Sunny unsealed the heavy obsidian doors and stepped inside, immediately commanding the Abyssal Void-Sac to detach its fleshy membrane from his crown. The anomaly drifted up toward the ceiling, returning to its mindless, repetitive bumping against the Ghoul Ape’s iron cage.
Sunny collapsed onto his spine-throne, closing his crimson eyes and letting out a long, shuddering breath. He explicitly dedicated the next hour to doing absolutely nothing. He was physically and mentally drained from the constant, high-stakes theatricality required to maintain his monstrous facade in front of the Vanguard cultists.
However, his brief period of ’nothing’ was interrupted by a disturbing, rhythmic crunching sound originating from the corner of the pavilion.
Sunny slowly opened his eyes and turned his head.
The Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape was explicitly attempting to eat the lead-lined containment chest that held the Sovereign-tier Abyssal Corrosive Core.
The Ape had pried the heavy lid open. It was currently holding a massive chunk of the highly toxic, glowing sludge in its metallic, skeletal hand, shoveling the radioactive matter directly into its jawless skull. The corrosive energy sizzled and spat against the Ape’s dark-metal bones, explicitly attempting to dissolve the beast from the inside out.
Sunny felt his heart drop into his stomach. He scrambled out of his spine-throne. "Stop! Drop it immediately!"
He explicitly knew the Ape was a Tier 4 Commander. Consuming a raw, unrefined Sovereign-tier core was not an ascension; it was a guaranteed, catastrophic biological detonation. The raw death Qi of an apex predator would instantly vaporize the Ape’s inferior meridians, likely taking the entire pavilion with it.
The Ape paused, its glowing green eye sockets turning toward Sunny. It slowly lowered its hand, reluctantly dropping the glowing sludge back into the lead chest. It let out a low, telepathic whine that sounded like grinding gears. "Hunger... The void demands the apex..."
Sunny slammed the heavy lead lid shut and forcefully engaged the containment wards. He was sweating profusely.
"You are explicitly forbidden from touching the Sovereign Core," Sunny commanded, projecting his villainous aura to enforce absolute obedience. "Your current biological matrix will shatter. The refinement requires precise, calculated catalysts."
He was internally panicking. The Ape’s gluttony was escalating. He explicitly realized he needed to formulate a safe, multi-step fusion protocol immediately, or the beast would simply devour the core the next time Sunny left the pavilion.
Sunny pulled up the System interface and focused entirely on the Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape’s evolutionary path.
He spent the next several hours scrolling through thousands of terrifying, theoretical permutations. He explicitly sought a fusion process that would safely buffer the Sovereign Core’s radioactive death Qi, allowing the Ape to ascend without detonating.
Eventually, a glowing blue data frame stabilized in his vision, detailing a horrific, multi-layered dark ritual.
[Evolutionary Requirement (Sovereign Tier - Phased Ascension): Abyssal Corrosive Core (1x), Void-Marrow Powder (5 lbs), Soul-Tethered Anchor (Living Vessel), 14 Days Continuous Refinement...]
Sunny stared at the requirements, his migraine instantly returning. The system explicitly demanded a ’Living Vessel’ to act as a Soul-Tethered Anchor. This meant he needed a living demonic entity to act as a biological filter, absorbing the initial, lethal shock of the Sovereign Core’s radiation before the energy was safely transferred into the Ghoul Ape.
This process would explicitly kill the ’Living Vessel’.
Sunny felt a deep, civilian revulsion at the concept of sacrificing a living creature purely for parts. He looked around his pavilion. The Phantom Ash Scorpion was his primary assassin; it was absolutely off-limits. The Abyssal Void-Sac was his only logistical storage; sacrificing it meant returning to carrying heavy chests.
He had no other beasts.
A sudden, terrifying thought struck him. The System did not explicitly specify that the ’Living Vessel’ had to be a contracted fiend.
He remembered the terrified, rat-faced Vanguard scout, Krax, who had guided him to the Flesh-Bazaar. Krax had literally offered his own blood and soul out of pure, unadulterated terror.
Sunny felt nauseous. Could he actually use a human disciple as a biological filter?
He explicitly crushed the thought. No. He was playing a villain, not becoming one. He would not butcher a terrified subordinate to upgrade his skeleton monkey.
He needed to acquire a highly resilient, disposable demonic beast immediately.
"Supreme One."
A frantic, muffled voice echoed from outside the pavilion’s heavy obsidian doors.
Sunny sighed, massaging his temples. He unsealed the wards, allowing the doors to grind open.
Quartermaster Jin fell onto the ash-covered floor, explicitly refusing to cross the threshold into Sunny’s domain. He was trembling violently, his eyes wide with panic.
"Supreme One... I beg your dark mercy," Jin stammered, his forehead pressed against the stone. "The Vanguard High Command has issued a mandatory blood-conscription. All Elite Commanders are required to deploy their primary fiends to the front lines immediately. A massive Orthodox Paladin phalanx has breached the Ashen Ridge!"
Sunny maintained his cold, apathetic facade. "The Vanguard possesses thousands of slaughter-captains. Why does High Command require my personal intervention?"
Jin swallowed hard, explicitly terrified of delivering bad news. "The Orthodox phalanx... they are explicitly wielding a ’Sun-Forged Relic’. It projects an absolute, localized domain of extreme Yang-Fire. It is incinerating our standard dark-metal infantry by the hundreds. The Executioner explicitly demanded your Phantom Ash Scorpion, hoping its highly corrosive venom can melt the relic’s shielding array."
Sunny felt a cold sweat break out across his back.
He explicitly knew the Scorpion’s venom was devastating, but the System had previously identified Extreme Yang-Fire as an absolute counter to many shadow-attribute abilities. If the Orthodox relic was powerful enough to incinerate hundreds of fiends, sending his Scorpion directly into its effective range was a massive, potentially lethal gamble.
"..." Sunny projected freezing silence, rapidly calculating his options. He explicitly did not want to deploy his primary defense.
"Supreme One... if you refuse the conscription, the High Command will officially declare you a coward," Jin whispered, his voice trembling with sheer terror. "They will strip your pavilion of its wards and feed your remaining fiends to the Wyrms."
Sunny explicitly understood the political trap. He was the Sect Master’s heir. He could not refuse a direct combat mandate when the Vanguard was actively losing ground.
"The Scorpion remains," Sunny finally rasped, his voice dripping with icy arrogance.
Quartermaster Jin gasped, fully expecting Sunny to be executed for treason by nightfall.
"I will deploy the Ape," Sunny commanded, gesturing toward the towering, dark-metal skeleton in the corner.
He explicitly calculated that the Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape’s ’Marrow-Shattering Resonance’—which bypassed external shields to liquefy internal organs—was the perfect counter to a heavily shielded Orthodox phalanx. More importantly, the Ape’s dark-metal bones were significantly more resistant to ambient heat than the Scorpion’s chitinous shell.
"B-but Supreme One... the Orthodox phalanx is a massive, coordinated unit," Jin stammered, horrified that Sunny was sending a single, newly ascended fiend against a relic-bearing army. "A single Commander-tier fiend cannot possibly breach their formation!"
Sunny explicitly ignored the Quartermaster’s tactical concerns. He mentally commanded the Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape to step forward.
The massive skeleton walked heavily toward the entrance, its dark-metal joints clanking ominously.
"Ape," Sunny commanded telepathically. "You desire the Sovereign Core?"
"Hunger..." the Ape’s psychic voice ground against Sunny’s mind.
"Shatter the glowing relic upon the Ridge. Bring me the core of the Paladin Commander," Sunny ordered, establishing an explicit, brutal transaction with the beast. "Succeed, and you shall consume the abyss."
The Iron-Forged Ghoul Ape did not roar. It explicitly understood the terms. Its green eye sockets flared with sudden, violent intensity. It marched past the groveling Quartermaster, heading directly for the chaotic, blood-soaked front lines of the Ashen Ridge.
Sunny watched the beast depart, projecting absolute confidence. Internally, he was profoundly stressed, explicitly praying to whatever dark gods existed in this world that his skeleton monkey wouldn’t be instantly vaporized by a laser beam.