Sunny slowly channeled a microscopic sliver of dark Qi into the rune.
A magically emotionless voice echoed directly into his auditory ridians.
"Shadow-Bounty absolute. Commission numbered 0094-Alpha is fulfilled. Item: Sovereign-Tier Abyssal Corrosive Core. Extraction successful. Claim your tribute at the High-Escrow Vault."
The chanical voice looped thrice before automatically severing the spiritual connection.
Sunny felt a massive, crashing wave of internal relief. The suicidal rcenaries had actually survived the impossible hunt. If that anonymous commission had expired, he would have been forced to halt the Phantom Ash Scorpion’s ascension, leaving him critically vulnerable in the escalating war.
However, that relief was imdiately swallowed by sheer, unadulterated terror. A Sovereign-tier core was explicitly the demonic equivalent of a highly volatile, unshielded nuclear reactor. Just standing near the raw, concentrated death Qi of an apex predator could lt a mortal’s flesh from their bones.
Sunny explicitly knew his fragile civilian body was entirely unequipped to handle such an apocalyptic artifact. He needed to acquire a heavy, lead-lined containnt vessel imdiately.
Before marching toward the High-Escrow Vault, Sunny briefly returned to his warded pavilion to retrieve his storage tools.
Upon pushing open the heavy obsidian doors, he paused. The Abyssal Void-Sac, the bruised-purple spatial anomaly he had recently tethered, was floating aimlessly near the ceiling.
It was repeatedly bumping its fleshy mbrane against the heavy iron bars of the Ghoul Ape’s cage, bouncing backward, floating forward, and bumping the iron again in an endless, mindless loop.
It explicitly acted as though the tal bars would magically yield if it just bumped them enough tis. Sunny stared at it, internally marveling at the creature’s profound lack of intellect. He ntally commanded the floating backpack to return to his shadow, shaking his head at its terrifying stupidity.
Sunny marched across the ash-choked staging camp, heading directly for the heavily fortified High-Escrow Vault.
He explicitly did not notice the three desperate cultists crouching within the shadows of a ruined siege-tower, tracking his every movent. Alongside them lurked a pale, blind Marrow-Tracker Hound. Its mutated, multi-segnted snout twitched violently, locking onto Sunny’s residual scent.
The youngest cultist’s hands shook uncontrollably. He was entirely consud by mortal dread. "Elder brother... the Enforcers patrol this sector constantly. If we are caught tailing a Supre talent, they will throw us into the marrow-boiling vats!"
The eldest cultist’s scarred face twisted with a flicker of deep-seated fear, but he violently suppressed the weakness. "Our Grand Elder’s soul is actively dissolving! Only the ambient radiation of a Sovereign Corrosive Core can burn away the Orthodox light-curse in his ridians. If we do not secure this catalyst, our entire pavilion will be liquidated by the vanguard. Do you explicitly desire to be fed to the Wyrms?"
A green-robed youth beside them sneered, his hand resting on a poisoned blood-hook. "The Demonic Path dictates absolute consumption. The strong devour the weak. As long as we leave no soul-remnants and dissolve his flesh in acid, the High Command will assu he defected. Control your bladder, little brother."
"I explicitly desire our master’s survival! But look at the target!" The youngest boy wept quietly. "Only a Grand Elder possesses the raw wealth to purchase a Sovereign core! Attempting to assassinate him is absolute suicide!"
"You are blind to reality," the eldest hissed, his eyes fixed on Sunny’s retreating back. "We do not strike in the open plaza. We track him to his cultivation domain. If the wards are too thick, we simply wait for the Orthodox artillery to cause a distraction. The Hound has his scent. Move."
Back at the High-Escrow Vault, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
The Escrow Master, an ancient, hunched cultist with rotting gums, placed a heavily warded, lead-lined chest onto the obsidian counter. His hands trembled so violently that the chest rattled against the stone.
The Master was entirely consud by mortal dread. He explicitly knew the Young Master had just finalized an anonymous purchase of a Sovereign-tier weapon of mass destruction. In the sect’s cutthroat politics, leaving a living witness to such an apocalyptic transaction was considered a fatal flaw. The Master firmly believed Sunny was currently calculating the most agonizing thod to permanently silence him.
"S-Supre One," the Escrow Master stamred, falling to his knees and pressing his face against the cold floor. "The transaction is entirely purged from the blood-ledgers! I swear upon my soul-tether, I will sever my own tongue to preserve the secrecy of your dark arts! Please, I beg your rcy! Do not refine !"
Sunny stared at the groveling man. Internally, his heart was hamring a frantic rhythm. He was explicitly terrified of the glowing, toxic sludge seeping slightly from the edges of the lead chest. He just wanted to grab the box and run back to his tent before his skin started blistering.
"..." Sunny maintained his absolute, freezing silence. He explicitly chose not to speak, knowing his voice would likely crack from the sheer stress of standing near the radioactive core.
To the Escrow Master, this unbroken, terrifying silence was the ultimate psychological torture. The Young Master was staring directly at him, his crimson eyes glowing with unfathomable malice, explicitly rejecting the plea for rcy.
"I will offer my entire bloodline to the feeding pits! Just spare my soul!" the Master shrieked, openly weeping as he clawed at the obsidian floor.
Sunny explicitly ignored the pathetic display. He utilized a minor telekinetic array to safely lift the heavy lead chest, turning his back on the sobbing vault-keeper, and walked out into the gloom, projecting the image of a cold, calculating sovereign entirely unbothered by the lives of insects.
The three hidden assassins and their tracking hound tailed Sunny silently through the winding, bone-lined pathways of the camp.
When they finally arrived at the Vanguard’s command sector, they watched Sunny enter his isolated pavilion. The three cultists stared in absolute disbelief.
The Supre Flesh-Crafter lived in a standard, canvas-and-obsidian field tent?
They explicitly concluded that Sunny was a fraud. A true powerhouse possessing a Sovereign core would reside within a floating bone-palace guarded by Abomination-Golems. They firmly believed Sunny was rely a lucky, low-tier front-man who had stumbled upon a dead Elder’s spatial ring.
"Brother?" The green-robed youth whispered, his eyes gleaming with greedy malice. He was explicitly asking for permission to initiate the slaughter imdiately.
The eldest narrowed his eyes, analyzing the periter wards. "Patience. We strike at the midnight hour, when the blood-moon is obscured by the ash-clouds."
At the witching hour, the three assassins crept toward the heavy obsidian doors of Sunny’s pavilion. The suffocating darkness of the camp felt like a physical weight pressing against their lungs.
"Silence your breathing," the eldest whispered, producing a jagged, rune-carved bone key designed to forcibly bypass minor wards.
Inside the pitch-black pavilion, the Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape’s necrotic eye sockets suddenly flared with brilliant, green fire. The Phantom Ash Scorpion raised its dual, venom-dripping stingers, locking onto the entrance.
The sharp sound of a ward breaking echoed in the dead silence.
"Flawless execution, brother! You truly possess the supre lock-picking arts," the green-robed youth praised in a dark whisper.
The eldest assassin froze completely. Cold sweat cascaded down his scarred face. "I... I haven’t even touched the ward yet."
The sound had not co from Sunny’s doors.
The heavy entrance flap of the adjacent pavilion slowly scraped open. Vesper, the sociopathic prodigy, peered out into the gloom. She was draped in dark shadow-silk, her hollow, dead eyes fixing directly upon the three terrified assassins.
The youngest cultist’s mind went entirely blank with terror. A high-tier elite had just caught them attempting to breach a commander’s tent.
The green-robed youth’s face twisted into a mask of suicidal ferocity. He silently drew his poisoned blood-hook, preparing to silence the witness before she could raise the alarm.
Vesper explicitly did not scream. A terrifying, empty smile stretched across her pale face.
"Are you scavengers lost in the ash-fog?" Vesper asked, her voice like grinding stones. She stepped back, gesturing toward the pitch-black interior of her own tent. "The Enforcers patrol this sector rcilessly. Enter my domain, lest you be caught creeping in the dark."
The eldest assassin exchanged a bewildered, desperate glance with his brothers. They explicitly believed this strange girl was a foolish, low-ranking acolyte who did not comprehend their lethal intent.
They quickly slipped into Vesper’s pavilion. The green-robed youth was the last to enter. He imdiately dragged the heavy tent flap shut and manually engaged the internal silencing wards.
"Why do you seal the exits, scavenger?" Vesper asked, her tone dripping with dark amusent.
"We wouldn’t want the sounds of our ’navigation’ to disturb the camp," the green-robed youth sneered, raising his poisoned hook to strike her throat.
"Indeed," Vesper laughed, a sound completely devoid of sanity. "My wards are woven from absolute silence. You could scream until your lungs ruptured, and the camp would hear nothing."
The eldest assassin felt a sudden, suffocating wave of apex killing intent flood the enclosed space. He explicitly realized they had not walked into a sanctuary; they had marched directly into a slaughterhouse.
Before he could even open his mouth to beg for rcy, the massive, horrifying form of the Rot-Weaver Arachnid dropped silently from the ceiling, its venomous fangs violently impaling the tracking hound and the youngest brother in a single strike!
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