Sunny dragged the doors of his warded pavilion shut, explicitly sealing out the blood-soaked clamor of the Vanguard staging camp.
His uncultivated human muscles screamed in protest, and a severe migraine pounded relentlessly behind his temples.
He shifted his gaze toward the darkest corner of the room. The Phantom Ash Scorpion was currently huddled against the cold stone, aggressively radiating a localized aura of insectoid petulance. It was explicitly sulking because Sunny had introduced the Abyssal Void-Sac into their domain.
Sunny let out a long, silent internal sigh. He mentally commanded the lethal, Commander-tier assassin to step forward.
The Scorpion reluctantly scuttled out of the shadows, its jagged pincers clicking in protest.
Sunny had to meticulously prepare the beast’s daily refinement cycle. He systematically fed the Scorpion a heavily concentrated paste of toxic flora and crushed bone-marrow.
The insect consumed the dark sustenance rapidly, but Sunny was entirely consumed by a spiraling internal panic regarding its future evolution.
According to the terrifying blue data frames projected by the Supreme Merge System, pushing the Scorpion toward its next biological ceiling required a continuous supply of this toxic paste for two full weeks.
However, the final, catastrophic catalyst required for the actual ascension was an Abyssal Corrosive Core harvested from a Sovereign-tier entity.
Sunny was absolutely horrified by this requirement. Sovereign-tier cores were not items one simply stumbled upon; they were located deep within the anatomical structures of apocalyptic nightmares.
The market value for such a cursed artifact was astronomical, strictly because attempting to harvest one usually resulted in the complete eradication of an entire mercenary slaughter-squad.
Three cycles prior, Sunny had visited the Blood-Bounty Altar in the Outer Bazaar. He had utilized his fabricated reputation to anonymously post a bounty for an Abyssal Corrosive Core, offering an extortionate sum of Corrupted Spirit Stones that sat slightly above the standard black-market rate.
He explicitly hoped some suicidal warlords would succeed, but he was simultaneously paralyzed by the fear that they might drag a living, Sovereign-tier horror back to the camp to extract the core in front of him.
Once the Scorpion finished its toxic meal, a heavy, necrotic lethargy settled over the beast, and it entered a dormant state to digest the dark Qi.
Sunny turned his attention to the bruised-purple, floating anomaly bobbing near the ceiling. He explicitly needed to establish a soul-tether with the Abyssal Void-Sac to access its dimensional storage without physical contact.
He explicitly chose not to utilize a complex ritual array. He simply drew a cursed bone-dagger from his sash and sliced a shallow cut across his pale index finger.
A single drop of his blood welled up. He reached out and pressed his bleeding fingertip directly against the pulsating, fleshy membrane of the Void-Sac.
Sunny closed his eyes, forcing his consciousness into the spiritual plane.
He was immediately thrust into a localized ideological dimension. The spiritual space within the Void-Sac was incredibly fragile and claustrophobic.
Deep within the inky blackness of this mental void, Sunny explicitly sensed the beast’s core soul. It was a minuscule, shivering spark of pale light, cowering in the darkest metaphysical corner.
Sunny explicitly wanted to project an aura of calm reassurance. He intended to broadcast feelings of safety and abundant resources to coax the timid entity into a mutual pact.
However, his innate, world-breaking villainous aura explicitly corrupted his intentions. The moment Sunny directed his spiritual focus toward the shivering spark, a tidal wave of suffocating, predatory dark Qi flooded the mental dimension.
The timid soul of the Void-Sac shrieked in absolute, metaphysical terror, completely overwhelmed by the sensation that a primeval demon was about to devour its existence.
The spiritual connection snapped.
Sunny’s crimson eyes snapped open, and he stumbled backward, clutching his throbbing head. The psychic backlash of the failed tether caused a sharp, localized pain in his frontal lobe.
He explicitly felt like a massive failure. He stared helplessly at the Void-Sac. The fleshy anomaly had darted to the highest corner of the pavilion, pressing itself flat against the ceiling, vibrating rapidly in a state of absolute, mindless panic.
Sunny rubbed his temples, explicitly recognizing that he had been too forceful. Establishing a soul-tether required mutual spiritual alignment. The Void-Sac was explicitly designed by the cosmos to be absolute prey, and Sunny currently radiated the aura of an apex executioner. He firmly concluded that he needed to passively exist near the beast for a longer duration, allowing it to realize he was not actively trying to slaughter it.
The next cycle, Sunny awoke from a brief, fitful period of meditation. He stood up and explicitly surveyed his domain.
He was immediately bewildered by the scene before him.
The Abyssal Void-Sac was floating steadily in the center of the pavilion. Resting perfectly balanced atop its fleshy, bruised-purple membrane was the Phantom Ash Scorpion. The massive, lethal insect was completely relaxed, utilizing the hovering anomaly as a floating, living pedestal.
Sunny explicitly did not understand demonic biology. Just yesterday, the Scorpion had projected intense, murderous jealousy toward the Void-Sac. Today, it had apparently subjugated the floating organ into a personal transportation device. Sunny was far too exhausted to question the bizarre hierarchy of his fiends.
Later that afternoon, the stifling heat of the subterranean staging cavern was absolutely unbearable. The Vanguard High Command had ordered a mandatory assembly near the magma-trenches.
Sunny marched out of his pavilion, explicitly dreading the oppressive temperature. To combat the agonizing heat, he had commanded the Abyssal Void-Sac to float directly inches above his head.
The anomaly’s thick, semi-transparent membrane effectively blocked the harsh, searing glare of the surrounding soul-fires. Thick, dark veins pulsed across its surface, creating a localized shadow that draped over Sunny’s pale features.
To the thousands of gathered demonic cultists, the sight was profoundly horrifying.
The Supreme Flesh-Crafter appeared to be wearing a pulsating, living halo of pure decay. The grotesque, fleshy mass hovering just above his crown explicitly radiated a bizarre, spatial distortion.
"The Supreme One’s aura is manifesting physically..." a heavily scarred mercenary whispered, explicitly backing away in terror.
"Do not look directly at his crown, or your soul will be sucked into the void!" another cultist hissed, trembling violently.
Sunny completely ignored the terrified murmuring. He was explicitly focused on enduring the suffocating heat without collapsing.
Disciple Zhao approached from the flank. He was sweating profusely, his face drained of all color. He was absolutely terrified of being murdered by the Young Master for approaching unbidden, but his assignment dictated he deliver the casualty reports.
"S-Supreme One," Zhao stammered, his body bowed so low he was practically crawling. His eyes darted nervously toward the pulsating, fleshy halo hovering above Sunny’s head.
"..." Sunny maintained his freezing, absolute silence. He explicitly chose not to speak, knowing his parched throat would crack unpleasantly.
Instead, Sunny slowly raised his pale hand, reaching upward. He plunged his entire arm directly into the fleshy membrane of the Void-Sac above his head. His arm explicitly vanished into the spatial distortion up to the elbow.
Zhao gasped, his heart nearly stopping in his chest. He explicitly believed the Young Master was utilizing a forbidden blood-ritual to draw a weapon directly from the abyssal plane to execute him for his interruption.
Sunny calmly withdrew his hand. He was holding a jagged skull-goblet filled with a chilled, restorative blood-elixir that he had stored inside the beast earlier. White, freezing vapor rolled off the rim of the bone cup.
Zhao stared at the chilled goblet in absolute, paralyzed horror. The Young Master had just casually reached into a dimensional rift anchored to a floating organ and retrieved a freezing artifact in the middle of a boiling magma-cavern. The unfathomable depth of Sunny’s dark arts broke Zhao’s remaining mental fortitude.
"Your... your spatial mastery is peerless, Supreme One," Zhao whispered, his voice trembling with sheer mortal dread.
"..." Sunny explicitly did not respond. He simply took a slow, deliberate sip of the chilled elixir, letting his glowing crimson eyes bore directly into the disciple’s sweating face.
Zhao explicitly interpreted this silence as a terrifying judgment. He firmly believed the Young Master was disappointed by the trivial nature of the casualty reports and was silently threatening to add Zhao’s name to the ledger.
"My fiend... the Iron-Tusked Boar has fully recovered its malice!" Zhao babbled frantically, desperately trying to prove his worth before he was liquidated. "It is far more aggressive since you explicitly terrified it in the pits!"
"..." Sunny merely lowered the skull-goblet, offering absolutely no validation or release from the crushing psychological pressure. He explicitly just wanted Zhao to leave so he could drink his beverage in peace.
Zhao sobbed quietly, explicitly convinced that his death was now a statistical certainty. He scrambled backward into the ash-fog, fleeing for his life without ever delivering the actual reports.
Sunny watched him run, internally sighing at the exhausting theatricality required to survive a single afternoon in the Heavenly Demon Sect...