THE ETERNAL REAPER’S REGRESSION

CHAPTER 6: THE UNSEEN EXECUTIONER

The spatial rift didn't drop us into a palace. The corrupted rerouting code glitched, screaming through my system as the world snapped back into dark, heavy reality.

[Warning: Relocation Discrepancy.]

[Sector 7 Erasure bypassed. Destination: Sub-Basement 4, Obsidian Bastion.]

[Status: Glitched Survivors Detected.]

I hit the freezing stone floor on my shoulder, rolling instantly to my feet. Beside me, the scarred gladiator leader and the dagger-wielding woman tumbled out of the collapsing purple rift, gasping for breath in the damp, torch-lit gloom.

"Where are we?" the woman wheezed, her fingers clawing at the stone. "This isn't a palace. It smells like iron and rot."

"The Bastion's under-belly," I said, my voice muffled by the dark surface of the Void Mask. "Lower management's containment zone."

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from the iron grate above us. A holographic screen exploded in mid-air, glowing with an angry crimson light.

[Discrepancy Log: F-Class Livestock 'Kael' marked for deletion.]

[Resolution: Immediate Execution.]

"Hey! Who's down there?" a raspy voice yelled from the shadows at the far end of the chamber. A massive iron portcullis began to grind upward, revealing a wide, circular pit lit by flickering green braziers. "They threw more meat into my cage? Excellent! I need more fuel for the fire!"

A towering man stepped into the green light. He wore cracked, elegant platinum armor, but it was caked in grime and dried blood. His hair was a wild, matted mane, and his eyes burned with a manic, purple light. A high-level Tier-E heavy greatsword dragged on the floor behind him, leaving a trail of sparks.

"A Noble?" the scarred leader whispered, his teeth chattering as he raised his rusted sword. "That’s Lord Alden. He was exiled last month for killing his own household. He's completely mad from System corruption!"

"Look at his blade," the woman hissed, backing away until her spine hit the wall. "It’s glowing. He has standard high-level skills. We’re dead. We’re just bugs to him!"

"Get back," I ordered, my eyes narrowing behind the mask. "Keep your mouths shut and stay in the shadows of the pillars."

"You think you can face him alone, trash?" Alden roared, his voice cracking with insane laughter as he leveled his glowing greatsword at me. "I was a Peer of the Realm! I held the Flame-Burst skill! The Deities tried to lock me away, but they keep sending me toys to break! What’s that on your face, boy? A mask? Let me carve it off!"

"You talk too much for a corpse," I said, stepping forward into the circular pit. I kept my body low, utilizing the heavy shadows cast by the monolithic stone pillars to obscure my frame.

"Arrogant livestock!" Alden screamed. He slammed his foot into the ground. [Skill Activated: Flame-Burst Stride.]

The stone beneath his boots erupted in a shockwave of thermal energy. He blurred, traveling across the fifty-foot pit in a fraction of a second, his greatsword swinging down in a massive, overhead arc meant to split me from head to toe.

"Die!" he bellowed.

"Too rigid," I muttered.

System, activate the Raven’s Eye.

[Raven’s Eye: Operational.]

[Mana Circuit Mapping: Initializing...]

The world didn't slow down this time, but Alden’s body became transparent in my vision. I could see the glowing, volatile purple lines of his internal mana circuit. The energy was pooling heavily in his right shoulder, driving the massive downward swing, but the connection to his left knee was completely severed by corruption. A massive blind spot.

Instead of parrying or rolling backward like a standard gladiator, I stepped directly forward, slipping inside the guard of his massive blade. My shoulder grazed his breastplate as the greatsword slammed into the stone behind me, shattering the floor.

"What?!" Alden gasped, his mad eyes widening as his swing hit nothing but air. "Where did you—"

"Your left side is wide open, 'My Lord,'" I whispered.

I drove the Broken Tooth of the Star-Devourer upward, targeting the exact node where his purple mana lines crossed near his hip. The jagged bone weapon cut through his platinum armor like wet parchment, severing the circuit instantly.

"Aaagh!" Alden screamed, stumbling backward, his left leg buckling as the glowing purple energy in his armor sputtered and died. "What did you do to my mana? My skills... I can't feel my skills!"

"You're not a warrior anymore," I said, circling him in the shadows, my bare feet making no sound on the rubble. "You're just a broken engine running on fumes."

From the edge of the pit, the scarred leader let out a stunned laugh. "He... he actually disabled a Noble in one strike! Look at him! Alden can barely hold the sword!"

"Shut up, Henry!" the woman hissed, though her eyes were glued to my movements. "Don't distract him!"

Alden clutched his bleeding hip, his face contorting from madness to absolute, suicidal malice. He dropped his greatsword, the heavy metal clattering against the stones. "You think you've won, livestock? You think you can humiliate me and walk out of this pit? No. No! If the Deities won't let me have my title, I'll take this entire block to hell with me!"

"Kael!" the woman screamed. "Look at his chest! It’s expanding!"

Alden’s chest plate began to crack as a blinding, unstable purple light radiated from his sternum. The air in the chamber grew intensely hot, the green torches blowing backward from the pressure.

"He’s not trying to fight!" the scarred leader yelled in terror, dropping his sword and clawing at the iron portcullis behind them. "He’s detonating his core! It’s a Tier-E Core Collapse! Run! We have to get out of here!"

"The gates are locked!" the woman cried, slamming her fists against the stone. "We're trapped! The whole sub-basement is going to blow!"

"Hahaha!" Alden roared, blood pouring from his eyes and mouth as his body began to dissolve into pure, volatile energy. "Five seconds, trash! Five seconds and we are all ash! Tell the Architects that Lord Alden spit in their faces!"

The blast radius was expanding, a wall of cracking purple plasma threatening to vaporize everything within a hundred yards. The two slaves collapsed to their knees, covering their faces, waiting for the end.

I didn't run. I took three deliberate steps forward, right into the searing heat of the detonation zone. My skin began to blister, the agonizing pain shooting through my weak, regressed nerves like liquid fire.

"Kael! Are you insane?" the woman shrieked through her fingers. "Get back!"

"System," I growled through the gritted teeth of my mask, my soul roaring over the sound of the crackling plasma. "Open Void Reliquary. Retrieve Conceptual Asset: The Devourer’s Funnel."

[Processing...]

[Warning: Conceptual Item requires dense soul storage. Current physical frame may experience severe trauma.]

"Do it anyway," I hissed.

A twisted, obsidian horn—shaped like a whirlpool and covered in ancient, weeping runes—manifested in my right hand. The moment it appeared, the air around it began to warp, drawing the light toward its center.

"What is that?" Alden’s voice was a distorted, overlapping echo as his physical form completely turned into a sphere of pure explosion. "No! What are you doing? The blast... why isn't it expanding?!"

"Because I'm thirsty," I said.

I thrust the mouth of the obsidian funnel directly into the center of the blinding purple core.

SLURP.

A sound like a massive vacuum cleaner echoing through a cavern ripped through the chamber. The expanding wall of plasma didn't detonate outward; it was forcibly bent, dragged backward, and sucked into the narrow mouth of the funnel in a violent, swirling vortex.

"No! My power! My death!" Alden’s fading voice screamed as his entire volatile essence was unraveled like thread, disappearing into the obsidian artifact. "You're... you're a monster! A real monster!"

The light snapped out. The chamber returned to the dim, green torchlight. Alden was gone, leaving nothing but a pile of scorched platinum dust on the floor.

But the real crisis was just beginning. The funnel in my hand turned red-hot, dissolving directly into my palm as the volatile, unrefined energy of a Tier-E Noble’s core flooded into my F-Class body all at once.

"Aaargh!" I collapsed to one knee, my veins bulging against my skin, glowing a terrifying, violent purple. My muscles tore and remade themselves in milliseconds. Blood erupted from my nose and ears as my soul tier violently bucked against the massive influx of raw power.

[System Alert: High-Density Energy Absorbed.]

[Forced Evolution Initiated...]

[Warning: Physical frame structural integrity at 4%.]

"Kael!" The woman ran forward, stopping a few feet away, terrified to touch the electrical arcs leaping from my skin. "Kael, look at me! You're burning up! Your mask is cracking!"

"Don't... touch me," I gasped out, the agony so intense my vision was fading into pure white. I gripped my chest, forcing the stolen energy down into my core, refining it through sheer, brutal willpower. "If you touch me... you'll dissolve."

"What do we do?" the scarred leader asked, his voice shaking as he looked at the glowing purple cracks spreading across the stone floor beneath my knee. "The whole room is vibrating. Is he going to explode too?"

"No," I growled, my teeth cracking under the pressure as I forced my eyes open. My pupils were gone, replaced by twin pools of burning, unstable purple fire. "I'm going... to level up."

The iron grate above us suddenly shattered, and four high-level Arbiters dressed in black executioner robes dropped into the pit, their silver halberds drawn, their faces hidden behind metallic visors.

"The discrepancy is still alive," the lead Arbiter stated, his voice devoid of emotion as he looked at my radiating body. "The livestock has consumed the asset. Eradicate them all."

I slowly pushed myself up from the stone, the purple fire rolling off my shoulders like a cloak, the pain formatting into pure, destructive strength.

"You're too late," I whispered, a jagged, manic grin forming beneath the bleeding mask. "The kitchen is closed."