The eldest assassin gasped, clutching his chest. His contracted fiend had just been instantly obliterated, causing a massive, agonizing backlash directly to his soul-tether.
A gigantic, semi-transparent Spectral-Serpent materialized from the shadows above Captain Kael.
It was slowly unhinging its massive jaw, swaying its head back and forth as if deciding which of the remaining intruders looked the most appetizing...
In the Demonic Sect, high-ranking enforcers possessed a terrifyingly twisted sense of theatrics, which they utilized to break the minds of their prey before claiming their lives.
Without a shred of hesitation, the green-haired cultist planted his heavy boots solidly onto the obsidian floor, reversed his grip on his highly toxic dagger, and viciously lunged directly at Captain Kael’s throat.
Captain Kael didn’t even draw his halberd. He simply stepped back half a pace, letting the blade slice through empty air.
Then, his gauntleted hand shot out like a striking viper. The green-haired cultist felt an agonizing pressure clamp down on his wrist, so crushing he was certain the bone had been pulverized into dust.
He let out a shriek of agony, dropping the poisoned dagger as the Captain forced him to his knees.
At the exact same moment, the Spectral-Serpent struck again. This time, it swallowed the youngest disciple’s hidden fiend, a spined Corpse-Rat, whole.
The boy wailed in terror, collapsing to the floor as his soul-tether was violently severed.
"Blood-Needle Fiend, execute him!" shouted the green-haired cultist viciously, his face contorted in pain, dark blood leaking from his nose due to the aura suppression.
On the ground near the tent flap, a previously unseen, grotesque, hairless abomination the size of a skull suddenly manifested.
Its multiple eyes glowed with a sickly crimson light, and the dense cluster of bone-needles on its arched back fused together, forming a single, vibrating spike.
All that could be seen was a crimson blur tearing across the dim tent as the bone-spike detached and fired forward with impossible velocity.
The projectile struck Captain Kael squarely in the center of his chest, tearing a jagged hole through his heavy Vanguard cloak.
A subtle, dark ripple appeared on the scales of the Spectral-Serpent hovering above. A deep, agonizing puncture wound manifested on the spirit-beast’s ethereal flesh.
But within a single heartbeat, the dark Qi surged, and the wound completely sealed itself.
Captain Kael casually brushed his shoulder. The shattered remnants of the bone-needle fell to the floor like useless splinters.
"That hidden needle-beast of yours possesses a commendable stealth array," Captain Kael chuckled, shaking his head slowly.
There were massive, bleeding craters on the back of the Blood-Needle Fiend. Executing such a high-velocity strike was evidently catastrophic to its own biology, as the entire cluster of bone had been violently expelled.
Although the demonic beast possessed an innate regenerative array to regrow its weaponry, the slow process naturally could not sustain a prolonged assassination attempt.
"How are you entirely unmarred?!" The green-haired cultist choked out, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the shattered bone-splinters at Kael’s feet.
He had tested this specific assassination technique on thick, iron-wood shields before. The bone-spike could pierce solid metal plating; there was absolutely no way this Enforcer’s flesh was denser than forged steel!
Unless he was wearing a supreme-grade, soul-bound defensive artifact?
That was impossible! What kind of lunatic wore a supreme defensive artifact while casually resting in their own tent?!
"Enough of this pathetic display," Captain Kael waved his free hand dismissively. "When your souls reach the Abyssal River, do not speak my name to the ferryman. I prefer to keep my execution methods private, understood?"
The very instant the cold words left his mouth, the massive, semi-transparent Spectral-Serpent descended from the ceiling like a falling mountain of absolute darkness, engulfing the screaming assassins.
...
The previous night, after extorting the massive haul of Blood-Lotus Roots, Sunny had stealthily dumped the heavy lead chests directly into the Shadow-Ghoul Ape’s iron cage while the miserable beast was facing the wall.
The Ghoul Ape had habitually pried open the lid of the chest. The moment the heavy iron yielded, the Ape saw rows and rows of neatly packed, highly toxic, pulsating roots...
The magic box truly did manifest dark essence!
The Shadow-Ghoul Ape was vibrating with pure excitement.
It eagerly hauled the toxic roots into its bronze blood-basin, positioned its skeletal jaw directly over the rim, and began happily crunching on the poisonous flora, just as if it were chewing on sweet sugar-cane.
The highly corrosive, dark dregs fell neatly from the gaps in its skull directly into the basin.
During the mandatory Vanguard slaughter-drills the following evening, Executioner Mian stood on the central altar and pointed a jagged bone-sword toward a heavily warded isolation pit.
"This entity will serve as your absolute despair for tonight’s assessment."
[Target Identified: Abyssal Sludge-Horror]
[Monster Level]: Tier 3 (Peak)
[Monster Grade]: Normal
[Monster Condition]: Dormant (Impervious)
[Special Characteristic]: Absolute Liquefaction (Upon sustaining lethal damage, the Horror will dissolve its physical core, rendering it entirely immune to physical and low-tier elemental strikes. While liquefied, its regenerative capacity is infinite.)
[Monster Weakness]:
1. Extreme Yang-Fire
2. High-frequency soul-shattering arrays
3. Complete atmospheric freezing.
Quietly resting in the center of the warded pit was a grotesque, undulating mass of pitch-black slime.
It possessed no discernible anatomy, merely a thick, foul-smelling membrane that absorbed the ambient light. It was sluggishly expanding and contracting on the obsidian floor.
This was the first time Sunny had ever seen the System interface display a "Special Characteristic" parameter.
It appeared that not all demonic fiends possessed these reality-breaking traits; only incredibly rare, deeply corrupted anomalies manifested them.
Sunny had read about Sludge-Horrors in the sect’s forbidden bestiaries. They were ancient, biological weapons from the previous era and were notoriously known as the most frustrating entities to permanently eradicate.
Even a Calamity Lord’s raw physical strength could not easily disperse an entity that possessed no solid form.
After all, Sludge-Horrors were incredibly adaptive and had been documented surviving point-blank artillery fire, extreme crushing pressure, and highly corrosive acid baths.
After the Vanguard marched into the active warzones, the necessity of understanding such unkillable entities became paramount.
Sunny was deeply unsettled by the absolute invulnerability of the Sludge-Horror’s special trait. It possessed an incredibly high resistance to standard demonic execution methods.
But this absolute defense carried a massive, exploitable flaw, because it became entirely devoid of offensive capabilities while liquefied.
This was a vulnerability that a calculating cultivator could easily manipulate.
During the brutal training rotation, five different disciples ordered their fiends to unleash their deadliest attacks upon the Sludge-Horror. But no matter what dark arts they deployed, the entity remained completely unaffected.
It was entirely immune to the Phantom Ash Scorpion’s highly concentrated dark-metal venom, and its dense, semi-liquid membrane easily absorbed the kinetic impact of any physical strikes.
Sunny briefly pondered if he should attempt to use the System to merge a Sludge-Horror into his arsenal.
But after a moment of panicked calculation, he abandoned the thought. If a Sludge-Horror encountered a specialized Yang-Fire cultivator, its absolute defense would instantly evaporate, leaving it utterly defenseless. Sunny had to, with great relief, reject the terrifying idea of managing an unkillable puddle of slime.
Sunny already had a desperate, overarching strategy for his third fusion slot. He would either acquire a fiend capable of extreme long-range bombardment to keep himself far away from the actual fighting; a fiend with absolute, impenetrable defensive wards to act as a permanent shield; or a beast capable of high-altitude flight to facilitate a rapid escape.
If he could find a fiend that possessed localized healing arrays, that would also be an acceptable fallback plan.
For the entirety of the week, the Executioner forced the cohorts to battle a horrifying variety of mutated entities, but they all shared one infuriating trait: an absolute immunity to dark-metal toxins.
Sunny did not know whether to scream or cry internally. ’You are literally going out of your way to make my Scorpion completely useless...’
The mandatory evening slaughters were infinitely more stressful than sitting alone in his pavilion.
There was also a constantly looming threat of actual dismemberment, because Executioner Mian refused to intervene if a disciple’s fiend failed to protect them, watching the carnage with a cruel smirk.
On the final night of the rotation, after Sunny had commanded his Scorpion to fruitlessly batter a heavily warded Iron-Golem, a deafening, soul-shaking roar erupted from the far side of the staging cavern. The roar was saturated with an unprecedented rage.
It sounded exactly like Vesper’s massive Rot-Weaver.
Sunny stiffly turned his head, maintaining his cold facade. There were already the frantic, panicked screams of fleeing disciples echoing from that sector.
A massive crowd of Enforcers had gathered, their weapons drawn.
The reinforced, blood-warded execution pit rang with a sickening, heavy impact, the iron-wood pillars visibly buckling with every strike.
A massive, eight-foot-long, mutated Crimson-Marrow Hyena was being brutally pinned against the crackling wards by the Rot-Weaver.
The arachnid’s massive, venom-dripping fangs were like twin executioner’s blades, impaling the Hyena entirely through its exposed ribcage.
The Crimson-Marrow Hyena’s dense, rune-carved bones were being systematically pulverized.
Its highly acidic flesh was being violently peeled away. Dark blood and chunks of corrosive muscle were spraying across the cavern.
In a final act of suicidal desperation, the Hyena locked its jaws onto the Rot-Weaver’s primary ocular cluster, leaving deep, sizzling gashes.
The Rot-Weaver’s hissing shrieks escalated into a deafening, maddened crescendo.
With a final, earth-shattering heave, a deafening explosion of dark Qi erupted as the entire reinforced side of the execution pit was violently torn from its foundation!
The Rot-Weaver whipped its massive thorax upward, launching the mangled Crimson-Marrow Hyena high into the cavern’s gloom like a discarded piece of trash.
The arachnid reared up, its front appendages crashing downward with apocalyptic force!
It was like a falling meteor of pure decay.
The Crimson-Marrow Hyena was utterly flattened against the floor, bursting into a horrific spray of gore and shattered bone.
In the sudden, deafening silence of the staging cavern, all that could be heard was the Rot-Weaver’s wet hissing.
It was as though a supreme engine of slaughter had just completed its cycle, radiating a suffocating wave of localized death.