The giant footprints of the Corruptor Dragon stretched like trenches of destruction along the East Harvest Zone. Each two-meter-wide footprint left behind a scorched mark emitting black smoke, burning the soil and obliterating anything that grew above it. Aster Vale pushed his warped handcart along the edge of the trench, its squeaking left wheel now sounding like a mournful rhythm for a merchant witnessing mass bankruptcy."Look at this! Look at this agricultural slaughter!" Aster lamented, pointing at a dragon footprint that had just crushed a cluster of Slumber Moss. "Forty-five silver coins per bundle, turned to ash by a lizard that doesn't even have a taxpayer identification number! This isn't just environmental damage; this is intentional asset embezzlement!"Darius Vorn walked out front, his left hand still gripping his steel sword, his eyes scanning the darkness of the hallway with high-level alertness. His right arm, bound in a silk sling, throbbed with pain, but he ignored i

Professor Vane knelt on the cold granite floor, his tears mixing with dust and dried blood as they dripped down. Before him, Kaelen stepped forward calmly, coiling the Rusty Clothesline between his fingers, preparing to tie the traitor's hands per Aster's orders. To Kaelen, this was merely a simple logistical task. But to Vane, this scene was the ultimate humiliation, shattering the very foundation of his sanity.I am an elite agent of the Valerius Faction... Vane thought, his teeth chattering violently, not from the cold, but from boiling hatred and despair. I sacrificed everything! I stabbed my comrades in the back, I betrayed the academy, I unleashed an apocalyptic monster for my family's vengeance! And now... now I am going to be turned into an unpaid slave by a crazy flea market merchant who cares more about mushrooms than human lives?!The shame burning through his pride hurt far more than any threat of death. If he returned to the Valerius faction alive but bearing the status o

Granite dust still drifted through the air of the ruined control room, reflecting the dim light from the remaining un-dismantled monitoring crystals. Aster Vale stood atop a wooden crate, using a small boar-bristle brush to sweep dust off the surface of a flat crystal. His Shabby Cloth Mask now slid down beneath his chin, letting him breathe freely as he grumbled."Toby, write this down," Aster ordered without looking back, his eyes hidden behind his Used Reading Spectacles as he scanned the crystal. "Used aquarium screen for nobles who keep ornamental fish. Visual condition eighty percent, slight scratch on the lower left corner from the explosion earlier. Estimated selling price: twelve silver coins. Don't forget to deduct polishing costs..."In the corner of the room, Professor Vane still hung resignedly with both hands bound to the iron pipe by the Rusty Clothesline. His hollow eyes stared at the floor, drool trickling without him realizing it, his soul completely dried out from b

The Corruptor Dragon lacked the cognitive capacity to process the concept of property compensation, let alone comprehend hysterical shrieks regarding the cost of repainting obsidian walls. The twenty-meter-tall ancient entity understood only one thing: there was a noisy sound source, and a delicious concentration of mana was gathered in the corner of the room, right near a wooden handcart with a warped left wheel.Slowly, the dragon's double-hinged jaw opened wider. The sound of cracking bones and grinding scales echoed deafeningly. Deep within its dark throat, an orb of light began to condense. Yet this was no ordinary flame. This was Corruptor Fire—a fusion of thick miasma and greenish-black necrotic plasma swirling like a miniature hurricane. The heat it radiated was not merely physical heat, but a heat that burned the very concept of life itself.The temperature inside the vast control room surged drastically within seconds. The air warped into waves of eye-straining distortion. T

Aster Vale's index finger pressed down on the stiff, rusted pump lever. The worn mechanism resisted briefly, letting out an ear-splitting metallic screech—SCREEECH—before finally giving way under the merchant's thumb pressure.At that exact millisecond, the Corruptor Dragon, its ancient instincts detecting a foreign object before its snout, reacted purely on natural reflex. Instead of instantly spewing fire, the dragon snapped its double-hinged jaw shut and tilted its massive head downward, intending to bite down and swallow the tiny mortal who dared point a glass bottle toward its throat.That massive movement shifted the target angle. Annoyed that his "spray target" was moving, Aster irritably flicked his wrist upward so the liquid wouldn't be wasted on the floor.Pssshhh! The sound was pathetically underwhelming. There was no explosion of mana, no divine light. Just a low-pressure puff of air belching out a mist of murky yellowish liquid. The fluid—a concoction of cheap alcohol, co