The Crimson-Marrow Hyena lay quietly on the obsidian floor of its execution pit. Its left hind leg was severely mangled, revealing bone that had been scraped clean of necrotic flesh by some horrifying ordeal prior to its capture.
With such a crippling injury, the other disciples naturally saw the Crimson-Marrow Hyena as a broken, easy target.
In the Demonic Path, one naturally targets the crippled to assert dominance without risk.
But Sunny saw it differently through the glowing blue text of the System. As the ancient proverb goes, a starving fiend that does not roar is calculating your death.
This Hyena had suffered a wound that would paralyze most beasts, yet it made absolutely no sound of agony. There was no telling how maniacal and calculating it was beneath its flayed exterior.
Furthermore, it possessed a Commander-tier core...
If it truly fought with its life on the line, its explosive, desperate power would not be any weaker than the raging Behemoth-Boar.
Most importantly, the Crimson-Marrow Hyena also possessed an innate resistance to low-level corrosive toxins.
"I shall claim the first slaughter," Sunny stepped forward, his voice a freezing rasp that silenced the murmurs of the cohort. He was actually terrified that Captain Kael would be persuaded by Zhao's groveling to force Sunny into the pit with the Hyena to 'prove' his status.
The heavy, rune-inscribed iron gates of the first pit opened with a grinding screech.
The Iron-Tusked Behemoth-Boar, which had been madly crashing against the blood-wards, suddenly stopped.
Its ragged breathing echoed loudly as its tiny, bloodshot eyes locked onto the opening gate, and onto the Phantom Ash Scorpion that was scuttling silently into the arena.
The Behemoth-Boar was already driven to a state of absolute, frenzied panic after being dragged from the wilderness by the Enforcers. Right now, they had introduced a lethal, Commander-tier predator into its confined space.
This pushed its already frayed instincts past the breaking point, triggering a suicidal rage.
It let out a deep, concussive bellow that shook the cavern dust. Its massive, iron-like hooves tore chunks out of the obsidian floor as it charged towards the Scorpion in a blind rush.
Its speed was terrifyingly quick for its mass. As it charged, it displaced the stale air, sending a wave of hot, foul-smelling steam across the execution pit.
Just as it was about to trample the Scorpion into a toxic smear, the Scorpion suddenly compressed its many legs, flattening itself against the floor, avoiding the crushing hooves by mere millimeters.
The Scorpion's obsidian limbs bent tightly and sprang out like coiled steel springs, launching it ten feet straight into the air in the blink of an eye.
The Scorpion landed squarely on the Behemoth-Boar's massive back, sinking its jagged, bone-shearing claws deep through the iron-bristles and into the thick hide.
The Behemoth-Boar could not shake off the demonic insect, no matter how violently it bucked and thrashed.
The Scorpion simply tightened its grip, its carapace glowing with an unstable, purple light. Its newly ascended, dual-veined stingers whipped through the air, vibrating with a deadly frequency.
The Scorpion struck with blinding speed, driving both stingers deep into the vulnerable juncture behind the Boar's armored skull. The jagged barbs pierced through bone and muscle, injecting a massive, pressurized dose of highly corrosive, dark-metal venom directly into the beast's spinal column.
The Behemoth-Boar sensed the absolute, lethal corruption invading its core and began frantically spinning on the spot, foaming at the mouth.
Driven by pure agony, it made the desperate decision to throw itself backward, attempting to crush the Scorpion against the crackling blood-wards.
Just before impact, the Scorpion detached itself with mechanical precision, using the Boar's momentum to launch itself to the ceiling of the pit, clinging upside down to the reinforced iron-wood beams, far out of reach.
In Sunny's vision, the System interface rapidly updated the Behemoth-Boar's status from [Enraged], to [Corrupted], to [Organ Failure], and finally to [Terminal Collapse].
In the end, its status stopped changing after reaching [Terminal Collapse].
The massive beast hit the blood-wards, triggering a localized explosion of black lightning that scorched its hide, but it barely reacted.
By then, the Behemoth-Boar was like a collapsed mountain of rotting meat. It was convulsing on the obsidian floor, its eyes rolled back in its skull, its thick iron-bristles falling out in clumps as the venom dissolved it from the inside out.
The Scorpion saw that its massive prey had completely lost the ability to fight back. It slowly scuttled down the iron-wood pillars, its barbed legs making a terrifying, rhythmic clicking sound.
It moved like an ancient executioner, stalking toward its paralyzed prey to claim the marrow.
"Acceptable. Your fiend has passed the baseline assessment," said Captain Kael with a tone of heavy resignation. He was not sure how to accurately grade this display.
The Behemoth-Boar was supposed to endure enough damage to train all five disciples in the cluster, but it had been utterly liquidated after a single strike.
Even with his rigid military discipline, Kael could not suppress a glint of genuine awe.
"The toxicity of your fiend is profound. Its combat instincts are flawlessly lethal.
"However, if you wish to truly refine your fiend's physical combat arts, you must strictly forbid its use of the venom-sacs during standard drills, or else its carapace will remain brittle. If you encounter an Orthodox Paladin warded against dark toxins, your beast will be physically crushed," Kael offered the advice respectfully, acknowledging Sunny's terrifying mastery.
"..." Sunny offered no gratitude, merely staring blankly ahead, projecting an aura of absolute, unfathomable boredom. Internally, he was doing a victory dance.
'Yes! One hit KO! I don't have to do anything else tonight!'
The other four disciples in the cluster stood with their jaws completely slack. The Behemoth-Boar that was threatening to break the blood-wards was turned into a melting puddle in ten seconds?
Right now, the massive beast in the pit looked like a deflating balloon of gore. Thick purple foam was bubbling from its jaws and eyes.
It seemed as though... the beast was completely defenseless?
The remaining disciples exchanged glances, a greedy, opportunistic light entering their eyes.
"I shall claim the second strike. My centipede requires target practice," said the disciple with the Obsidian-Carapace Centipede, his voice dripping with sudden arrogance.
"Arrogance. You only dare to strike a paralyzed corpse."
"Watch your tongue! My centipede will devour the remains and absorb the residual strength!"
The two disciples resumed their petty squabbling, eager to claim an easy 'kill' for their records.
The heavy iron gates opened again. The Obsidian-Carapace Centipede aggressively slithered into the pit. It experimentally whipped the melting Behemoth-Boar with its tail, finding zero resistance. The centipede's mandibles clicked rapidly, shedding its previous caution; this massive boar was nothing but a free meal.
It lunged forward and viciously buried its mandibles into the boar's exposed flank!
The demonic proverb "greed blinds the predator" could not be truer.
The Behemoth-Boar was already entirely corrupted by the Phantom Ash Scorpion's Commander-tier venom.
The Centipede savagely ripped off a massive chunk of the boar's melting flesh and swallowed it whole.
And then...
It began to violently convulse.
There were still massive concentrations of the Scorpion's highly corrosive dark-metal venom saturating the boar's tissues.
Within the chunk of flesh was a lethal dose of a toxin two tiers higher than the Centipede could process. After just one bite, the Obsidian-Carapace Centipede began thrashing wildly, its thick armor visibly sizzling and cracking, as it scrambled in agonizing circles around the pit as if its brain were melting.
Its owner hid his face in absolute humiliation and terror, realizing he had just crippled his own fiend through sheer stupidity.
The Centipede's tail was spasming uncontrollably, smashing against the blood-wards. It was hissing a high-pitched, terrifying sound of pure agony, completely useless for further combat.
"Hahahaha, the absolute foolishness!" the owner of the Three-Tailed Corpse-Hound laughed maliciously, clutching his sides. "Look at your supreme executioner! It poisoned itself trying to scavenge the Supreme One's leftovers!"
Listening to its owner's malicious laughter, the Three-Tailed Corpse-Hound tilted its rotting head and looked towards its master.
Then it turned its gaze toward the melting Behemoth-Boar carcass. Its empty eye sockets began to flare with a starving, green light...
'Wait, no! Abomination, halt! the Corpse-Hound's owner screamed internally, his laughter dying instantly as panic set in.'
"No! Stay back! Do not consume the tainted flesh!" he shouted out loud, his voice cracking with sudden dread.
Captain Kael closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his scarred nose, feeling a profound sense of exhaustion. He looked across the cavern at the other organized instructors, and then back at the chaotic, self-destructing fools in his own cluster.
To salvage this disastrous training session and maintain the Vanguard's brutal standards, Kael tightened his grip on his halberd, his mind forming a very violent, disciplinary solution...
Disciple Zhao, kneeling near Sunny, watched the entire farce unfold. He stared at the Young Master's perfectly still, emotionless face.
He planned this, Zhao thought, his heart hammering against his ribs in absolute, mortal terror.
'He used a single strike to cripple the fiends of his rivals without even looking at them... Such profound cruelty! If I ever displease him, he will poison my corpse so that my entire bloodline perishes when they try to bury me!'
Sunny, entirely unaware of the mastermind reputation he was currently building, was simply trying very hard not to yawn...