Krax, the Vanguard scout, was still kneeling on the damp stone, practically vibrating with a mixture of terror and awe.
He stared at the bloated, purple corpse of the Bile-Spitting Toad floating on the crimson surface, thoroughly convinced that Sunny had executed the fiend with a highly concentrated, localized blood-curse delivered via a casual loogie.
"Even the most trivial nuisance is instantly obliterated by your dark arts." Krax whispered .
Sunny explicitly maintained his flawless mask of aristocratic apathy. Internally, he was profoundly disturbed by the bizarre mechanics of demonic biology.
The fact that a monster could literally die of a localized aneurysm induced purely by disrespect was absurd.
However, he was a modern teenager violently thrust into a death-cult; he was entirely willing to exploit any biological absurdity that saved him the effort of a physical confrontation.
"Do not mistake my boredom for effort," Sunny rasped coldly, wiping the remaining ’Shadow-Weave Nectar’ from his mouth with the back of his pale hand.
Sunny turned away from the blood-lake. The cavern was expansive, with several smaller, secondary tunnels branching off into the subterranean gloom.
He activated the System’s diagnostic overlay, allowing the blue data frames to map the ambient hostility of the surrounding area.
"We return to the isolation vault," Sunny commanded, explicitly deciding that the cavern offered no immediate tactical advantage.
"The perimeter is secured. We will wait out the initial wave of the Orthodox crusade."
Krax scrambled to his feet, eager to return to the relative safety of the sterile, leviathan-marrow bunker.
"Yes!"
The journey back through the winding corridors was tense. The constant, distant rumbling of the holy artillery above ground vibrated through the petrified bone walls, a continuous reminder of the apocalyptic slaughter occurring just out of sight.
When they finally reached the heavy, rune-carved door of their chosen isolation vault, Sunny paused.
The heavy metal handle had been forcefully engaged from the inside.
Sunny’s crimson eyes narrowed. He explicitly remembered leaving the door unlocked, as he and Krax were the only cultivators assigned to this specific sub-sector.
"The seal is engaged," Krax hissed, his scarred face twisting with sudden paranoia.
"Mercenaries? Deserters?"
Sunny placed a pale hand against the cold metal. He channeled a sliver of dark Qi, attempting to sense the auras within.
"Open the seal," Sunny demanded, his voice a flat, freezing void that carried effortlessly through the heavy door.
There was a muffled shuffling sound from the other side, followed by a tense, hushed whisper.
"The bunker is at maximum capacity!" a gruff, panicked voice yelled through the metal. "Seek sanctuary elsewhere! The ambient air scrubbers cannot support another physical vessel!"
Sunny explicitly knew this was a pathetic lie. The subterranean vaults were designed to house an entire Vanguard cohort for a lunar cycle. The current occupants were merely selfish cutthroats who had abandoned their posts and were now hoarding the secure location.
Krax drew a jagged, rusted dagger, his eyes wide. "Supreme One... they are Vanguard deserters. They have explicitly violated the Soul-Tethered Death Pact by hiding before the battle even commenced."
"We are merely seeking shelter for the cycle," Sunny stated evenly, explicitly not wanting to engage in a messy, enclosed firefight if he could avoid it. "Disengage the seal. We require only a fraction of the floor space."
"I said the bunker is full!" a second, significantly more aggressive voice barked. "Are you deaf, you pale-faced corpse? Piss off back to the trenches before we open this door and feed you to our hounds!"
The moment the insult registered, the ambient temperature in the corridor plummeted.
Sunny did not shout. He did not issue a threat. He explicitly felt a profound, civilian exhaustion wash over him. He was a teenager who just wanted a nap, and these cowardly mercenaries were actively preventing him from accessing the only safe room in a literal warzone.
Sunny slowly lowered his hand from the door.
"Ape," Sunny whispered telepathically.
The towering, shrouded Sovereign Ghoul Ape, which had been standing silently in the shadows behind them, stepped forward.
Sunny explicitly knew that utilizing the Ape’s absolute cardiovascular resonance was too risky; the vibrations might collapse the entire corridor. However, the Ape was also a Tier 5 Sovereign entity possessing a skeletal frame forged from dark-metal.
"Dismantle the barricade," Sunny commanded coldly.
The Ghoul Ape did not roar. It simply raised its massive, metallic foot and delivered a single, devastating front kick directly into the center of the heavy, rune-carved metal door.
The sound was apocalyptic. The heavy iron bolts sheared instantly. The thick metal door was violently torn from its reinforced hinges, launched inward like a piece of crumpled parchment. It slammed into the far wall of the vault with a deafening crash, kicking up a massive cloud of sterile dust.
Sunny stepped casually through the ruined doorway, his dark robes swirling in the displaced air. The Abyssal Void-Sac drifted lazily above his head.
The interior of the vault was a scene of absolute, terrified chaos.
Six heavily armed, scarred Vanguard mercenaries were scrambling backward, drawing cursed blades and poisoned crossbows. They had explicitly expected a weak, desperate straggler. Instead, they had just watched a fifteen-foot-tall, shrouded nightmare casually kick down a blast door designed to withstand siege-artillery.
The mercenary who had yelled the insult—a burly man wielding a heavy blood-axe—stared at the towering Ghoul Ape, the blood draining entirely from his face.
"S-Supreme Flesh-Crafter..." the mercenary choked out, recognizing Sunny’s pale, aristocratic features and glowing crimson eyes from the amphitheater executions.
The six deserters instantly dropped their weapons. They explicitly knew the rumors. They knew this was the monster who liquefied organs with a single thought. They threw themselves onto the cold iron floor, trembling so violently the heavy cots rattled.
"We beg your dark mercy! We did not know it was you!" the burly mercenary shrieked, pressing his forehead into the metal. "We are worthless insects! Spare our souls!"
Sunny walked slowly toward the center of the room. He explicitly ignored their pathetic groveling. He surveyed the cots, noting that the deserters had already ripped open several crates of compressed blood-rations.
He stopped directly in front of the burly mercenary.
"..."
Sunny offered absolutely no verbal response. He maintained a freezing, heavy silence, his glowing red eyes staring down at the back of the man’s head.
To the mercenary, this unbroken silence was the ultimate, inescapable terror. He explicitly interpreted the Young Master’s mute stare as a terrifying calculation. The man firmly believed Sunny was deciding whether to boil his blood or simply let the Ghoul Ape shatter his spine.
"I will sever my own tongue for the insult!" the mercenary babbled frantically, drawing his own dagger. "I will offer my fiend to your beast as tribute!"
"Silence," Sunny rasped, his voice dripping with absolute boredom.
He turned away from the trembling men and pointed toward the ruined doorway.
"This vault is at maximum capacity," Sunny stated coldly, echoing the mercenary’s previous lie. "Vacate the premises. Immediately."
The deserters explicitly did not need to be told twice. They scrambled to their feet, completely abandoning their supplies, their weapons, and their dignity. They practically trampled each other to squeeze past the towering Ghoul Ape, fleeing blindly into the subterranean corridors.
Sunny knew definitively that by kicking them out, he was explicitly sending them into the jaws of the Abyssal Choke-Weeds or forcing them back up to the apocalyptic surface. In the Demonic Path, mercy was a fatal flaw.
Krax quickly moved to drag the crumpled, heavy metal door back into place, utilizing a rusted iron beam to temporarily barricade the breach.
Sunny collapsed onto one of the iron cots. The mattress was incredibly stiff, but to his exhausted civilian mind, it felt like a cloud.
"Secure the perimeter, Krax," Sunny muttered, closing his eyes. "Do not wake me unless the Orthodox Paladins physically breach the ceiling."
"I shall guard your slumber with my life, Supreme Patriarch!" Krax declared fervently, taking up a position near the door, his rusted dagger drawn.
Sunny finally allowed himself to drift into a dark sleep, explicitly hoping the entire war would be over by the time he woke up...