The Sovereign Ghoul Ape stepped from the deepest shadows of the warded pavilion.
Despite lacking any physical flesh, the beast possessed an immense, suffocating weight. However, its most terrifying feature was the pulsating Abyssal Heart suspended within its ribcage.
Every slow, rhythmic contraction of the intertwined blood-threads radiated a localized wave of lethal resonance.
Sunny explicitly felt a sharp, agonizing pressure against his own sternum whenever he stood too close to the monstrosity. His civilian heart was dangerously attempting to synchronize with the apocalyptic rhythm of the Sovereign-tier core. He was entirely exhausted, his head pounding with a relentless migraine.
He explicitly knew that if the Ape paraded around the Vanguard camp in its current state, it would inadvertently burst the internal organs of every low-level disciple within fifty yards.
To prevent an accidental mass slaughter that would undoubtedly draw the wrath of the Grand Elders, Sunny had ordered Quartermaster Jin to deliver a massive, cursed-shadow shroud.
The Ghoul Ape currently wore the heavy, light-absorbing fabric draped over its towering frame. The thick cowl obscured its skull, leaving only the dual, sickly green flames of its necrotic eye sockets piercing through the gloom. The shroud successfully dampened the lethal cardiovascular resonance, but it made the beast look like a primordial god of death.
Sunny collapsed onto his spine-throne, explicitly desiring nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep for a century. He was fundamentally exhausted by the relentless, cutthroat economics of the Demonic Path.
He activated the Supreme Merge System, pulling up the evolutionary data frames for the Phantom Ash Scorpion. He explicitly needed to calculate his upcoming resource expenditures.
Previously, when the Scorpion was merely an Elite-tier assassin, the System required a modest handful of toxic flora and a single, low-grade corrosive spirit-core to force a breakthrough.
Now, to push the Commander-tier Scorpion toward the Sovereign realm, the System’s demands had mutated into absolute absurdity.
Sunny stared blankly at the glowing blue text. The System explicitly demanded a continuous, fourteen-day cycle of highly concentrated venom-baths, followed by the consumption of a Calamity-grade Shadow Core.
Sunny explicitly realized a horrifying truth regarding demonic progression. The specific categories of the required catalysts remained identical, but the sheer, raw volume and rarity scaled exponentially. It was explicitly akin to fueling a furnace; an ember required a twig, but a raging inferno demanded an entire forest.
He was internally panicking. If he hoarded his extorted wealth, his fiends would stagnate, and he would be assassinated by rival warlords. If he continuously funded the System’s gluttony, he would be perpetually bankrupt and forced to constantly engage in high-stakes political extortion just to survive. He explicitly had to maintain a flawless balance between resource accumulation and beast ascension, a logistical nightmare that made him want to weep.
"Supreme Patriarch..."
A fragile, trembling whisper broke the suffocating silence of the pavilion.
Sunny slowly shifted his crimson gaze toward the entrance. Kneeling upon the ash-covered obsidian was the young acolyte, Lin. She had returned from the poison vats, clutching her shivering Yin-Whisper Lynx tightly to her chest.
She explicitly utilized the title ’Supreme Patriarch’ in a desperate, fumbling attempt to show ultimate reverence.
Sunny’s left eye twitched imperceptibly. He was not a patriarch; he was a terrified teenager masquerading as a warlord. He explicitly hated the title, finding it profoundly uncomfortable.
"..." Sunny offered absolute, freezing silence. He simply stared at her, projecting his innate villainous aura in heavy, oppressive waves.
Lin interpreted this silence as absolute, murderous disapproval. The blood drained entirely from her face. She explicitly believed the Young Master was profoundly insulted by her presence and was currently calculating the most efficient angle to sever her head from her neck. Her body shook so violently that the lynx in her arms let out a distressed hiss.
"I beg your dark mercy! The standard tribute is prepared!" Lin babbled frantically, tears of sheer mortal dread spilling down her cheeks. She practically threw a heavy velvet pouch onto the stone floor. "Sixty Corrupted Spirit Stones! I swear upon my soul-tether, it is the exact sum!"
Sunny maintained his cold, apathetic facade, though internally, he breathed a massive sigh of relief. He explicitly calculated that the basic dark-ritual required to refine the pathetic Lynx would cost him roughly two spirit stones in cheap, subterranean herbs. The remaining fifty-eight stones were pure, unadulterated profit for his own survival fund.
"Release the entity," Sunny commanded, his voice a flat, freezing rasp.
Lin hastily deposited the Yin-Whisper Lynx onto the floor and scrambled backward on her hands and knees, pressing her spine against the furthest wall. She explicitly wished she could melt into the stone to escape his demonic gaze.
Sunny approached the heavy bronze cauldron situated near his alchemy altar. It was filled with a violently boiling, highly corrosive dark-marrow concoction.
The Yin-Whisper Lynx, possessing sharp survival instincts, explicitly recognized that the bubbling black sludge was concentrated agony. It completely refused to step forward. The beast’s fur bristled with dark Qi, and it retreated into the corner, baring its fangs and releasing a localized, shadow-laced hiss directed entirely at Sunny.
It explicitly looked like a cornered predator preparing to fight to the death.
Sunny froze. He was a modern civilian with zero combat training. He explicitly recognized that if a magically mutated, razor-clawed feline lunged at his face, he would likely suffer severe lacerations and demonic rabies. He was absolutely terrified of being maimed. He did not know whether to scream or run behind his spine-throne.
"..." Sunny maintained his statuesque posture, desperately refusing to break his terrifying illusion. He simply pointed a pale finger at the hissing beast.
"Submerge," Sunny commanded softly.
The towering, shrouded Sovereign Ghoul Ape standing silently in the shadows immediately obeyed. To the massive undead construct, there was no hesitation, no malice, and no mercy. The master’s command was an absolute universal law.
The Yin-Whisper Lynx utilized its innate shadow-evasion, attempting to vault off the obsidian wall and stick to the ceiling in a desperate bid for survival.
It was entirely futile.
The Ghoul Ape’s massive, dark-metal skeletal hand shot upward with impossible, blinding velocity. It explicitly snatched the Lynx right out of the air, its iron grip completely neutralizing the beast’s frantic thrashing.
Lin covered her mouth to muffle a shriek of pure horror. She explicitly believed the towering, cloaked nightmare was going to crush her fiend into a bloody pulp right before her eyes.
The Ape stepped forward and unceremoniously plunged the struggling Yin-Whisper Lynx directly into the boiling dark-marrow cauldron, instantly slamming the heavy bronze lid shut.
The muffled, frantic splashing and muffled shrieks of the beast echoed from within the heavy bronze vessel. The highly corrosive liquid was explicitly designed to melt away inferior genetic limiters, a process that felt exactly like being boiled alive in acid.
Because the bronze lid possessed a ventilation rune, Sunny explicitly did not worry about the beast suffocating, only about the agonizing noise giving him a worse headache.
Thirty agonizing minutes later, Sunny gave a microscopic nod.
The Ghoul Ape effortlessly hauled the heavy bronze lid away.
A blur of dark energy exploded from the cauldron. The Yin-Whisper Lynx, now radiating an unstable, Elite-grade aura, launched itself directly at Sunny’s throat. The beast had been driven completely feral by the excruciating refinement process and explicitly sought to eradicate the source of its torment.
Sunny’s civilian reflexes were entirely inadequate. He didn’t even have time to blink, let alone cast a defensive array.
CRACK.
The shrouded Ghoul Ape casually backhanded the airborne beast.
The impact was devastating. The Lynx was swatted out of the air like a trivial insect, slamming violently into the pavilion’s obsidian wall. It slid down the stone, leaving a faint smear of dark blood, before collapsing into a twitching heap on the floor.
The Ghoul Ape returned to its statuesque, looming posture directly behind Sunny, the edges of its cursed cloak billowing slightly from the displaced air.
Sunny explicitly pulled up the System interface, internally panicking that his skeleton monkey had just accidentally pulverized the paying client’s beast.
[Status: Elite Grade (Sustained Minor Cranial Hemorrhage)]
Sunny exhaled a silent, ragged breath. He turned his chilling, crimson gaze toward the corner where Lin was trembling in a fetal position.
"The refinement is absolute. Claim it," Sunny whispered.
Lin scrambled across the floor, completely ignoring her own safety, and scooped the twitching Lynx into her arms. She explicitly noticed the dark, viscous blood leaking from the beast’s nose and ears.
"S-Supreme One..." Lin whimpered, her voice cracking with sheer, unadulterated terror. "It... it bleeds from its core."
She explicitly believed Sunny had purposefully crippled the beast as a sadistic warning.
Sunny maintained his flawless, apathetic expression. He explicitly refused to admit that his primary bodyguard had nearly beaten the cat to death by accident. He required a suitably terrifying, biological justification to dismiss her.
"Weakness expelled," Sunny stated coldly, offering absolutely no further elaboration.
Lin gasped, her mind immediately twisting the two words into a profound, terrifying revelation. The Supreme Flesh-Crafter had explicitly boiled away the beast’s mortal frailties, and the bleeding was merely the physical manifestation of its pathetic limitations being violently purged from its skull.
"Y-yes! Your mastery is fathomless!" Lin bowed repeatedly, backing out of the heavy obsidian doors as fast as her trembling legs could carry her, entirely convinced she had just witnessed the absolute pinnacle of demonic alchemy.
Once the doors sealed shut, Sunny slowly wiped a bead of cold sweat from his pale forehead. He explicitly hated this world. Every single transaction was a near-death experience.