Chapter 149: The Eye of Destiny and the Awakening of the Calamities
The runic sun of the Realm of the Eternal Dawn was at its perfect zenith, bathing the newly created continents and the immense floating islands in a golden, pure, and warm light. It was no ordinary light; it did not cast deceitful shadows upon the Citadel's white marble, but revealed absolute truths, stripping bare the very essence of everything it touched.
In the immense Plaza of Origin, flanked by waterfalls of spiritual water and under the protective shadow of the colossal Stellar World Tree, the silence was absolute. A heavy, dense, and reverential silence. A thousand souls, the survivors forged in the brutal carnage of the Purple Light Sect, held their breath in unison, fearing that the slightest exhale would break the solemnity of the moment.
"From Rank 19 to 15!" Vexia ordered. Her voice, amplified by the cold runic magic of her implants and the acoustics of the plaza, literally struck the chests of those present. "Let the next ones step forward! These are the ones who didn't just blindly follow orders and survive. They interpreted the Patriarch's bloodthirsty will and rewrote the rules of the siege in their favor."
Five figures separated from the gray sea of the formation, advancing down the wide central aisle. The pressure of their combined auras made the air around them crackle. Each and every one of them radiated the unmistakable, dense Qi of cultivators who were at the Peak of Stage 2 of the Transcendent Realm. They were the lethal new elite.
"Rank 19: Sylas!" Vexia announced, unrolling a fraction more of her black scale scroll.
From among the five, a somewhat short boy stepped forward, his musculature extremely compact yet agile. He had dull, messy gray curly hair, and two silver eyes that always seemed to hold a kind gleam. Sylas walked toward the dais rubbing the back of his neck, offering a shy, almost embarrassed smile. He looked like the most normal and harmless kid in the entire group, the kind of person easy to bully in an outside world tavern.
But those who fought alongside him knew that this shyness hid a devout and psychopathic fanaticism for Samael.
"Sylas," Vexia lowered the scroll slightly, and her glasses reflected the runic sun. "You were the anchor of survival for the small squads. Under your ranged cover, your comrades suffered only minor wounds. Your long-distance kill count is monstrous. You pushed yourself to the absolute limit on the final night. You drew your ordinary bow with such force that your own fingers fractured into multiple pieces. You forced your silver eyes past the biological limits of your body to calculate the enemy's wind gusts, and you drained your Qi to the last drop so you wouldn't stop shooting."
Sylas lowered his head, his shy smile never leaving his lips, though the bandages covering his broken phalanges proved the truth of the Marshal's words.
"That nearly suicidal effort has its reward dictated by the Sovereign," Vexia continued. "Your prizes: The Heaven Grade (Low) bow Vortex of the Ethereal Horizon, and two of the deadliest archery martial arts from our vault: Arrow of Inevitable Destiny: The Thread of the End and Phantom Wind Veil: Breeze Deflection."
A minor spatial portal opened next to Vexia, and from it emerged a bow that defied imagination. The Vortex of the Ethereal Horizon had an asymmetrical and elegant design, with aggressive curves that mimicked the gusts of a contained hurricane. Crafted from emerald green Lightning Tree Wood and reinforced with plates of Winged Platinum, it emitted a faint, constant glow. It had no definitive solid form; its edges seemed to "ripple" like a mirage in the desert.
It possessed no traditional string; instead, an almost invisible thread of white light buzzed with static. It was a bow that did not need physical arrows, designed to suck in the ambient air, pass it through its Zephyr Collapse Chamber, and convert oxygen into highly dense, compressed ammunition.
Two emerald light spheres shot out from the bow and sank into Sylas's forehead, granting him instant knowledge. He immediately understood The Thread of the End, a multidimensional arrow that collapsed possible trajectories to guarantee a critical hit to the Dantian, and the Phantom Wind Veil, an aura that deflected any ballistic attack around him as if his body were coated in repulsive oil.
Sylas took the bow carefully, feeling the weapon sync with his lungs. His shy smile completely disappeared, replaced by a silver coldness in his eyes. He dropped to one knee on the jade.
"My fingers broke and bled because ordinary wood was too weak for my loyalty, Patriarch," Sylas said, his voice losing all shyness, adopting a terrifying calm. "With this Vortex... I swear by the Dawn that no arrow will ever miss its target. I will pierce the hearts of your enemies, even if they try to hide in other dimensions."
On the throne, Samael's mathematical mind connected with the laws of reality.
[Clan Investment System Activated]
«Deduction: Investment made in a disciple with Absolute Devotion.
Investment: 1 Bow (Low Heaven Grade) + 2 Techniques (Heaven Grade).
Initiating calculation of random Chaos probability multiplier...»
«...»
«DING! Medium-high probability reached in the Wind element matrix! Multiplier obtained: x160.»
«Generating Reimbursement... The laws of equivalent exchange have collapsed in your favor.
Reimbursement granted: You have received [1 Void Storm Falcon Egg (Low Saint Grade Spiritual Beast)] and [Primordial Wind Essence Crystal (Celestial Evolution Material)]. The items have been deposited in your dimensional inventory.»
Samael lightly squeezed the armrests of his throne. A Saint Grade spiritual beast. And not just any beast, but an aerial predator capable of riding the storms of the spatial void. The System's rewards scaled with a brutality that kept a constant mental smile on his face.
"Rise, Sylas," Samael ordered. "Next."
"Rank 18: Iris Morningstar!" Vexia exclaimed.
From the line of five advanced a young woman with short golden hair, cut in a rustic and practical way so as not to obstruct her peripheral vision. She dressed purely for utility, covered in belts and tactical pouches. Her amber eyes were unsettling; she rarely blinked and always seemed to be focusing on something a meter behind the people she looked at. Iris didn't see faces; she saw invisible energy flows, the structural architecture of things.
She advanced with measured steps, her amber eyes fixed on Samael's figure. She didn't look at him out of disrespect, but because her instinct unconsciously tried to "read" the Qi knots of her Patriarch's armor. Suddenly, Iris blinked hard and lowered her gaze with a slight dizzy spell, bringing her hand to her temple. She had just realized that Samael's structure was not a puzzle; it was an unfathomable cosmic abyss that threatened to devour her mind if she stared at it for too long.
"Iris," Samael said directly, skipping Vexia, his voice booming with authority. "You modified the enemy's defensive macro-formation right in the middle of combat, isolating them and turning the pressure of their shields against them. You excelled at disarming runic traps on the fly and dismantled countless squads that relied on their magical barricades. You have eyes that see the hidden structure of the world."
Iris knelt, her posture rigid but respectful.
"I only saw the knots in their Qi threads, Patriarch," she replied with analytical modesty. "The Purple Light Sect's design was rudimentary. I merely had to untie them."
"Your rewards," Vexia dictated, reclaiming the floor. "A High Heaven Grade formations artifact: The Stellar Jade Chessboard, and two tactical martial arts: Singularity Finger: Structural Collapse and Infinite Matrix Mirror: Geometric Redirection."
The portal delivered an immense, heavy square block of deep green Stellar Jade. Its surface was not smooth; it was carved and engraved with thousands of micro-grooves forming a complex, fractal map that seemed to expand before one's eyes. Small pieces of Smoky Quartz Crystal rested beside it. It was an artifact capable of anchoring energy nodes in seconds, allowing the deployment of formations that would take hours of runic drawing, acting as an external hive mind that bore the mental strain.
The techniques complemented her mathematical brain: The Singularity Finger, capable of sending a runic pulse to collapse the power nodes of enemy armors, and the Matrix Mirror, an energy polygon that did not block attacks, but altered their geometry to mathematically bounce them off at ninety-degree angles.
Iris gently touched one of the quartz pieces on the board. Instantly, small threads of golden light connected between her fingers, forming an intricate miniature defense matrix in the palm of her hand. Her amber eyes shone with pure intellectual fascination.
"The entire universe is just a poorly balanced chessboard, Patriarch," Iris said, looking up, her face losing all tension. "Thank you for granting me the right pieces. I promise you I will checkmate the siege formations of any empire that dares to cross our borders."
[Clan Investment System Activated]
«Deduction: Investment made in a Tactical/Formations class disciple.
Investment: 1 Matrix Artifact (High Heaven Grade) + 2 Techniques (Heaven Grade).
Initiating calculation of random probability...»
«...»
«DING! Multiplier obtained: x180.»
«Generating Reimbursement... You have received [Ancestral Defensive Formation Blueprint: "Star-Devouring Lotus Matrix" (Mid Saint Grade)].»
Samael nodded slowly. A Mid Saint Grade matrix, if installed correctly using the foundations of the Realm of the Eternal Dawn and the World Tree as a core, would make the Citadel literally impregnable against a siege by millions of soldiers and energy cannons. It was a master investment.
"Next," Vexia indicated.
"Rank 17: Mira Morningstar!"
The atmosphere on the dais shifted from military stiffness to a gloomy seduction. Mira stepped forward with a slow, exotic, and deliberately dangerous sway. Her beauty was stunning, with wavy, deep purple hair and skin that possessed a pearlescent, almost iridescent glow under the light of the runic sun. Her eyes were two pools of bright amethyst.
As she walked, she brazenly winked at Korg and blew a kiss to Ren, making them both visibly nervous and forcing them to look at the ground. But the thousand disciples in the plaza were not fooled by her playful exterior. They knew exactly what hid beneath those smiles: a relentless sadist. In combat, Mira played with her prey, slowly poisoning them with toxins that corroded Qi, laughing as she watched experts fall into suffocating despair.
"You infiltrated the heart of the elders' barracks," Vexia said, her tone showing slight disapproval of Mira's lack of martial discipline, but absolute respect for her results. "You poisoned them without them noticing the taste of death. You executed dozens of leaders from the inside, sowing paranoia in their ranks. Your methods are heretical and twisted, playing with your prey. But in this clan, as you well know, we do not care about orthodox means; we only venerate end results."
Mira stopped before the throne, crossing one leg behind the other in an elegant bow of a courtesan of death.
"And do not worry about your supposed madness," Vexia added coldly. "In this empire, there are far more madmen than those who appear sane."
"Your rewards," the Marshal continued: "A pair of Heaven Grade (Mid) daggers, the Fangs of the Amethyst Basilisk. And the assassination martial arts: Dance of the Amethyst Fang: Rotting of Laws and Shedding the Shadow Skin: Refraction Shield."
The portal delivered the weapons. They were a magnificent and terrifying pair of daggers, crafted from Shadow Amethyst Crystal, so dark it seemed to absorb light. Inside the translucent blades, purple fluids could be seen moving with a life of their own, like veins pumping a cosmic virus. They were catalysts that did not cut flesh, but injected a "Rotting of Laws" that turned black and unstable any enemy shield or technique they touched, making it explode against its own creator.
The techniques sealed in amethyst light were handed to her: The Dance, a series of ultra-fast slashes to sabotage magic, and Shedding the Skin, a passive evasion technique that, upon receiving a fatal blow, left behind a statue of poisonous crystal while her real body slipped through the shadows for a lethal counterattack.
Mira grasped the Swamp Dragon Skin hilts. As she did, her Qi reacted instinctively. A single drop of condensed liquid purple poison slipped from the tip of the left dagger and fell to the floor of the platform.
Sssssssss!
The acid burned a perfect, smoking little hole into the immaculate jade marble, earning a sharp, murderous glare from Vexia for damaging the dais's architecture.
Mira ignored the Marshal, looked up at Samael, and gently ran her tongue over her own dark-painted lips.
"Making them bleed with conventional swords is a process far too boring and quick, my sweet Sovereign," Mira said, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. "With these beauties... I promise you I will make our enemies' very own magic rot and devour them from the inside out. The North will squeal, and it will be a beautiful spectacle just for your eyes."
[Clan Investment System Activated]
«Deduction: Investment made in a Toxic Assassin/Magical Sabotage class disciple.
Initiating random probability calculation...»
«...»
«DING! Multiplier obtained: x150.»
«Generating Reimbursement... You have received [Intact Poison Gland of a Shadow Basilisk King (Lethal Alchemy Material - Peak Heaven Grade)] and [Runic Codex of Absolute Toxic Immunity (To forge poison-immune armor)].»
Samael nodded. The ability to forge poison-immune armors for his elite would nullify any chemical warfare tactics rival empires might try to use in the coming years.
"Send the next one," Samael murmured.
"Rank 16: Korg Morningstar!"
Unlike Mira's seductive tension, Korg's arrival was like the advance of a rolling volcano. Despite the extreme solemnity of the Merit Ceremony, Korg marched forward loudly chewing on a roasted, crunchy beast core, as if it were a simple apple. He was an absolute colossus with golden hair and burning green eyes that glowed with an internal thermal light. His massive, exaggeratedly muscular body literally made the jade dais tremble with every planted step.
But his personality comically contrasted with his world-destroyer appearance. Korg was surprisingly laid-back, the sarcastic "big brother" of the infantry who used jokes to lighten the Legion's suffocating tension. He only got serious—in a brutal, volcanic way—when someone underestimated his family or had the audacity to interrupt his sacred lunch.
"Korg," Vexia didn't even blink at his loud chewing. "You single-handedly destroyed multiple Qi Sea Realm advance groups and withstood the pressure of two Stage 4 Transcendents on your own, using only the thermodynamics of your body and your bare fists. You are the siege beast of this group."
Korg swallowed the core in one bite, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm.
"Your rewards: The Heaven Grade (Mid) adaptive armor gauntlets, the Crucible of the Tyrant King. And the destructive arts of fire: Impact of the Stellar Anvil and Iron Steam Shield."
Two immense pieces of armor fell from the portal. They were heavy gauntlets that reached up to the elbow, in an ashen matte black color, forged from Black Star Iron and tempered in magma drake blood. They featured a segmented structure inspired by tectonic plates. Their Pyroclastic exhaust valves constantly released steam. More importantly, they possessed morphogenesis: upon detecting Korg's draconic bloodline, the armor would extend red-hot tungsten blades over his own natural claws.
The techniques granted him the ability to compress dry, explosive heat into his knuckles (Impact of the Anvil) and to exhale a cloud of metallic steam at lethal boiling temperatures that blinded and deflected attacks (Steam Shield).
Korg slid his enormous arms into the mechanical gauntlets. Immediately, the intense residual heat of his bloodline activated the weapon's thermal cores. The air around his fists distorted from the extreme temperature, emitting the hiss of heavy machinery under pressure and scorching steam. The rock beneath his boots began to sizzle.
Any other warrior would be sweating buckets from the suffocating heat of having their hands in a furnace, but Korg simply let out a long sigh of pure comfort, as if he were sitting in front of a cozy hearth in the dead of winter.
"Those rumors say it's very cold in the empires, Patriarch," Korg said, smashing his armored fists together, generating a shower of orange sparks and a small sonic boom. "And the cold makes me very hungry. With these cooking toys... I promise to cook their heavy cavalry and their ice mages inside their own armors, until they're done exactly right."
[Clan Investment System Activated]
«Deduction: Investment made in a Thermal Colossus class disciple.
Initiating random probability calculation...»
«...»
«DING! Maximum limit of ordinary probability threshold reached! Multiplier obtained: x200.»
«Generating Reimbursement... You have received [Beating Fire Heart of an Ancestral Earth Dragon (Living Material - Mid Saint Grade - Inexhaustible source of thermal energy)].»
Samael clenched his jaw with satisfaction. A multiplier of two hundred handed him the living heart of an ancestral dragon. That organ, if integrated into the Citadel's central forge, would allow them to melt and mold the Divine Grade metals they had looted without needing to wait months.
"Excellent, Korg. Return to formation."
Korg gave a deep bow, causing a small tremor, and returned.
"And now, the last of this vanguard group..." Vexia made an intentional pause.
The entire atmosphere in the plaza shifted. Mira's seductive tension and Korg's brutal warmth vanished instantly. The psychological temperature plummeted. A shadow of discomfort, repulsion, and unease crept down the spines of the thousand hardened disciples. Instinctively, the warriors of the gray infantry opened the central aisle even wider, trying to distance themselves from the advancing figure.
"Rank 15: Darius Morningstar!"
Darius stepped into the aurora's light. He didn't have the build of a warrior, nor Korg's musculature, nor Borg's scars. He was of average height, with coal-black hair, short and combed with millimetric and obsessive perfection. His eyes were two black pools, so deep, dead, and empty that they seemed to absorb what little light touched them. His gray combat tunic was spotless, neat, freshly ironed, without a single wrinkle, speck of dust, or bloodstain.
He looked like a noble-born scholar strolling through a boring library.
But what caused the suffocating terror in his comrades wasn't his icy demeanor. It was what hung from his pristine belt.
With every step he took, a repulsive hollow, dull sound was heard: clack, clack, clack.
Hanging from his belt, tied by their own dried hair, were six shrunken and mummified heads. Six faces deformed in grimaces of eternal agony. They belonged to six proud Elders and elite disciples of the Transcendent Realm from the Purple Light Sect, men who hours before believed themselves untouchable.
Seeing Darius was a physical reminder that in the Morningstar Clan there were predators... and then there were pure monsters.
Darius was analytical and calculating on a pathological level. He felt no euphoria from combat, no adrenaline, no fear. To him, a war was simply a complex mathematical problem, where the enemy's brain and sanity were the structural variable that needed to be "disassembled." He used prolonged terror tactics, acute sensory deprivation, and psychological mutilation to break the minds of his victims long before sticking a knife in them. And the most terrifying thing was that he always maintained extreme politeness, speaking with perfect manners even while describing with clinical precision how he was going to flay a prisoner's sanity.
He reached the dais and knelt with aristocratic elegance, silencing the clashing of the heads at his waist.
"Darius," Samael said, taking over and staring into the void of the young man's eyes. "You deeply shocked the enemy rearguard. You did an... exquisite job." Samael smiled, and the crowd shuddered to see the Patriarch approving of such madness. "You traumatized the enemy defenders so badly that some preferred to jump into the abyss rather than fall into your hands. And, in the process, you gave nightmares to a couple of our own recruits."
"The human and spiritual mind is infinitely more fragile and predictable than the body, my Patriarch," Darius replied, his voice soft, cultivated, and polite, devoid of any boasting. "Bones mend and Qi recovers. But sanity... sanity is a glass of tension. You only have to know which thread of trauma to pull, and the man unravels himself."
"And then you executed your prisoners by cleanly breaking their necks so they wouldn't suffer further useless bodily harm," Samael pointed out.
"Efficiency is mercy, Sovereign. Leaving them alive as empty husks would have been a waste of medical resources and space."
Samael nodded, genuinely pleased.
"Your reward."
Vexia, maintaining her firm posture, presented him with an elegant velvet tray. Upon it rested a Soul Crystal Dagger (Mid Heaven Grade), an exotic weapon capable of directly cutting the spiritual body while ignoring physical Qi defenses, along with two orbs of light containing high-level martial techniques.
Darius looked at the prizes. The dagger was magnificent, bright, deadly. A work of art of lethality.
But then, in an act that left the Plaza of Origin plunged into stupor, Darius did the unthinkable. He didn't raise his hands. He remained on his knees, his hands resting on his thighs.
"Patriarch," Darius said, his polite voice ringing out clearly. "With all the absolute respect that my life owes you... I request permission to refuse the Crystal Dagger."
The crowd of a thousand warriors let out a unified gasp. Refusing a Heaven Grade weapon? Scorn a direct gift from the Sovereign's hands in the middle of a Merit Ceremony? It was a death sentence in any other culture.
Vexia frowned deeply. Her biomechanical hands tensed beneath her silk gloves, the violet gleam of her eyes behind her glasses turning lethal and sharp.
"Don't you dare..." the Marshal hissed, taking a step forward.
"No, Vexia. Stop," Samael interrupted, raising a single hand with absolute calm, halting his servant's wrath. Samael leaned forward on the Obsidian Throne, his neon eyes locking onto Darius with renewed interest. "Ambition. I like it."
He looked at the young scholar of nightmares.
"A Heaven Grade weapon can buy the loyalty of a small kingdom on the outside," Samael said. "And you reject it outright. What is it that you want in exchange, Darius?"
"With the Marshal's forgiveness, a physical weapon, regardless of its grade or edge, can be lost in battle, stolen, or broken," Darius replied, raising his black, empty gaze to meet the Patriarch's without blinking. "I do not want external tools. I want something inalienable. Something that is a permanent part of me. I desire the concept of knowledge."
Darius extended his hands, palms up in a gesture of dark supplication.
"I desire a technique designed specifically to break the will of Saints and Emperors. A technique, however forbidden it may be, that allows me to open the doors to their minds, walk barefoot through their nightmares, and chew on their childhood fears before they raise their swords against you."
Samael arched an eyebrow, genuine amazement mixing with diabolical approval.
"Pure Mental Arts and Laws are extremely rare and dangerously volatile, Darius," Samael warned, the Sovereign's voice taking on a lecturing tone. "If you dive into the psychic abyss of an enemy and your own will is even slightly weaker than their madness, the abyss will devour you. It will seep into your brain. You will go hopelessly mad, a slave to another man's nightmares."
"I am already accustomed to the dark, Patriarch," Darius said with a tiny, chilling smile. "And I am more than willing to run the risk of madness if it makes me the terror of our enemies."
Samael nodded slowly. He reached his left hand into the folds of his black tunic, connecting directly with his Dimensional Inventory. He searched the darkest corners of his collection, recalling an old, dusty, cursed manual bound in sealing iron chains that he had obtained long ago.
It was an incomplete technique, brutally forbidden by the heavens, classified as a dangerous anomaly.
The manual materialized in Samael's hand. Its pages were not made of paper, but of cured human skin, and the runes composing it seemed to writhe painfully on the surface.
[Manual: "Eyes of the Nightmare Demon" (Incomplete – Unknown Grade)]
Samael knew exactly what he was holding. This cursed text lacked the fundamental chapters of "safety seals" and "passive mental protection," leaving only the raw, naked, violent technique of Psychic Invasion and Trauma Materialization.
Upon activation, the user's sclera would turn an absolute, oily black, and the pupil would fracture into erratic crimson slits, weeping tears of black blood. The attack didn't create generic illusions; it acted as a psychic claw that extracted the deepest, repressed, and terrifying fear from the enemy's Sea of Consciousness.
The damage, though mental, was lethally psychosomatic. If the technique made the enemy Emperor believe he was suffocating at the bottom of the sea, his real, physical lungs would stop absorbing oxygen.
But the feedback effect—the Madman's Curse—was the true price. Lacking the safety seals, the user had to keep their own mind completely open to the "Realm of Nightmares" in order to channel the flow of terror toward the victim. If the user faltered, the enemy's nightmares would seep into their psyche like a virus. Darius's personality would run the constant risk of being erased and rewritten, condemning him to drool in a corner, laughing hysterically while his own inner demons flayed him alive in his imagination for all eternity.
"You have guts, scholar," Samael said, a mix of respect and icy pity in his voice. "Take this."
Samael threw the chained scroll at him. Darius didn't catch it; he let it strike his chest and hugged it with both arms before it touched the ground.
"It is an incomplete technique, without safeguards, that I found buried long ago," the Sovereign explained, his voice echoing in the astonished plaza. "If you manage to master the chaos of those pages, you will be able to see, breathe, and weaponize the most pathetic fears of the living legends of rival empires. If you fail even once... you will live the rest of your days trapped inside an eternal nightmare in your own head, and I myself will have to slit your throat to silence your screams."
Darius cradled the human skin scroll against his immaculate chest as if he were holding his firstborn, or the beating heart of a benevolent god. His hands, always steady and surgical, trembled now, but not out of terror at the King's warning, but from a pure, uncontrollable, and profane ecstasy.
"It is the most perfect gift I have ever been given, Patriarch," Darius whispered, closing his black eyes. "I will not fail you."
On the obsidian throne, time collapsed for Samael. The Investment System, which had been dormant during the transaction, awoke with a sound that nearly deafened his consciousness.
[CLAN INVESTMENT SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
«Transaction Alert: Item Delivered: Incomplete Heretical Technique Manual (Net Value: Earth Grade).»
«Recipient: Darius Morningstar (Psychological/Mental Affinity: S Rank - Class: Conceptual Monster).»
«Initiating random probability calculation...»
«DIMENSIONAL CHAOS WARNING!»
«Probability of Critical: EXTREME (The recipient values the granted item far above his own sanity, his ego, and his life).»
«Calculating... Calculating...»
«DING! ABSOLUTE CRITICAL REACHED!»
«CRITICAL REIMBURSEMENT APPLIED: MULTIPLIER x1000!»
Samael's biological heart, forged by the Void Tribulation, literally leaped, skipping a beat. The multiplier had broken. The figure of one thousand was a mathematical aberration within the laws of karmic exchange.
«DIVINE ACQUISITION ALERT! The coffers of the universe have been looted in your favor, Sovereign.
You have received: Sacred Scripture "Domain of the Mental Abyss God" (Divine Grade - Complete and Perfect).»
Samael had to clench his fists against the obsidian armrests until the dark crystal threatened to crack. He could barely maintain the facade of a bored monarch. His mind had just been flooded with the nascent knowledge of a Divine-level Domain. A complete manual, with unbreakable seals and barriers, capable of enslaving, washing, and rewriting minds and wills on a pure conceptual level. He could tame entire armies without lifting a sword.
He had just traded a broken, dangerous Earth-level scroll for the pinnacle of psychic evolution in the universe.
Darius, Samael thought, watching the young man rise reverently with his deadly prize clutched to his chest, his lips curling into a truly predatory smile. You just gave me the key to empires. If you manage to survive your heretical training and don't fry your brain in the process... perhaps you will be worthy of me teaching you the real, divine version someday.
"And do not think you will leave without the means to physically survive," Samael added aloud, raising his hand.
Two additional light spheres shot from Vexia's trays and struck Darius. They were the promised support arts. Execution of the Inverted Board, which would allow him to inject a "Qi virus" into the enemy's nervous system to make them feel they were burning alive until they died of induced traumatic shock; and the Mantle of Mental Non-existence, a technique that did not grant clumsy physical invisibility, but directly erased Darius's image from the visual processing in the opponent's brain, allowing him to walk in front of them without being "processed" by their minds.
"Go, scholar of nightmares," Samael ordered, a tone of dark pride in his words. "Train until you bleed from your eyes. And make sure that, in two years, our imperial enemies are terrified to blow out their candles and close their eyes at night."
Darius gave one last, perfect, elegant aristocratic bow, and slowly withdrew, stepping backward into the ranks of the infantry, his immaculate tunic sweeping the jade floor, the six heads on his belt clashing grimly (clack, clack, clack).
In the tight shadows of the rearguard ranks, where the light of the Eternal Dawn barely reached, Dante Morningstar watched him closely.
His gray eyes, always scanning for weaknesses, were narrowed, fixed on Darius's flawless back. Dante had killed many people. He had slit throats in the dark and stolen rings from smoking corpses. He knew what the cruelty of survival was.
But as he watched Darius caressing that human skin scroll, Dante felt an unnatural shiver run down his spine; a cold that did not come from the blizzards of the world, but from the animal instinct that recognizes an apex predator.
That guy... Dante thought, swallowing hard without taking his eyes off the back of Darius's neck. That guy with the clean suit and noble manners is infinitely more dangerous and terrifying than any of those giant idiots carrying swords and magic maces in the vanguard. I'll have to watch my back.
Silence returned to the Plaza of Origin, but now it was an electric, almost hysterical silence, charged by the revelations, the divine gifts, the heretical weapons, and the overwhelming power the Sovereign was handing out as if they were simple candies for children.
Samael leaned back completely on his throne, the Crown of the Primordial Sovereign spinning rhythmically above his albino head, and slowly raised his index finger, pointing directly toward the bright sky of the Dawn.
Up there, the System's gigantic holographic list flickered again. The block containing the names of ranks 24 to 15 burst into golden flames and vanished, fulfilling its purpose.
But the remaining section... the fourteen names topping the list.
From Rank 14 to Rank 1.
That section began to pulse and shine with a light so obscenely bright and heavy that it distorted the air of the entire plaza. The crimson and black light emanating from those fourteen titles cast long, terrifying shadows across the white jade tiles.
"You have witnessed the birth of the great assassins and colossi of our heavy infantry," Samael declared, and the tricolor halo behind his back ignited like a second sun, demanding the total devotion of every atom in the Realm of the Eternal Dawn. "They are useful monsters, and war will forge them."