Sunny stood perfectly still at the edge of the gathering mass of disciples. H
He looked exactly like the merciless, cold-blooded heir to the Heavenly Demon Sect.
In reality, Sunny was completely zoning out because his head hurt so badly he thought his skull might crack open.
I just want to go back to bed, Sunny thought miserably, his internal monologue a continuous, high-pitched scream of pure stress.
Why is it so loud? Why are there so many people? If I close my eyes for just five seconds, will anyone notice? Probably. They'll probably think it's a sign of weakness and try to stab me with a poisoned hairpin. I hate this world. I hate transmigration.
Hovering right beside his knee, the newly fused Tier 3 Phantom Ash Scorpion clicked its obsidian pincers rhythmically.
The beast was fully synced with Sunny's soul, but it was currently agitated by the sheer density of dark auras pressing in on them from all sides.
Standing a respectful three paces behind Sunny was Disciple Zhao.
Zhao was currently experiencing a level of terror so profound it transcended mere physical shaking. He was entirely convinced that his life was measured in minutes.
He stared at the back of the Young Master's head, his mind racing through horrifying, bloody scenarios.
The Young Master had dragged him out here into the Vanguard assembly.
This could only mean one thing: Zhao was marked as the first emergency blood-ration for the Phantom Ash Scorpion.
"Y-Young Master Sunny," Zhao whispered,
"The Death Sworn Vanguard... it is a gathering of the sect's most vicious killers. I see disciples from the Poison Pavilion and the Flaying Halls here. They... they are all looking at you. Are we... are we to slaughter them all to assert your dominance before the march?"
Sunny heard the trembling whisper. He mentally groaned. Slaughter them all? I don't even know how to throw a punch! I'm an accountant! I just want to find a quiet corner and fuse some dead rats!
He knew that if he opened his mouth, his exhaustion might leak into his voice, ruining his terrifying facade.
So, he simply decided not to speak at all.
"..."
Sunny did not turn his head. He did not blink. He merely let out a slow, perfectly controlled exhale that carried the freezing chill of his innate villainous aura.
Zhao gasped quietly, his knees buckling slightly. The Young Master's silence was more horrifying than a thousand curses.
To Zhao, the refusal to answer meant that the slaughter was not just a plan; it was an absolute certainty, and questioning it was a waste of the Young Master's breath.
"I understand!" Zhao hissed frantically, "Your wisdom is profound! I shall not question your dark designs! I will merely stand ready to collect their shattered spirit cores for your refinement!"
What is wrong with these people? Sunny thought, maintaining his statuesque glare.
Suddenly, the deafening blast of a bone-horn shattered the murmurs of the thousands of disciples gathered in the square.
The crowd parted violently as a massive, horrifying figure descended from the sky, landing heavily on the raised execution altar at the front of the square.
It was Executioner Mian, the Chief Warden of the Vanguard. He was a monstrous man, standing nearly eight feet tall, with a torso completely covered in pulsating, crimson curse-seals.
He did not possess a beast; instead, he had grafted the arms of a Demonic Ape directly onto his own shoulders.
"Listen to me, you pathetic, crawling maggots!" Executioner Mian roared. His voice carried a spiritual shockwave that physically rattled the teeth of every disciple present. "You stand here today because the Alliance of Orthodox Sects wishes to cleanse our mountain with their self-righteous fire!"
Thousands of disciples shuddered under the immense spiritual pressure radiating from the Executioner.
"You think you are cultivators?!" Mian sneered.
"You think because you managed to force a minor blood contract upon a low-tier poison toad, you are worthy of the Demonic Path? Delusions! If you march against the righteous swordsmen with your current fragile mindsets, your souls will be purified into ash before you even draw your weapons! You are nothing but fodder! You are fertilizer for the sect's grand arrays!"
The demonic sect did not nurture; it culled. The disciples were explicitly told that their lives held absolutely zero value unless they could prove their capacity for extreme violence.
"You there!" Executioner Mian suddenly barked, pointing a massive, fur-covered finger into the middle of the crowd.
A pale, skinny disciple from the Outer Alchemy Pavilion jumped as if he had been struck by lightning
. "M-Me, Lord Executioner?!"
"Your aura reeks of hesitation and fear!" Mian boomed,
"I can smell the cowardice leaking from your pores! If you face an Orthodox Paladin, you will drop your beast and beg for redemption! Step forward and offer your throat to my blade right now, so you do not waste sect rations!"
The pale disciple collapsed to his knees, openly weeping, entirely paralyzed by the Executioner's killing intent. He could not even muster the strength to beg.
Executioner Mian spat a glob of acidic saliva onto the altar. "Pathetic. All of you, listen closely! This is your final breath of choice. The Vanguard is a one-way path across the River of Styx. If you possess a single shred of fear in your hearts, if you value your miserable lives over the glory of the Heavenly Demon Sect, step back now! We will not kill you. We will merely strip you of your cultivation and send you down into the abyssal Marrow Mines to dig until your flesh rots off your bones!"
The square plunged into a suffocating silence. The choice was explicitly clear: face almost certain death against the righteous armies on the front lines, or accept a slow, agonizing demise as a blinded slave in the subterranean mines.
Slowly, a few terrified disciples, completely broken by the pressure, began to shuffle backward out of the Vanguard formation. They kept their heads down, weeping silently as the sect enforcers quickly surrounded them, wrapping them in heavy iron chains to drag them down into the dark.
Eventually, a few hundred disciples had surrendered to the mines. The remaining thousands stood firm, their eyes hardening with the desperate, cornered madness of those who had accepted they had nothing left to lose.
Executioner Mian did not praise them. He merely grunted. "The trash has sorted itself. The rest of you are now officially Death Sworn. May your blood paint the valleys red."
With a wave of his massive, ape-like arm, glowing crimson arrays etched into the obsidian floor suddenly flared to life beneath the disciples' feet.
Sunny felt a sickening lurch in his stomach as the teleportation magic took hold. The space around him warped and twisted.
When his vision cleared a second later, the massive phalanx of thousands had been violently segmented. Sunny found himself standing in a smaller, cordoned-off section of the staging grounds, surrounded by roughly four hundred other disciples.
Before them stood a scarred, heavily armored Enforcer wielding a jagged halberd.
"You are Cohort Seven of the Vanguard," the Enforcer announced, his voice devoid of any emotion.
"I am Vanguard Captain Kael. I do not care about your names, your lineages, or what minor dark arts you practice. On the battlefield, you are merely blades. And blades break."
Captain Kael slammed the butt of his halberd into the stone, creating a sharp, ringing crack.
"I will be explicit with your odds," Kael continued, staring at the gathered group of four hundred. "The front lines are currently a meat grinder. The Orthodox Sects have deployed their radiant spirit-beasts. The fighting is constant. Your task is to breach their defensive lines and detonate our corrosive blood-bombs."
Sunny's heart completely stopped. Detonate bombs? We are literally suicide bombers?! I am going to die. I am 100% going to die today.
Sunny's face, however, remained frozen in a mask of absolute, terrifying apathy. His crimson eyes simply stared through Captain Kael, as if the scarred veteran was merely a minor insect buzzing in his path.
"The mandate from the Grand Elders is simple," Captain Kael said. The Captain visibly paused, an involuntary shiver running down his spine as he met the Young Master's dead, glowing eyes.
He quickly looked away, clearing his throat.
"Out of the four hundred of you standing here... the Alliance expects only two hundred to survive the first month of the siege. If you cannot reach the quota of enemy heads, you will be fed to the siege-beasts to fuel their stamina. You have thirty days to prove you are predators. If you fail, you become prey."
Captain Kael turned his back to them, gesturing toward a massive, swirling portal of dark energy that led directly to the war zone.
"Gather your beasts. We march into hell in five minutes."
Sunny stood perfectly still. The system interface hovered silently in his vision, waiting for his command. He didn't have a grand strategy. He didn't have martial arts. He only had the ability to fuse things.
Half of us are going to die, Sunny repeated internally, a wave of profound dizziness washing over him. I need to find the biggest pile of corpses as fast as possible, or I'm dead.
Zhao crept up beside Sunny again, his face completely devoid of blood.
"Young Master," Zhao whispered,
"Only half of us will survive. I... I see the truth of your silent wisdom now. You placed yourself in this specific cohort so you could personally cull the weak and harvest their beasts before the enemy even touches them. It is a brilliant, terrifying strategy."
Sunny just closed his eyes.
"..."
He really, really wanted to take a nap.