Sunny ignored the flashing priority runes on his communication jade slip and focused his crimson eyes on the glowing system interface hovering in the air.
This specific intelligence report had been decrypted and forwarded directly by Vanguard Command, meaning it wasn't just camp gossip. It was a verified, high-level threat assessment.
Sunny scanned the glowing red text seriously. The general idea was that a catastrophic swarm of ancient entities had emerged from the sealed catacombs bordering the Rotting Marrow Swamp, possessing apocalyptic terraforming capabilities, and they seemed to be driven by an absolute hatred for all living Qi.
Unlike the mindless sludge-abominations that simply wandered the Blood Plains looking for corpses to absorb, the newly emerged Grave-Ash Horrors operated with a horrifying hive-mind.
They actively hunted down cultivators, utilized a highly corrosive ash to paralyze and calcify their victims alive, and then dragged the petrified statues back into their subterranean tombs. Therefore, their threat level was exponentially higher than the standard frontline fodder.
Luckily, the Elder Council had immediately activated the grand isolation arrays around the swamp, temporarily sealing the horrors within a localized dead-zone before they could overrun the southern resource camps.
The report also brutally detailed that the massive emergence of the Grave-Ash Horrors had resulted in the complete annihilation of three elite harvesting crews.
Now, the Heavenly Demon Sect's High Command was actively deploying specialized Vanguard suicide squads to probe the Horrors' active regions, desperately trying to discover a weakness before the containment arrays failed.
Meanwhile, the command mandate ordered all non-essential personnel to stay far away from the southern quadrant and await further deployment orders.
At the bottom of the scroll was the official sect threat evaluation: Calamity-Class (Three Skulls).
This was not a minor inconvenience. Last year, when a rogue Orthodox Paladin-General had breached the outer mountain defenses, his threat had only been ranked at Four Skulls.
It seemed like Sunny could not simply buy Blood-Lotus Roots in the black market anymore.
This terrifying realization also reminded Sunny that if he needed to secure volatile materials in the future, he'd better hoard them in massive, singular extortions.
Otherwise, once an apocalyptic event like this happened, his fusion progress would be completely stalled.
Previously, Sunny thought that if he demanded too many high-grade materials at once, it would draw too much suspicion from the Elder Council.
His current pavilion only had a few minor containment arrays, so it was fine to store a few dozen pounds of toxic roots, but definitely not secure enough for hundreds of pounds of highly reactive, corrosive spirit-cores.
Sunny stiffly rose from his spine-throne and walked toward the darkest corner of the pavilion.
There, the Shadow-Ghoul Ape was still shivering in its cage, passively absorbing the dense dark energy radiating from the remaining Corrupted Spirit Stones.
If he could have checked a numerical stat sheet, it would be obvious to see that the Ape was significantly denser than two weeks ago. Its necrotic bones now had a polished, obsidian shine, and it radiated a much heavier aura of decay.
The Phantom Ash Scorpion was still curled up in a tight, glowing purple ball near the hollowed-out behemoth skull.
Sunny stared at it for a long moment, ensuring the violent core-sludge hadn't melted the beast from the inside out.
Then he turned his attention to his own exhaustion.
'I need to pretend to meditate. If I don't sit in the lotus position for at least an hour a day, people will realize I don't actually cultivate.' Sunny planned to put on a show of profound demonic contemplation.
He was getting quite good at sitting completely still while his mind raced with panic.
Soon, the pavilion was filled with the heavy, suffocating silence of Sunny's innate villainous aura.
Lying in the corner, the Scorpion's rigid, barbed legs suddenly twitched. Its multiple ruby eyes were still closed, but its body began to scuttle across the obsidian floor with terrifying, mechanical precision.
When the Scorpion moved, its newly hardened, elongated stingers scraped against the stone. It opened its glowing eyes, detoured smoothly around the spine-throne, and stopped directly in front of Sunny, who was pretending to be deep in a demonic trance.
The beast raised its massive, jagged pincers, looking up at its master, who sat motionless.
Hiss! 'The core is stable. I crave slaughter.'
A dark, bloodthirsty thought rang clearly in Sunny's brain through the soul-link.
"..." Sunny merely opened one glowing crimson eye, fixing it on the beast.
Internally, he realized with a jolt of relief, 'It didn't explode! The fusion of the corrosive sludge actually worked!'
He looked closer. The Scorpion's System data frame finally updated, showing its grade had remained Perfect, but its tier had successfully broken through to Commander.
Nevertheless, the Scorpion's outward appearance hadn't mutated into some unrecognizable monstrosity.
Sunny observed it carefully; nothing major had changed except for a sickly, glowing green vein that now pulsed along the length of its dual stingers, indicating the integration of the highly corrosive core-sludge.
Before Sunny could formulate a properly terrifying response to his newly ascended beast, the heavy entrance flap of the pavilion ripped open.
Quartermaster Jin threw himself onto the floor, practically sliding across the ash-covered obsidian to kneel before Sunny.
"Supreme One, I beg your forgiveness for this intrusion!" Quartermaster Jin kept his forehead firmly pressed to the floor, his voice shaking violently.
"..." Sunny did not break his meditative posture. He simply stared down at the sweating man, letting the heavy silence stretch until Jin looked like he was about to pass out from lack of oxygen.
"Quartermaster Jin. Have the Blood-Lotus Roots been procured?" Sunny finally asked, his voice a freezing whisper that seemed to chill the very marrow in Jin's bones.
"N-No, Supreme One! It is not the roots!" Quartermaster Jin tried to control his terror, but Sunny could smell the sheer panic rolling off the man.
Sunny slowly lowered his legs from the lotus position and leaned forward, his crimson eyes narrowing. It's barely past midnight. Why is this idiot here if he doesn't have my loot? "Speak." He offered no reassurances. He took their tribute; he owned their fear. It was the law of the Demonic Path.
"The Vanguard Captains... they demand your immediate presence at the Abyssal staging grounds. I... I was sent to guide you," Quartermaster Jin stammered, sounding like a man delivering his own death sentence.
Sunny didn't wait long before mentally commanding the Scorpion to follow. He stood up, his dark robes billowing.
"..." Sunny offered no questions as he followed Jin out of the pavilion.
'Why am I being summoned to the staging grounds in the middle of the night? Are we attacking the Radiant Peak early? I am going to die.'
"Supreme One, have you read the priority intelligence regarding the Grave-Ash Horrors in the southern swamps?" Jin whispered frantically as they walked quickly through the dimly lit, chaotic war camp.
"..." Sunny gave a single, slow nod.
"Then I dare not repeat the horrors to you. The Vanguard High Command has summoned the premier mercenary bands to force a breach into the quarantined zone. Our band, the Abyssal Vanguard, received the suicide mandate an hour ago. We march at dawn.
Therefore, Captain Vane desperately requires you to fulfill your blood-oath tonight. We need the Razor-Fiend Mantises ascended before we march into the ash, for only Commander-tier beasts have a chance of resisting the calcification. Of course, if the ascension fails, we are all dead anyway. We throw our souls upon your mercy,"
Quartermaster Jin pleaded earnestly, his eyes wide with despair.
"If my memory serves, the Elder Council explicitly forbade private mercenary bands from entering Calamity-Class zones without a Grand Elder present," Sunny stated, his voice devoid of any surprise, though internally he was screaming.
'They want to send the suicide squad into the apocalypse zone?! And they want me to upgrade their bugs first?!'
"The Vanguard High Command issued a supreme override mandate just hours ago. They are desperate," Quartermaster Jin sighed, a sound of utter defeat. "From tonight onward, the sect has abandoned all caution. They used to hoard the Calamity zones for the Grand Elders to harvest slowly. But the Orthodox armies press our northern borders so heavily that Command realizes they cannot fight a two-front war. Therefore, they are throwing the mercenary fodder into the swamps to either plug the breach or die trying."
As a quartermaster, Jin was terrified to see this happen, as it meant his supply lines would be entirely wiped out.
Soon they arrived at a heavily fortified compound at the edge of the camp. They walked through a gate guarded by two massive, chained Abomination-Golems.
On both sides of the entrance, heavily scarred mercenaries stood vigilantly, their hands resting on jagged blades.
Next to them crouched two Razor-Fiend Mantises, their scythe-like arms twitching erratically from combat stimulants.
The large execution square behind the compound was also heavily locked down. Three tall walls surrounded the area, covered in glowing, blood-red suppression arrays.
Sunny glanced over; there gathered nearly a hundred Razor-Fiend Mantises in the square, all restrained by heavy iron chains.
"These are all the Mantises the band possesses," Quartermaster Jin whispered, bowing deeply.
Sunny stepped forward. He looked at the massive, deadly insects, and only saw the dense, floating blue data frames of the System. He slowly swept his gaze across the horde, his crimson eyes gleaming in the dark.
He finally selected ten Mantises whose core-stability readings were in the red, indicating they were on the verge of death.
"Bring these ten to the altar."
"Your eye for absolute violence is unparalleled, Supreme One!" Quartermaster Jin gasped, falling to his knees. Those ten were exactly the most unstable, bloodthirsty Mantises in the entire band; the ones most likely to survive a forced, agonizing mutation.
"I require a massive influx of pure dark Qi. A hundred Corrupted Spirit Stones. Two living sacrifices,"
Sunny commanded emotionlessly, staring blankly at the altar in the center of the square.
"It shall be done immediately..."
After a short while, Sunny simply stood by the altar in silence. Quartermaster Jin, daring not to waste a single second of the Young Master's time, immediately sent his fastest runners out to pillage the necessary materials.
He ordered them to secure the sacrifices within the hour, no matter how many throats they had to cut.
Being the Quartermaster for the most ruthless band, Jin had built his own dark networks.
Everyone was mobilized. It didn't take long to drag the required tribute to the square.
"Supreme One, the tribute is prepared." Quartermaster Jin was dripping with cold sweat.
Sunny slowly, deliberately raised his pale hands.
In front of him, the suppression arrays pulsed with a blinding, blood-red light, and the horrific heat of concentrated demonic energy blew into his face.