The air in Room 402 turned ice-cold.The heavy magnetic lock on the door sealed with a sickening thud, echoing through the dim, incense-choked hospital room like a tomb shutting its lid."R-Richard..." Vivienne gasped, her voice trembling so violently her teeth rattled. She stumbled backward, her mud-stained heels catching on her torn dress as she hit the cold steel of the door. "Please... I just came to check on Harrison... I didn't see anything! I swear!"Lord Richard Cross didn't step back. He lifted a curved, obsidian ritual dagger from the altar, the black blade reflecting the flickering, unnatural purple flame of the candles. His bloodshot eyes were entirely unseeing, consumed by a manic, abyssal frenzy."My son's core was shattered by that Vance bastard," Richard rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves rustling over graves. "The abyssal masters require a vessel of pure Aetherial blood to reconstruct his meridians. Your mother defaulted on her debts, Vivienne. Your family is

The rain over the Capital had cleared by dawn, leaving behind a crisp, cold sky that reflected off the glass spires of the Financial District. But inside the high-frequency trading floor of the Capital Stock Exchange, a quiet storm was brewing—one that moved not with thunder, but with the ruthless precision of digital execution.Austin Vance sat in the central office of the Vance Clan’s primary asset management tower. He leaned back in a dark leather chair, a steaming cup of tea resting beside a glowing holographic terminal. Arrayed around him were six senior financial strategists, their faces pale and bathed in the blue light of flickering market tickers."Prime Heir..." the chief analyst stammered, his fingers hovering nervously over his control panel. "Are you... are you certain about this trade? We are short-selling ninety million shares of the Cross Corporation simultaneously across three regional exchanges. If their stock ticks up even two percent, the margin call will leverage

The suffocating silence inside the Grand Assembly Chamber was shattered by a sudden, jagged roar."I'll take you to hell with me, boy!"Cornered, isolated, and stripped of everything, Lord Richard Cross lost his sanity completely. The dark purple veins pulsing beneath his skin burst, bleeding black, corrupted fluid across his collarbone. He burned his remaining Aetherial Core in a violent, suicidal flare, channeling forty years of cultivation into a final, reckless strike.BOOM!The heavy stone floor of Mount Apex split open. Richard’s speed spiked into a desperate blur, his broken sword surging with a corrupted, pitch-black blade-aura aimed directly at Austin’s throat.The three Patriarchs on their thrones gasped, instinctively leaning back as the suicidal wave of energy washed over the hall.Austin didn't even draw a weapon. He didn't step back.His dark pupils flickered with vertical, golden dragon slits. Within his dantian, his Tier-4 Sovereign Core spun into a blinding, golden vo

The night air didn't just rush past Austin Vance—it split open before him.Channeling the full, unbridled power of his Tier-4 Sovereign Dragon Core, Austin shot across the skyline of the Capital like a streak of golden lightning. The atmospheric drag hit his face at supersonic speeds, but his Scale-Armor Resonance held firm, burning away the cold night air as he cleared four urban districts in under two minutes.Below him, the neon grid of the city blurred into long ribbons of blue and red. But inside his chest, his heart pounded with a cold, terrifying fury.Abyssal Soul-Rot.In his past life, Austin had seen that poison used on the frontlines of the Abyssal War. It was an insidious, colorless, and odorless alchemical venom designed specifically to dissolve an Aetherial Core from the inside out while the victim slept, leaving no trace behind except a hollowed-out corpse."Not this time," Austin spat through gritted teeth, his vertical golden pupils narrowing as the floating, white sp

The torrential downpour lashed against the slate tiles of the residence roof, driven by howling gusts of wind that whistled through the high spires of the Capital Martial Academy. Thunder cracked directly overhead, illuminating the scene in blinding flashes of blue-white light.Chloe Sinclair cowered on her knees, her hands pressed flat against the slick, wet roof. Her eyes were wide with unadulterated terror, fixed on the 22-year-old youth standing five paces away."Austin... please," Chloe wept, her voice barely audible over the roar of the storm. "I gave you the extraction coordinates! South Dock 4! That's where the Night Veil shadow-weavers are waiting! You have what you want... just let me go!"Austin didn't answer immediately. Rain hit his dark imperial robes, but the ambient heat generated by his Tier-4 Sovereign Core vaporized the water droplets before they could even touch his skin, surrounding him in a faint, ethereal mist of steam.He held a sleek, gold-embossed data-slate