Standing before Sunny was Vesper, the terrifying prodigy of the Poison Pavilion.
Is that thing going to eat me? Sunny thought, his internal panic spiking. It's a Tier 3 Peak fiend. If it lunges, my scorpion might not be able to stop it in time. Why did I agree to see her?
Outwardly, Sunny's crimson eyes narrowed slightly, sweeping over the monstrous arachnid with a gaze of cold, calculating disdain.
"Your Rot-Weaver has not yet reached maturity, has it?" Sunny asked, his voice a flat, freezing rasp that echoed in the quiet pavilion. He knew from his hasty review of the sect's bestiary that a fully grown Rot-Weaver was a Commander-tier nightmare capable of liquefying an entire battalion.
"The Vanguard's slaughter is accelerating its growth," Vesper replied, her voice sounding like grinding tombstones.
"It was birthed from the Marrow Pits only three moons ago. By Orthodox reckoning, it is but a fledgling." As she spoke, necrotic fluid seeped from her bandages, sizzling faintly against the obsidian floor.
"Three moons," Sunny nodded once, a microscopic gesture of acknowledgment.
Resting at Sunny's booted feet, the Phantom Ash Scorpion sensed the dense death aura radiating from the arachnid. It immediately raised its jagged, bone-shearing pincers, projecting a wave of predatory aggression through its soul-link with Sunny. I will crush it. Let me crush it.
Sunny felt a headache forming. He gently tapped the tip of his boot against the Scorpion's carapace to silence the bloodthirsty insect.
He glanced back at the Rot-Weaver. The massive beast could be utilized as a frontline terror or a rear-guard area denier; it entirely depended on how Vesper intended to deploy it in the upcoming siege.
"What function does it serve in your slaughter?" Sunny demanded, his tone implying that if the answer was unsatisfactory, he would dismiss her entirely.
"A vanguard breaker," Vesper answered, her hollow eyes locking onto Sunny's.
"It is designed to consume. It knows no fear. It used to gorge itself on the failed experiments of the Elder Council before I claimed it."
It eats failed experiments? Sunny couldn't help but stare at the dripping monstrosity. That explains the smell.
Being measured so intensely by the Young Master's glowing red eyes, the Rot-Weaver clicked its massive fangs, a low, rumbling hiss vibrating in its thorax.
It shifted its weight, toxic silk weeping from its spinnerets.
"The pact requires absolute synchronization," Vesper stated, stepping closer, bringing the stench of decay with her. "If you deem my methods insufficient, I shall seek another shadow to walk with."
Sunny thought for a moment, then asked, "It is hungry now, but what happens when it is gorged? Have you ever tested its obedience when its bloodlust is sated?"
Vesper paused, her skeletal jaw tightening. She looked away, her voice losing a fraction of its chilling edge. "It has never been fully sated. The Marrow Pits only provided enough to keep it starving and aggressive. I do not know if it will heed commands once its hunger is quenched."
"Then it is useless as a Vanguard breaker," Sunny stated coldly, leaning back into his throne.
"A fiend driven only by starvation will turn on its master the moment the enemy lines break and the feeding frenzy begins."
Vesper's aura flared with sudden, defensive anger, but it quickly deflated. She knew the truth of the Demonic Path.
A beast that couldn't be controlled in victory was a liability. Many aspiring beastmasters were devoured by their own summons after a successful raid.
She let out a rattling sigh, preparing to leave the pavilion in disgrace.
Standing behind her, the Rot-Weaver seemed to sense its master's sudden shift in intent.
It let out a confused, wet clicking sound, nudging Vesper's shoulder with a massive, hairy limb, leaving a smear of corrosive slime on her bandages.
Vesper didn't flinch. She simply ignored the beast.
"You seek a pact of mutual slaughter," Sunny's voice stopped her at the entrance flap. "I accept. I have no patience for the weeping meat-sacks of this cohort either."
"You accept?" Vesper turned back, her hollow eyes widening slightly in genuine surprise. She stared at Sunny's emotionless face.
"..." Sunny merely gave a single, slow blink. He offered no further explanation. If she runs away, I'll be paired with some idiot who will get us both killed.
At least this girl looks like she can handle herself.
There were hundreds of surviving disciples in the cohort, but 99% of their contracted fiends were utterly unremarkable, low-tier fodder.
There were only a handful of Elite-grade beasts, and only two that Sunny had identified as Perfect grade through the System's passive scanning. One was a mutant Blood-Marrow Hound belonging to a disciple named Chen, and the other was Vesper's Rot-Weaver.
It was incredibly difficult for standard demonic cultivators to accurately assess a fiend's innate grade.
They relied on slow, dangerous blood-rituals and combat trials.
Sunny only found it simple because the blue text of the System fed him the data instantly.
"Your fiend possesses a profound foundation of decay. Do not let its starvation blind its true potential," Sunny finally spoke, his voice echoing with absolute authority. He slowly stood up from the spine-throne, taking a single step toward the arachnid.
Seeing the terrifying Young Master approach, the Rot-Weaver immediately reared up, its fangs bared, hissing violently.
Sunny stopped, remaining exactly three paces away. The Rot-Weaver was highly volatile. It stared down at Sunny with its multiple green eyes, aggressive but hesitating, sensing the unnatural lack of fear in the human before it.
"..." Sunny just stared back, his expression entirely dead.
The Rot-Weaver, unsettled by the absolute lack of prey-response, slowly lowered itself, clicking its fangs nervously before retreating behind Vesper.
"It is ruled entirely by instinct," Sunny noted coldly. "You must break its reliance on hunger. I know you coddle it with the flesh of the weak because you fear losing its aggression. But if you wish it to survive the Paladins, you must forge its obedience through absolute terror, not just starvation." Sunny turned his back to her.
After all, he wasn't about to teach her how to actually train a beast. He was just reciting Vanguard doctrine to sound authoritative. Since they were forced into a pact, he needed her beast to not eat him.
...
When the blood-red sun finally set over the Vanguard camp, Sunny dismissed Vesper and ordered Quartermaster Jin to deliver his latest extortion.
It took the terrified Quartermaster nearly an hour to haul the heavy, lead-lined chests into the pavilion.
After Jin fled, Sunny first pushed the crates of useless, mundane torture implements aside, then unsealed the chests containing the true dark materials.
The Phantom Ash Scorpion was on the verge of its next ascension.
It had been constantly gorging on high-tier corpses for a week since its last fusion.
To the Scorpion, ascending to the Commander tier simply meant surviving the agonizing influx of dark energy; it only needed Sunny to initiate the process.
Sunny was incredibly tense when handling the materials. He had demanded highly volatile, corrosive spirit-cores.
If he mishandled them and triggered an explosion, the entire pavilion would be vaporized.
He moved to the darkest corner of the tent, pulling on a pair of heavy, rune-inscribed gauntlets woven from Wyrm-hide. The Scorpion watched its master's bizarre preparations, its ruby eyes glowing with anticipation. It clicked its pincers, attempting to approach the glowing cores.
Sunny turned his head sharply. "..."
A single, freezing glare was enough. The Scorpion instantly flattened itself against the floor, recognizing the absolute command to remain still.
Sunny did not bother with boiling cauldrons or complex arrays. He simply arranged the corrosive spirit-cores in a circle around a massive, hollowed-out behemoth skull.
He didn't need to refine the materials; he just needed them present for the System to consume.
If anyone walks in right now, I'm going to look like an absolute lunatic playing with glowing rocks, Sunny thought, a headache pulsing behind his eyes.
The ambient demonic Qi from the unsealed cores was suffocating.
He realized he couldn't keep doing this in a standard command tent. The energy signatures were becoming too massive to hide. He needed to secure one of the sect's subterranean isolation vaults, but that would require engaging in actual sect politics.
The glowing cores pulsed rapidly, their energy highly unstable.
Sunny stepped back from the circle, pointing a pale finger at the behemoth skull. He simply mentally triggered the Supreme Merge System.
"Commence," Sunny ordered the Scorpion.