of the vibrating pavilion floor.
The rumbling beneath the earth reached a deafening crescendo. The obsidian tiles began to violently bulge upward, glowing with the intense, localized heat of a burrowing Sand-Wyrm about to breach the surface and devour everything in the room.
The Ape raised its heavy, dark-tal fist high above its skeletal head.
It channeled a massive, concentrated pulse of pure death Qi into its arm, activating its Marrow-Shattering Resonance. The air around its fist visibly distorted, humming with a sickening, high-frequency vibration.
The Ape slamd its fist directly into the bulging obsidian floor.
The impact did not shatter the stone tiles. Instead, a terrifying, localized shockwave of dark energy rippled straight through the solid floor, plunging deep into the earth.
A sudden, muffled shriek of absolute, agonizing death echoed from beneath the pavilion.
The violent rumbling instantly ceased. The localized heat rapidly dissipated, replaced by the suffocating stench of instantaneously liquefied flesh seeping up through the cracks in the stone.
The Sand-Wyrm, a massive, armored siege-beast, had been completely eradicated without ever breaching the surface. Its internal organs had been turned to bloody soup while its impenetrable outer scales remained entirely untouched.
Sunny observed the terrifying efficiency of the execution. His heart was hamring a frantic rhythm against his ribs, but his face remained a mask of chilling boredom.
"Acceptable," Sunny whispered.
He casually turned his back on the kill zone, walking toward his spine-throne.
Disciple Zhao stared at the floor, then slowly looked up at Sunny’s retreating back. His mind was completely shattered by the display of effortless, overwhelming power. The Young Master hadn’t even bothered to draw a weapon or deploy an array; he had simply ordered his newly ascended, silent horror to casually tap the floor, annihilating a subterranean threat that was currently slaughtering veteran commanders across the camp.
"The Supre One’s dark arts are boundless..." Zhao whispered, explicitly resolving to never, ever displease this terrifying sovereign, lest his own marrow be liquefied with a single, casual tap.
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