Chapter 118: The Scum Canyon and the Web of Shadows
The night sky over the continent was not a mantle of peace; it was an ocean of violent Qi currents and lethal temperatures that would tear apart any mortal daring to ascend beyond the clouds. However, for the formation cutting through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds, the razor-sharp wind was nothing more than an inconsequential breeze.
Samael Morningstar led the flight. He did not use flying artifacts or tamed beasts. He moved using the pure tyranny of his Law of the Void, nullifying air friction and gravity itself around him. At his back, maintaining a perfect diamond formation, flew Kael, Eris, Violeta, Elara, and Malak.
The General of Shadows, Malak, had enveloped the squad in a dome of absolute darkness. To any Qi radar, sectarian detection array, or scouting beast looking up at the sky, there was nothing there but the void of the night. They were ghosts crossing the firmament, bearers of a surgical apocalypse.
Samael kept his gaze fixed on the southwestern horizon. Beneath the sleeve of his black robe, the skin of his forearm tensed. If anyone had been close enough, they would have seen that it was not human muscle marking itself beneath the dermis, but a geometric, perfect pattern of stellar scales, black and speckled with violet dots. The Primordial Dragon lineage throbbed in silence, eager to tear, but the Patriarch's mind kept it chained with an iron discipline.
In the inscrutable depth of his crimson-violet eyes, Samael was not looking at the physical landscape; he was tuned to a frequency that bordered on blasphemy against natural laws. A single golden thread, fragile and flickering, stretched across the continent until it vanished into the arid southwestern mountains. The thread represented the destiny of the anomaly the System had detected, the candidate for the Tenth Sequence. And with every kilometer they devoured, Samael could see how the black and dark blue corruption climbed up the gold of that destiny, suffocating it. Time was running out.
"We are crossing the border of the Southern Badlands," Violeta reported through the squad's mental link, her diamond-blue eye shining in the dark as she processed the geographic coordinates. "The topography is changing. Altitude descent recommended."
"Let's descend," Samael ordered, his mental voice echoing cold and clear in the minds of his vanguard. "The target is anchored in the geographic rift ahead of us."
The squad plummeted, piercing the layer of dense, arid southern clouds. What appeared before them was not a citadel built with the pride of an empire, nor a shining metropolis. It was a scar on the face of the earth.
Golden City.
The name was the continent's greatest irony. The city was built inside an immense dry canyon, a geological abyss that plunged kilometers into the earth. There were no traditional defensive walls; the canyon's own vertical walls served as a barrier. The architecture was vertical chaos: bridges of rotten wood and rusted iron crossed the abyss, connecting thousands of structures carved directly into the living rock.
From above, the city looked like a glowing hornets' nest. The light did not come from elegant spiritual formations, but from chemical fire torches, industrial forges spewing black smoke, and low-purity Qi crystals emitting a sickly yellowish glow.
The smell reached them even before they landed. A nauseating mixture of dried blood, sulfur, cheap spices, sweat, and the characteristic rot of places where human life is worth no more than the sand on the ground. Golden City was the cesspool of the world. Mercenaries, renegade sectarians, hired assassins, deserters from imperial armies, and slave merchants... all the scum expelled by the light of the orthodox sects ended up accumulating at the bottom of this canyon.
Samael halted his descent on a rocky ledge a kilometer from the canyon's edge, hidden by the night and Malak's veil. The squad landed behind him without making a single sound.
"That place is a tumor," Eris murmured, looking at the illuminated abyss. Her heterochromia shone with instinctive hatred. The veins in her neck reddened slightly as her Flame of Ruin, now stabilized and pure, demanded to get out and purge the rot. "We should burn it from up here and save ourselves the walk. Going down there is getting our boots dirty."
"Blind destruction is the resort of the weak, Eris," Samael reprimanded her gently, without taking his eyes off the underground city. "Burning the canyon would destroy the piece we came to claim. The golden thread sinks into the very core of that pit. They are holding an auction on the lowest level. The Abyssal Black Market. That is where the scum gathers to divide their spoils."
Samael turned to look at his squad. His presence, though contained at Stage 3 of the Saint Realm, was so dense that Kael and the girls felt the instinctive need to bow their heads.
"The objective is not immediate eradication. It is infiltration, isolation, and surgical execution." Samael raised a hand and pointed at Violeta and Elara. "Violeta, Elara. You two are the invisible net. You won't enter through the main routes. Use the shadows and spatial superposition. Descend to the foundations of the auction building. I want you to identify the security vaults, the underground escape routes, and the blind spots of their defensive arrays. If anyone tries to flee with high-value merchandise when the chaos begins, it will be your job to slit their throats in the dark."
"Understood, Patriarch," Elara said, drawing two of her matte obsidian daggers. Her body began to turn hazy, her edges blurring until she became an optical illusion.
"No distance will stop us," Violeta added. With an elegant motion, she placed a hand on Elara's shoulder. The space around them did not tear or emit light; it simply "folded." A crease in the fabric of reality enveloped them and, in the blink of an eye, both disappeared from the ledge, skipping kilometers of physical space to materialize in the depths of the canyon.
Samael directed his attention to the colossus of black smoke floating to his left. "General Malak."
The two orbs of icy blue will-o'-the-wisp fire in Malak's empty hood shone with intensity.
"Your hundred shadows are thirsty, Sovereign," Malak's cavernous voice resonated directly in Samael's mind.
"Deploy them. Surround the Abyssal Auction House. Seal the outer perimeter. Cut communications, silence the rooftop sentries, and block all physical exits. When I give the order, no one inside that building will ever see the sunlight again."
Malak did not nod. He simply raised his empty hand, and from his immense mantle of black smoke, dozens of two-dimensional silhouettes began to detach. They looked like black paper cutouts, shadows with no thickness that slid down the canyon rock like spilled drops of ink. In seconds, the hundred silent shadows vanished into the city, an invisible plague of perfect assassins.
Samael was left alone with Kael and Eris.
"The three of us will walk through the front door," Samael said, adjusting the cuffs of his robe. "We won't hide. We will enter as if we were the masters of the continent walking among insects. Kael, Eris. Keep your auras at Stage 9 of the Origin Realm. Let them feel the danger, but let their ignorance allow them to believe they can handle us."
Kael smiled, a predatory grin baring his teeth. His left hand rested on the dragon-bone pommel of his immense Magma Fang, sheathed on his back.
"It will be a pleasure, Patriarch."
The descent down the canyon's endless bridges and stairs was an exhibition of restrained tension. As Samael, Kael, and Eris descended level after level, the air quality worsened, but the corrupt opulence increased. The upper levels were slums for beggars and low-ranking assassins. But at the bottom of the abyss, carved into the bedrock and protected by immense black iron doors reinforced with blood runes, lay the mercenary lords' district.
Here there was no mud, but polished stone tiles stained with unidentifiable fluids. Guards in heavy steel armor, many of them in the middle stages of the Origin Realm, patrolled the streets.
When the Morningstar trio stepped onto the main plaza at the bottom of the canyon, the atmosphere changed.
Vulgar conversations died down. Slave merchants and hired thugs, who would normally pick a fight with any outsider, instinctively stepped aside. There was something profoundly unnatural about the three newcomers. They carried no massive escort or emblems of great sects, but they walked with the uprightness of those who own the world. Kael emanated a brutal density, like a volcano about to erupt; Eris radiated a dry heat that parched the throats of those who stared at her too long; and Samael, in the center, was a well of unfathomable calm, an absence of pressure that was more terrifying than any display of strength.
Before them stood the Abyssal Auction House.
It was a colossal building, carved into the rock wall, supported by black marble columns depicting chained demons. The immense double doors were flanked by two terrifying tamed beasts: Rank 4 Manticore Lions, creatures capable of snapping a Stage 5 Origin cultivator in half.
Twelve elite guards blocked the entrance, led by a bald captain with a scar across his face, at Stage 8 of the Origin Realm.
"The Black Lotus auction has already begun," the captain barked, crossing his heavy halberd in front of Samael. "Restricted access. Only members with a blood invitation or Patriarchs of recognized factions. Turn around before my pets feed."
The Manticore Lions growled, baring rows of slavering fangs, and took a step toward the trio.
Samael did not stop. He didn't slow his pace a single millimeter. He didn't even look at the captain. His crimson and violet eyes briefly focused on the yellow eyes of the two immense beasts.
Samael released a drop, a microscopic fraction, of his Primordial Breath.
Atavistic terror is not something reasoned; it is suffered at a cellular level. The Manticore Lions, apex predators on the southern plains, felt the pressure of the Primordial Dragon lineage. The effect was instantaneous. The growls choked in their throats. The immense beasts collapsed on their stomachs, whimpering, pressing their heads against the stone tiles, urinating out of pure terror.
The captain and his guards paled, stumbling backward over their own feet upon seeing their biological weapons subdued by a mere glance.
"Your invitation just expired," Kael said, stepping forward and releasing a shockwave of his Sovereign's Will that pinned the captain against the iron door, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
Samael walked right through the paralyzed guards as if they were pillars of salt. Eris followed him, pausing for a second in front of the suffocated captain.
"You should learn to distinguish who you're barking at, dog," Eris whispered to him, and her crimson-red eye gleamed. The metal of the captain's halberd heated up instantly, forcing him to drop it with a scream of pain from the second-degree burns on his palms.
The black iron doors swung wide open.
The interior of the Auction House was a cavernous, imposing amphitheater, illuminated by immense crystal chandeliers floating on the ceiling, powered by amber-light spiritual stones. The place reeked of expensive perfume, nervous sweat, and greed.
The lower tiers were packed with hundreds of cultivators: minor clan leaders, independent assassins, merchants of death, and high-level criminals. Many wore masks or hoods to hide their identity. But the true power lay in the VIP boxes, carved into the rock of the upper walls, hidden behind silk curtains and soundproofing formations.
Samael did not head for the common tiers. He walked straight toward the obsidian staircase leading to the upper boxes. An auction attendant, dressed in an overly adorned tailcoat, tried to intercept him.
"S-Sir, those boxes are reserved for..."
Samael didn't speak. He flicked his index finger, and a High-Grade spiritual stone—a pure, apple-sized crystal radiating immense, vital Qi, stolen from the Inquisitors' vaults—shot out of his spatial ring, striking the attendant's chest with enough force to knock him to the ground, but without injuring him.
The attendant looked at the crystal, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets. A High-Grade stone was enough to buy a small fiefdom.
"The center box," Kael ordered with a hoarse voice. "And bring us the catalog. Now."
The attendant stumbled to his feet, nodding fervently, his loyalty bought in an instant. He guided Samael, Kael, and Eris to the largest and most opulent box in the amphitheater, suspended directly above the main stage.
Samael sat in the black wood and velvet chair, crossing one leg over the other with the relaxed elegance of a monarch. Kael positioned himself behind his right shoulder, standing with his arms crossed, an unmoving mountain of tactical threat. Eris sat to Samael's left, leaning over the marble railing, her eyes evaluating the scum gathered below with a mix of boredom and disgust.
"Perimeter secured, Patriarch," Violeta's voice echoed in the telepathic link, crisp and cold. "Elara has marked the vault guards. Malak confirms that the shadows have sealed the building's fourteen exits. No one will escape."
"Hold position," Samael replied mentally. "Await my signal. The thread of destiny is still throbbing. Our target has not yet taken the stage."
Down below, on the illuminated stage, the auction was in full swing.
The auctioneer was a thin man, extravagantly dressed in a multi-colored snake scale coat. He held a microphone imbued with sonic Qi that projected his greasy voice throughout the amphitheater.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen! The night is just beginning at the Black Lotus!" shouted the auctioneer, rubbing his hands together. "What we have next is not for the faint of heart or the empty of pockets. Bring out the first treasure of the prime hour!"
Four muscular slaves pushed a heavy steel cart to the center of the stage. Upon it rested a crystal pedestal, and inside the crystal, a horrendous-looking plant. It was a lotus, but its petals seemed to be made of coagulated, throbbing flesh, emitting a reddish mist that corroded the glass containing it.
"The Corrupted Blood Lotus!" the auctioneer announced with theatricality. "Extracted from the very depths of the Swamp of Oblivion, near the territories of the dreaded Sleeping King. A Peak Origin Grade spiritual herb. Yes, it's toxic to orthodox practitioners, but for a poison master or a cultivator of blood arts, this is a direct ticket to the peak stage of the Origin Realm!"
A murmur of morbid excitement rippled through the stands.
Samael observed the plant with utter disdain. Saint and Divine Grade treasures rested in his inventory; that lotus was nothing more than a weed to him. However, what interested him was not the object, but who desired it.
"We'll start the bidding at five hundred Medium-Grade Stones!" barked the auctioneer.
Paddles began to rise.
"Six hundred!" shouted a burly man wrapped in bandages from the stands.
"Seven hundred!" offered a woman with a tattooed face.
From one of the VIP boxes located opposite Samael's, an icy, arrogant voice cut through the noise. The silk curtains parted slightly, revealing an old man dressed in pristine deep purple robes, the emblem of a crescent moon embroidered in silver on his chest.
"One thousand five hundred Medium-Grade Stones," the old man said, his voice laden with a Stage 7 Origin aura that silenced the rabble below. "And I recommend that no one try to outbid me. My sect has no patience for beggars' games."
Kael tensed slightly behind Samael.
"Purple Light Sect," Kael whispered, his voice a harsh hiss. "Orthodox elders, supposed beacons of morality, coming to a mercenary cesspit to buy forbidden blood herbs on the black market. Disgusting hypocrites."
Samael didn't blink. The hypocrisy of the great sects was nothing new to him; it was an empirical fact of human nature.
"Let them fatten their pockets and their egos, Kael," Samael replied in a low voice, taking a glass of dark red wine from the tray the terrified attendant had left on the table. "The more of our enemies present in this room, the more efficient the extermination will be when we close the doors."
No one dared bid against the Purple Light Sect. The old man took the lotus with an arrogant smile.
The auction continued with terrifying speed, revealing the moral rot of Golden City.
A batch of bloodstained cultivation manuals was auctioned off, clearly looted from massacred minor clans. Then, they brought out a spiritual beast: a Nine-Tailed Fox cub, chained and gagged with silver to suppress its Qi. The creature whimpered in terror as the mercenaries bid on it—not to tame it, but to skin it and sell its magical pelt or extract its inner core.
Eris gripped the marble railing with such force that the stone began to crack under her fingers.
"Patriarch..." her voice trembled with restrained fury. Seeing the blatant cruelty ignited her destructive nature. "Give me the order. Let me burn this platform and everyone who's clapping. I can incinerate them before they blink."
Samael placed a firm, cold hand on Eris's shoulder.
"Patience, Eris. Hasty anger is a waste of energy. A Dragon does not breathe fire for every ant that bites. Save your Flame of Ruin. You are going to need it."
The auctioneer returned to the center of the stage. The amphitheater's lights dimmed, and two harsh white spotlights focused on the platform. Silence fell over the crowd; everyone knew the moment for the main event had arrived.
"My esteemed lords of darkness," the auctioneer's voice dropped, adopting a conspiratorial and ecstatic tone. "We have reached the climax of the evening. We have sold weapons, poisons, and beasts. But what I bring you tonight as the Final Lot is something that defies comprehension. Something the great orthodox sects would pay untold fortunes to hide or destroy, and that true connoisseurs would kill to possess."
The heavy black curtain behind the auctioneer slowly began to rise. The sound of heavy chains dragging against cold metal echoed in the dead silence of the amphitheater.
In the VIP box, Samael Morningstar leaned forward slightly.
Beneath his robe, the scales of his lineage seemed to contract. In his spiritual vision, the golden thread of destiny, which had been agonizing for hours, throbbed with a desperate and erratic force in the center of the stage, on the verge of turning a dark, deadly blue.
"The main course is served," Samael murmured, and his crown's Halo of Calm shone with absolute coldness. "Kael. Prepare to draw."
The metallic sound of the Magma Fang sliding one centimeter out of its sheath was the only warning that the storm was about to be unleashed upon Golden City.