Lordling Fen scrambled backward across the toxic ash covering the pavilion’s floor, his opulent, silver-threaded robes completely ruined by the filth.
He explicitly did not care about the fabric; he was entirely consumed by the desperate need to put as much distance between himself and the Supreme Flesh-Crafter as humanly possible.
Having just secured the stabilization of his flawed Venom-Macaque and surrendered his rare Blood-Mending Leech, the young noble bowed so deeply his forehead scraped the stone.
"I offer my eternal subservience to your dark arts, Supreme Patriarch," Fen stammered, his voice vibrating with absolute, mortal dread.
"When my Macaque’s core inevitably degrades from the stress of its new tier, I will return with triple the tribute! I swear upon my bloodline!"
In the Demonic Path, forced ascensions explicitly eroded a fiend’s latent genetic potential, causing their overall grade to plummet.
Fen firmly believed that only a Grandmaster of legendary cruelty could permanently stabilize a degrading core, and he wanted to secure his place in Sunny’s bloody ledger.
Sunny sat rigidly upon his spine-throne. His uncultivated muscles screamed with exhaustion, and a localized migraine hammered relentlessly behind his eyes. He explicitly desired to close his heavy eyelids and sleep for a century.
"..." Sunny maintained his absolute, freezing silence. He projected his innate villainous aura, his glowing crimson eyes boring into the shivering scion without a shred of emotion.
To Lordling Fen, this unbroken silence was the ultimate psychological execution. He explicitly interpreted the Young Master’s mute stare as a terrifying promise. Fen firmly believed Sunny was silently guaranteeing that if Fen failed to return with the promised exorbitant tribute, shadow-assassins would slowly peel the skin from his bones.
"I will not fail you!" Fen shrieked, practically tumbling backward out of the heavy obsidian doors and fleeing into the suffocating ash-fog.
Once the heavy doors ground shut, Sunny slumped sideways, letting out a long, shuddering breath. He explicitly hated this psychotic world. Every single interaction was an exhausting exercise in theatrical terrorism.
He needed a distraction from his impending panic attacks. Sunny telekinetically summoned a stack of forbidden bone-scrolls from his alchemy altar.
To survive the lethal politics of the Vanguard, he explicitly needed to educate himself on demonic biology.
He unrolled a jagged scroll detailing spatial anomalies.
The text explicitly covered a pathetic, exceedingly rare creature known as the Abyssal Void-Sac. It was a spatial-attribute fiend. In the fantasy novels of his previous life, spatial manipulation was universally depicted as an apocalyptic, god-tier power. However, the reality within the Heavenly Demon Sect was explicitly disappointing.
According to the sect chronicler, the Abyssal Void-Sacs originated from dimensional fissures during the primordial cataclysms. They possessed a native spatial attribute, which theoretically allowed them to mutate into terrifying predators. However, they were explicitly the weakest entities in the demonic ecosystem.
They possessed absolutely zero offensive capabilities. They could not project spatial blades or teleport enemies into solid rock. Their only biological function was inflating a small, extra-dimensional pocket within their fleshy membranes, and floating sluggishly through the air.
Consequently, they were mercilessly hunted. Subterranean wyrms devoured them from below, and necrotic avian terrors shredded them from above. The species was explicitly driven to the absolute brink of extinction. They survived only because human smugglers realized their utility.
The Void-Sacs were explicitly utilized as living, undetectable luggage. The inner-sect nobility ignored them entirely, but the outer-sect criminals prized them for their ability to hide contraband from the Enforcers’ blood-wards. Their only natural defense mechanism was that their flesh tasted like highly corrosive, rotting sludge, which occasionally deterred starving predators.
Sunny explicitly felt a pang of pity for the miserable creatures, but his practical needs overrode his civilian empathy. He desperately required a secure vault for his extorted Corrupted Spirit Stones.
Sunny forced himself out of his spine-throne. He donned a heavy, dark-silk cloak and commanded the heavy doors to open. He explicitly had to venture into the lawless Outer Sect.
The Flesh-Bazaar was a sprawling, chaotic nightmare of rusted iron cages, boiling cauldrons of dark marrow, and screaming thralls. The air was suffocatingly thick with the stench of decay.
As Sunny walked the muddy pathways, he maintained his flawless mask of aristocratic malice.
Near the perimeter of the bazaar, an opportunistic slaver stood atop a rusted execution platform. The slaver was utilizing a minor blood-array to magically amplify his voice over the clamor of the market.
"Witness the abyss!" the slaver roared, gesturing wildly. "Do not pass this by! I present the ultimate smuggler’s vessel! The newest acquisition from the deep trenches! A living vault! Hide your stolen elixirs!"
A large crowd of desperate outer disciples and scarred mercenaries had gathered around the platform, their eyes gleaming with greedy intent.
Hovering just above the slaver’s hand was an Abyssal Void-Sac. It was a semi-transparent, pulsating orb of dark, bruised veins. It looked profoundly pathetic.
To demonstrate its utility, the slaver grabbed a massive, rusted executioner’s broadsword. He violently shoved the jagged blade directly into the fleshy membrane of the anomaly. The weapon did not pierce the creature; it was instantly swallowed by a ripple of spatial energy, vanishing entirely into the beast’s internal dimension.
The Void-Sac let out a weak, burbling wheeze. It attempted to flee from the slaver, bobbing awkwardly in the air. It propelled itself by expanding and contracting, moving with the agonizing slowness of a wounded insect.
The slaver casually reached out, his massive, scarred hand easily snagging the creature out of the air. The Void-Sac released a muffled puff of spatial Qi, completely helpless.
"Behold its absolute docility!" the slaver laughed cruelly, stretching the Void-Sac’s elastic membrane with both hands. The creature offered absolutely no resistance, simply enduring the torment. "It possesses no fangs, no venom, and no malice! It is the perfect, obedient container!"
Several female cultists in the crowd murmured, explicitly drawn to the creature’s bizarre, harmless nature in a world defined by jagged teeth and lethal venom.
A young, arrogant outer disciple wearing the sigil of a minor poison pavilion stepped forward, sneering at the display. "I claim it. State your tribute, scavenger."
"One hundred high-grade Corrupted Spirit Stones!" the slaver demanded, his face twisting into a mask of pure greed. He held up ten fingers, explicitly refusing to negotiate. "No blood-bartering."
The arrogant disciple’s expression completely froze. "Are you suffering from marrow-rot? One hundred stones? What combat utility does this floating stomach possess? It cannot even defend itself against a stray hound!"
One hundred high-grade stones was an astronomical fortune in the Outer Sect. It was explicitly enough to feed a minor pavilion’s entire roster of beasts for three lunar cycles.
"Your ignorance is astounding," the slaver spat, his aura flaring aggressively. "This is a spatial-attribute fiend! Do you comprehend the rarity? I imported this anomaly from the southern quarantine zones at great personal risk. Pay the tribute or step back into the mud!"
The disciple gritted his teeth, his hand drifting toward his blood-whip. He explicitly desired the beast to hide his illicit alchemy ingredients, but the extortionate price was infuriating. He was internally debating whether to slaughter the slaver right there on the platform.
Sunny had observed enough of this pathetic haggling. His migraine was worsening by the second.
He stepped out from the shadows of the crowd.
The ambient temperature around the rusted platform instantly plummeted. Sunny explicitly projected his innate, world-breaking villainous aura, letting the heavy, suffocating pressure of absolute death Qi wash over the gathered cultists.
The arrogant disciple felt the lethal pressure immediately. He turned around, his eyes locking onto Sunny’s glowing crimson gaze. He explicitly recognized the Supreme Flesh-Crafter, the monster rumored to liquefy organs with a single glance. The blood drained entirely from his face, leaving him pale as a corpse. He did not utter a single word of protest; he simply turned and sprinted blindly into the ash-fog, completely abandoning the auction in pure, unadulterated terror.
The rest of the crowd explicitly understood that remaining in the Young Master’s path meant death. They scattered like roaches, pressing themselves face-down into the toxic mud.
The slaver froze, his greedy sneer melting into an expression of absolute horror. He explicitly knew that if the Young Master desired the Void-Sac, attempting to charge him one hundred spirit stones would result in the slaver’s own head being mounted on the rusted platform.
Sunny approached the stage. He explicitly ignored the slaver’s groveling posture.
"S-Supreme One," the slaver choked out, falling to his knees and offering the trembling Void-Sac with shaking hands. "Please... claim the anomaly. It is yours. I beg for my life."
"..."
Sunny maintained his absolute, freezing silence. He simply stared down at the groveling man, explicitly letting the psychological terror marinate. He had zero interest in the weak, Normal-grade anomaly the slaver was displaying. He required a beast with actual evolutionary potential.
"The holding pits," Sunny finally commanded, his voice an emotionless, freezing rasp.
"I will inspect your hidden inventory. Lead."
The slaver practically wept with a mixture of relief and escalating dread. He explicitly believed the Supreme Flesh-Crafter was bypassing the display stock to select a victim for a horrific, subterranean blood-ritual.
He nodded explicitly convinced that if he did not guide the Young Master flawlessly into the dark, his soul would be harvested before he could even scream.