Chapter 1: "Sign the divorce decree, Austin," Vivian said, her voice as cold as the snow falling outside the ancestral hall. She didn't even look at him. Instead, she kept her hand resting arrogantly on the shoulder of Leon, Young Master of the rival Tiger Clan. Austin lay flat on the freezing stone floor, gasping for air, his robes soaked through with his own blood. An hour ago, Vivian’s father—the very Patriarch Austin had served faithfully for three years—had ruthlessly pierced Austin’s dantian with a cursed spike, shattering his cultivation and forcefully extracting his Grade-9 Astral Phoenix beast soul. They had ripped his soul right out of his flesh to graft it into Vivian. "A broken dog is no longer worthy of the future Empress," Leon sneered, tossing a silver coin onto Austin’s bloody back. "Consider this your tip for keeping my fiancée’s new soul warm all these years. Now, crawl out of the city before I feed your useless flesh to my hounds." Austin’s fingers clawed into

Chapter 3: The grand crystal chandeliers of the Heavenly Treasure Auction House cast a brilliant, blinding glow over hundreds of the city's most powerful elites.Dressed in a generic, oversized gray servant’s robe, Austin stood silently in the far corner of the VIP balcony, holding a tray of spiritual wine. No one looked at him. To the roaring crowds, he was just another faceless, low-grade worker.From his vantage point, Austin’s eyes locked onto the front-row velvet seats. There sat Leon, draped in golden Tiger Clan silks, and beside him sat Vivian. Her skin radiated a flawless, ethereal light—a direct result of his stolen Grade-9 Astral Phoenix soul warming her meridians. She smiled elegantly, leaning her head against Leon's shoulder, completely oblivious that the man they had left to freeze to death was standing mere feet behind them."Ladies and gentlemen!" the head auctioneer’s voice boomed across the hall, drawing a thunderous round of applause. "For our next centerpiece, cour

Chapter 5: ​The inner sanctum of the Tiger Clan estate was bathed in a brilliant, undulating crimson light.​Deep within the chamber, Vivian sat cross-legged on a massive platform of solid spiritual jade. Her eyes were tightly shut, her breathing shallow, as waves of majestic, fiery energy rippled across her skin. Above her head, the ethereal, glowing image of the stolen Grade-9 Astral Phoenix thrashed violently against invisible chains, letting out silent screams of agony as Vivian ruthlessly forced it to merge with her meridians.​Outside the heavy obsidian doors, two elite Golden Core Stage 8 grand wardens stood guard, their hands resting on their spear hilts. They didn't see the air distorting right in front of them. Wrapped in the Void Slime's Concealment Shadow-Mantle, Austin walked right past them, his footsteps lighter than a falling feather.​Austin stepped directly through the reinforced warding arrays, the system seamlessly rewriting the security codes as he moved. He stoo

Chapter 7:​The city walls that had stood for three centuries cracked like dried mud as the first wave of the World-Core Dungeon creatures tore through the earth.​Massive, obsidian-scaled Hell-Hounds with jaws made of molten lava swarmed into the capital streets, ripping through elite city guards and turning luxurious estates into burning rubble within minutes. Panic choked the air. Thousands of wealthy citizens who had spent their lives looking down on the poor were now screaming in the mud, fleeing toward the center of the Tiger Clan estate—the only place they thought was safe.​Austin stood on the highest roof of the Tiger Clan palace, his black hair whipping violently in the gale-force winds. At his feet, Vivian lay shivering, staring out at the burning city with eyes full of absolute despair. Her family's entire empire was being turned to ash right before her eyes.​"A-Austin..." a trembling, desperate voice gasped from behind him.​Austin didn't turn around. He already knew who

Chapter 9: ​The edge of the Western Ocean didn't smell like salt anymore—it smelled like ozone, sulfur, and burning blood.​Across the endless horizon, the united naval armadas of the remaining seven continents sat anchored in a massive, terrifying crescent formation. Ten thousand warships, forged from ancient spirit-iron and powered by the beating hearts of tier-10 sea monsters, blocked the sun. At the front of the grand alliance stood the Seven Sovereign Kings, their combined Soul-Transformation Realm peak energies linking together to form a brilliant golden wall of qi that isolated the entire ocean sector.​Austin stood alone on the jagged black cliffs of the shore, his gray servant robes fluttering violently in the gale-force winds. The black Planetary Devourer Crown on his head cast a long, distortion-heavy shadow across the sand, warping the fabric of space around his boots as he looked down at the boiling, ink-black water below.​"Yield, anomaly!" the High Emperor of the Weste