If Quartermaster Jin were still present, he would have found the scene incredibly confusing.
There was a massive, blood-red suppression array pulsing on the obsidian floor, and a stone altar next to it lined with jagged, glowing spirit-cores that looked like ingredients for a chaotic explosion...
Darkness suffocates, hence it is able to devour light. The tribute on the altar consisted entirely of dense, shadow-attribute materials, with a few highly reactive, corrosive cores mixed within.
Razor-Fiend Mantises had an innate dark-metal attribute.
Sunny stood before the altar, his glowing crimson eyes sweeping over the materials. He didn't pick up a bone-knife or a ritual chalice.
He simply raised his pale hands, his fingers hovering over the pile of Corrupted Spirit Stones and the thrashing, bound sacrifices.
I really hope this works, Sunny thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. If I accidentally blow up all the mercenary's bugs, they are going to flay me alive before the sun comes up.
He didn't need to blend the materials or chant an incantation. He just needed the System to recognize the raw elemental value of the tribute.
[Target Identified: Razor-Fiend Mantis (Tier 3) x 10]
[Condition: Critical (Combat Stimulant Overdose)]
[Available Fusion Material Detected: Corrupted Spirit Stones (100 lbs), Living Sacrifices (x2), Abyssal Sludge Residue]
[Initiating Mass Core-Stabilization and Forced Ascension Protocol...]
This step was visually terrifying. He didn't need to cook the materials in boiling blood, but he had to project the illusion of absolute, tyrannical control over the ensuing chaos, or else his terrifying facade would be irreparably damaged.
Ten seconds later, the suppression arrays flared blindingly bright.
A localized vortex of absolute darkness erupted from Sunny's outstretched hands, instantly vaporizing the living sacrifices and drawing the dense, necrotic energy from the Corrupted Spirit Stones.
The dark Qi formed ten thick, writhing tendrils of shadow that lashed out, striking each of the chained Razor-Fiend Mantises directly in their thoraxes.
Because demonic energy overcomes natural biology, the forced injection of raw, unrefined dark Qi was agonizing.
The Mantises began to shriek, a horrific, metallic sound of tearing metal and chitin.
They violently thrashed against their cold-iron chains before suddenly collapsing. They lay on the execution square with their scythe-arms twitching wildly, dark sludge leaking from their mandibles.
The first step was now completed. The System was stabilizing their collapsing cores. Only the actual physical ascension was left. Sunny stood completely still, his arms slightly raised, forcing his trembling muscles to maintain the imposing posture.
At night, the suppression arrays remained blindingly bright.
Sunny was the only one allowed near the altar, so all the terrifying visual effects were attributed to him alone. All the energy was balanced by the System to the exact decimal, preventing a catastrophic chain reaction.
The process continued for an agonizingly long hour before finally coming to completion. In the square lay ten Razor-Fiend Mantises that had fallen into deep, death-like comas.
Sunny slowly lowered his arms and let out a long, silent exhale, completely exhausted. He turned his back to the altar, his dark robes swirling.
He walked toward the heavy iron gates of the compound. Outside, Captain Vane, who had waited with his hand gripping his sword hilt for a whole hour, was alerted by the gates opening. He stepped away from his guards and hurriedly went up to Sunny. "Supreme One, the results of the ascension..."
"They survive. The flesh will mend by dawn." Sunny was profoundly fatigued after the stress of the mass fusion. Right now, all he wanted was to go back to his cot and sleep for a week.
"Praise the dark heavens, thank you, Supreme One," Captain Vane bowed repeatedly, the chains on his armor clanking.
"My band has secured a secure pavilion nearby. If the Supreme One requires it, you can rest there. If you wish to return to your command tent, we have a heavily warded carriage prepared."
Sunny thought for a moment. "Send me directly to my pavilion. I have no patience for detours."
***
Entering his warded pavilion, Sunny collapsed onto his cot without even removing his heavy ceremonial boots.
Since the entire camp was preparing to march into the forbidden zone anyway, he could probably sleep through the morning commotion with peace of mind.
Sunny slept well past dawn before waking up to the deafening blast of Vanguard war-horns.
As expected, the camp was practically empty, the majority of the fodder having already been marched toward the southern swamps.
He saw a glowing priority rune hovering over his communication jade slip. It was a message sent by Captain Vane just before the march.
It stated that all ten of the Razor-Fiend Mantises had successfully broken through their genetic limits.
Sunny was not surprised because the System didn't fail once it initiated a sequence, and he had thrown a massive amount of high-grade resources into the mass fusion. Each of them was at the absolute peak of Tier 3.
Just a stabilization of their collapsing cores allowed the dark energy to force an evolution. It would be a glitch in the System if they had not evolved.
At the Vanguard staging area near the edge of the Rotting Marrow Swamp, Captain Vane's scarred heart was beating with terrifying exhilaration. A Razor-Fiend Mantis had finished its metamorphosis right in front of his eyes.
Its metallic carapace was slowly increasing in density. On its back, its jagged wing-cases raised high.
A horrific tearing sound came from its shell as a new, larger set of razor-sharp scythes emerged from its secondary joints.
With a violent shudder, the necrotic sludge that was stuck to its new limbs was thrown off.
A mere flex of its newly formed, four-armed torso sent the toxic ash on the ground swirling and made a mess out of Vane's heavy cloak.
Its body bent forward and its primary bladed forelimbs sunk deep into the obsidian rock.
Dense, swirling auras of dark metal surrounded the Mantis, absorbing the ambient death Qi of the swamp. With each pulse of the aura, its terrifying presence grew heavier.
The evolution process had completed just before the march.
The Mantis before Captain Vane had mutated into an engine of slaughter. Its height was nearly double its original size, and its metallic shell had blackened to the color of the abyss.
The number of scythe-arms it possessed had doubled, such that it had four primary killing limbs now. Its sleek, obsidian-bladed limbs were thrust into the stone, cutting through it as easily as slicing through rotting flesh.
Its aura had also turned entirely malicious, radiating a suffocating pressure that made the nearby mercenary hounds whimper in terror.
The surrounding, un-evolved Mantises took a glance at it and instinctively pressed themselves into the mud. Demonic insects were entirely ruled by absolute hierarchy.
When facing a Commander-tier member of their species, they would not choose to challenge it; they submitted entirely.
"Commander tier, Four-Armed Abyssal Mantis..." muttered Captain Vane as his hand drifted away from his sword hilt. He felt as though he were looking at a masterpiece of pure violence.
Before this mass ascension, his entire mercenary band only possessed three Commander-tier beasts. With these ten new horrors, it would bring the total number to thirteen. With their evolution, it proved the Young Master's methods were flawlessly destructive.
In the past, Captain Vane had sacrificed hundreds of slaves to the sect's Grand Elders in hopes of ascending a single Mantis. But because the insects were highly unstable, the rituals almost always ended in the beast exploding. His only alternative was to purchase pre-ascended beasts from the Inner Sect's breeding pits at ruinous prices.
This Young Master Sunny was truly his darkest blessing.
At the thought of Sunny, Captain Vane felt a burning wave of fanatical loyalty in his cold heart. Swearing the blood-oath to the Young Master was definitely the most ruthless, brilliant tactical decision he had ever made.
Back then, he had only agreed to the unbound terms because he was desperate. But right now, he truly feared and respected this unfathomable youth from the bottom of his soul.
It was a well-known secret that Sunny was the Sect Master's only heir, but the rumors of him being a weak, useless pampered noble were clearly lies designed to trap the unwary.
Even excluding his terrifying lineage, Sunny's casual mastery over life and death alone was worth sacrificing an entire cohort to protect.
...
Three hours later, along the quarantined perimeter of the Rotting Marrow Swamp, a massive horde of Vanguard disciples had already secured the outer ridges and cleared a staging ground just outside the zone of the calcifying ash.
In the rear, numerous heavy spirit-cannons were primed, glowing with volatile crimson energy.
There were already towering statues of petrified beasts scattered along the edges of the dead-zone, evidence of the horrors within.
"We are assembled to force a breach into the abyss," Executioner Mian roared, addressing his massive audience of terrified disciples.
There were a few distinct mercenary bands in front of him, each clearly separate from the cannon-fodder cohorts, and each divided into heavy assault formations.
Within this horde of killers, those from the Abyssal Vanguard band were by far the most terrifying.
At the forefront of their ranks stood ten massive, obsidian-black, four-armed Mantises that were significantly larger than the surrounding siege-beasts. They caught the fearful attention of every surrounding commander.
A regular Razor-Fiend Mantis was intimidating, but these Four-Armed Abyssal Mantises radiated a suffocating aura of pure, concentrated slaughter.
Their presence brought an immense feeling of doom to everyone near them.
Ten Commander-tier fiends!
Each of the rival mercenary bands around them fielded only two or three Commander-tier beasts.
After all, the cost to maintain such monsters usually bankrupted smaller bands.
"According to the few scouts who didn't turn to stone, we have verified that the Grave-Ash Horrors possess an absolute weakness to concentrated, volatile Yang energy," Executioner Mian announced,
"They clearly react in terror towards extreme heat and explosive force."