"Move! Clear the array! If the spatial vortex collapses while you linger, your souls will be torn to shreds!" a sect guard barked, his voice amplified by a localized wind incantation.
Sunny stood at the edge of the massive glowing runes, feeling profoundly nauseous.
The spatial travel had severely aggravated his headache.
'I am going to throw up. I am definitely going to throw up in front of the entire suicide squad. What a great start to my military career.'
He clamped his jaw shut, forcing his pale face into a mask of statuesque, contemptuous boredom. His glowing crimson eyes stared blankly ahead, giving off the distinct impression that he found the threat of spatial dismemberment entirely beneath his notice.
Right in front of him, blocking the sole exit path from the teleportation runes, was the massive, flayed Three-Headed Bone-Hound from the staging grounds.
It had firmly planted its skeletal claws into the stone, all three of its exposed-muscle heads snapping wildly at the churning air.
It was refusing to move, completely overstimulated by the dense, violent ambient energy of the battlefield.
Its master, the pale female disciple from the Flaying Halls, was frantically pulling on a thick chain of cold-iron tethered to its central neck.
"Move, you cursed beast! Move forward!" she pleaded, her voice cracking with sheer panic.
The Three-Headed Bone-Hound did not budge. It merely lowered its heads and let out a guttural, vibrating growl that promised immediate violence to anyone who stepped too close.
It was a well-known fact within the Demonic Path that forcefully aged beasts were incredibly unstable.
A tamer could never truly trust a monster whose mind had been broken by combat stimulants.
Unless, of course, a bigger monster was present.
"What is this pathetic display?" Vanguard Captain Kael's cold, mechanical voice sliced through the ambient roar of the outpost. He strode forward, his heavy spiked boots cracking the stone beneath his feet. His personal beast, the terrifying Blood-Marrow Hound, stalked silently at his side.
Captain Kael glanced at the trembling girl and then at the hyperactive mutant hound. He sneered, the scarred tissue of his face pulling taut. "You call yourself a practitioner of the Demonic Path, yet you beg your own summon for obedience? You disgust me."
He did not raise his weapon. He merely looked down at his own beast. "Discipline it."
The Blood-Marrow Hound did not bark. It did not snarl. It simply stepped forward, its skeletal tail perfectly still, and unleashed a concentrated wave of Tier 2 Elite death aura. The killing intent was so dense it felt like a physical weight dropping onto the square.
The Three-Headed Bone-Hound instantly choked on its own growl. Its aggressive posture shattered. It let out a high-pitched whimper, tucking its tail between its legs, and immediately scrambled off the array, dragging the sobbing girl behind it.
"You see? Monsters only respect absolute tyranny," Captain Kael announced coldly, sweeping his gaze over the gathered cohort.
"Gather on the Blood Plains. Formation!"
Sunny followed the crowd, his Phantom Ash Scorpion scuttling silently in his long, dark shadow.
'Tyranny? I just want to find a chair. My feet are killing me in these ceremonial boots.'
The four hundred disciples of Cohort Seven quickly arranged themselves into a rigid phalanx on the vast, flat expanse of the Blood Plains.
There were no fortifications here, only scattered stone steles carved with protective runes.
Captain Kael paced before them, his halberd resting casually on his armored shoulder.
"The Orthodox Sects utilize harmony! They coddle their spirit beasts!" Kael's voice boomed across the silent ranks.
"But we are the Heavenly Demon Sect! Our methods are parasitic. To survive this war, you must understand the absolute divisions of our power. In the Vanguard, your beasts are categorized into four distinct roles: Flesh-Shields, Soul-Reapers, Curse-Weavers, and Venom-Spitters."
He paused, letting the harsh reality of the words sink in.
"I know the delusions that fester in your greedy minds," Captain Kael continued,
"You dream of forging a supreme soul-bond with multiple beasts, creating a perfect, invincible formation. You think you can command a Flesh-Shield to protect you while a Curse-Weaver rots your enemies. Such thoughts are the fantasies of dead men!"
Many disciples in the crowd visibly flinched. That was exactly what they had planned.
The demonic scriptures explicitly stated that a powerful soul could theoretically enslave a multitude of fiends.
"The scriptures do not tell you the price!" Kael roared,
"A Demonic Blood Contract is not a partnership! It is a parasitic chain! The stronger the fiend, the more of your life essence it devours just to remain docile. If you attempt to bind three high-tier beasts without the soul-density of a Grand Elder, your own summons will turn around and feast on your marrow the second you are injured!"
Standing a few paces behind Sunny, Disciple Zhao was practically vibrating with terror. He listened to the Captain's lecture and immediately applied it to his terrifying Young Master.
The Young Master casually fused a Tier 3 Elite fiend out of thin air, Zhao thought, his mind racing wildly.
The sheer soul-density required to casually dominate such a creature without it rebelling... His soul must be a bottomless abyss of dark energy! He is a walking calamity!
Captain Kael suddenly reached into a dimensional pouch hanging from his armored waist.
He pulled out a handful of jagged, glowing gray bones—Wraith-Bones, highly reactive objects steeped in the agony of tortured souls.
"Before we march to the slaughter, I must cull the weak," Kael declared. He casually tossed the Wraith-Bones into a nearby depression in the stone. The depression was filled with a bubbling, highly corrosive liquid known as Abyssal Sludge.
"This is your first and only lesson in absolute authority," the Captain said, pointing his halberd at the bubbling pool.
"Command your beast to retrieve a Wraith-Bone. No incantations. No blood-whips. No physical contact. You will use only your mental dominance. If your beast hesitates, it means your soul-seal is flawed. In the heat of battle, a flawed seal means death. If your beast refuses to enter the sludge... you will dive in and fetch it yourself."
The cohort stared at the bubbling sludge in absolute horror. The Abyssal Sludge was infamous for melting human flesh from the bone in seconds.
To force a beast to willingly plunge its limbs into such agony required an iron-clad, tyrannical mental grip.
Captain Kael pointed his weapon at the pale girl from the Flaying Halls. "You. Begin."
The girl sobbed, stepping forward. She poured all her mental energy into her tether, commanding her Three-Headed Bone-Hound to fetch the bone.
The massive beast approached the pool, felt the searing heat of the sludge, and immediately balked.
It whined, pulling back, refusing the mental command entirely.
"A failure of willpower," Kael said coldly. "Fetch it yourself, girl."
Two Enforcers immediately stepped forward, grabbing the screaming girl by the arms and dragging her toward the bubbling pit.
Sunny felt a cold sweat break out across his back. 'Oh no. Oh no no no. I don't have a soul-seal! I don't even know how to cultivate mental energy! I just pressed a button on a blue screen!'
Sunny stared at the bubbling pit of acid. He imagined his own delicate, aristocratic hands melting off. Pure, unadulterated panic gripped his heart.
But on the outside, his face remained a mask of flawless, terrifying indifference.
He simply turned his glowing red eyes toward his Phantom Ash Scorpion.
'Please,' Sunny begged in his own mind, terrified out of his wits. 'Just go get the stupid bone so I don't get thrown into the acid. Please.'
He didn't speak a single word of command.
"..."
Sunny simply stood there, radiating an aura of cold silence.
The Phantom Ash Scorpion, bound by the absolute, infallible loyalty coded into the System's fusion process, received the mental desire of its master.
It did not hesitate. It did not fear the acid. It possessed a dual Poison/Shadow attribute and a Perfect grade constitution.
With a blur of obsidian motion, the scorpion darted forward, plunging its entire upper body directly into the boiling Abyssal Sludge. The corrosive liquid hissed and popped against its carapace, but left absolutely no mark. A second later, the scorpion scuttled backward, a glowing Wraith-Bone clutched firmly in its pincers. It respectfully dropped the bone at Sunny's pristine, booted feet.
Zero hesitation. Zero difficulty.
The entire cohort fell dead silent.
Even Captain Kael's eyes widened slightly in genuine shock. He had expected the rumored Young Master to use some sort of dark artifact to pass the test.
But to command a newly acquired, highly aggressive Tier 3 fiend to willingly dive into acid without uttering a single syllable?
Without a single pulse of visible spiritual energy?
It was a display of terrifying subjugation.
Disciple Zhao, witnessing this flawless execution, felt his legs give out completely.
"Acceptable," Captain Kael finally managed to say.
Sunny inwardly let out a massive sigh of relief.
'Thank god for the System. Now, can we please just sit down for five minutes?'