Chapter 57: BREAKING THE ANCIENT SEAL
The air above Sector 1 violently twisted as Renan raised his palm.
Down in the deepest subterranean level of the Association Tower—sixty feet beneath the shattered concrete foundation—the massive, rust-caked iron doors of the Vault of the Forgotten Monarch began to vibrate with terrifying force. The ancient runes carved into the threshold, designed to hold back the abyssal tide for millennia, flared in a desperate, blinding golden light before cracking like brittle glass under the sheer weight of Renan’s Monarch mana.
[Skill Activated: ’Sovereign Force Extraction’]
Target: Tier-EX Ancient Abyssal Rift Seal
Action: Forced Dimensional Rupture
Mana Consumption: 10,000 / 24,000 Points
BOOOOOM!
A localized shockwave tore through the bedrock beneath the Capital City, sending tremors through the 50-story skyscraper. Deep within the earth, the massive iron chains binding the ancient gate shattered simultaneously into thousands of jagged shrapnel pieces.
The dormant rift didn’t just open—it exploded outward.
A massive, hundred-foot-wide geyser of raw, violet-black abyssal energy erupted from the subterranean vault, shooting straight up through the elevator shafts and blasting through the rooftop glass dome where Renan stood. The sky above Sector 1 was instantly consumed by a roaring storm of dark purple lightning and swirling spatial rifts.
[System Alert: NATIONAL-CLASS DUNGEON BREAK INITIATED!]
Rift Classification: Tier-EX Abyssal Abyss
Estimated Monster Density: 50,000+ Ancient Abyssal Entities
Primary Boss Entity: ’The Void-Eater Leviathan’ (Level: Calamity)
Dimensional Barrier: Permanently Broken!
ROOOOOAAAR!
A chorus of tens of thousands of screeching, gut-wrenching roars echoed from the pitch-black void opening above the tower. From the sky-high spatial rift poured a monstrous, endless tide of ancient abyssal beasts—winged shadow gargoyles with razor-sharp scythe wings, colossal iron-scaled wyverns, and giant void-crawlers with hundreds of razor-like legs.
The long-awaited National-Class Dungeon Break—the very event the World Hunter Federation predicted would take three days to naturally occur—had been forcefully triggered by Renan in broad daylight.
Down in the central plaza of the Capital, the 9,500 units of the Shadow Legion didn’t flinch. Their glowing golden eyes turned upward toward the descending wave of abyssal monsters, their phantom weapons drawn in disciplined, absolute readiness.
"My Monarch," Shadow General Ignis stepped forward, its massive broadsword ignited in roaring black dragon-fire that reached thirty feet into the air. "The abyssal horde descends upon our domain."
"Let them descend," Renan spoke calmly, his coat fluttering violently in the apocalyptic wind generated by the spatial rupture.
Renan raised his hand, pointing his dark index finger toward the sky.
"This is not a defense," Renan’s double-toned voice boomed, carrying over the deafening roars of fifty thousand monsters. "This is a harvest. Shadow Legion... devour them!"
BOOOOOOM!
The two forces collided in mid-air and across the ruined avenues of Sector 1 with catastrophic violence.
Shadow General Ignis leaped two hundred feet into the sky, swinging its massive flaming broadsword in a three-hundred-sixty-degree arc. A colossal wave of black dragon-fire swept through the air, instantly incinerating a flock of five hundred winged shadow gargoyles into falling ash.
To the east, Shadow Commander Gregory—now an EX-Rank Heavy Tanker—slammed his new phantom broadsword into the asphalt, deploying his enlarged Fortress Domain. A hundred-foot barrier of kinetic force materialized, smashing dozens of swooping iron-scaled wyverns straight down into the concrete where Shadow Commander Sylas and his speedster shadow knights sliced them into pieces in fractions of a second.
Meanwhile, Shadow Commanders Beatrice and Ronald took the high ground atop the surrounding skyscraper ruins. Beatrice unleashed howling tornadoes of pressurized black wind that dragged entire clusters of abyssal beasts into tight, suffocating vacuums, while Ronald cast wide-area dark arcane circles that rained down continuous volleys of destructive purple mana bolts.
The Capital City became an absolute slaughterhouse—not for the humans, but for the ancient abyssal beasts that had slumbered for three thousand years.
Renan stood at the epicenter of the battlefield, hovering in the air above the Association Tower. He didn’t draw a weapon; he simply extended both hands outward, his black Ring of the Sovereign Domain glowing with blinding dark intensity.
[Skill Activated: ’Continuous Mass Extraction’]
Target Area: Capital Sector Airspace & Ground (10km Radius)
Processing Entities: Falling Abyssal Beasts
SWIRL! SWIRL! SWIRL!
As thousands of abyssal beasts were slain by the Shadow Commanders and Shadow Knights, their physical bodies didn’t even hit the pavement. The moment their lives faded, viscous black miasma erupted from their corpses mid-air. Their flesh dissolved into dark particles, immediately reassembling into shadowy spectral forms that turned around mid-flight and attacked their former hive-mates.
For every shadow soldier that fell, three new abyssal shadow beasts rose in its place.
[System Log: Mass Extraction Progress]
Entities Extracted: +2,500 Abyssal Shadow Beasts
Entities Extracted: +4,100 Abyssal Shadow Beasts
Entities Extracted: +6,800 Abyssal Shadow Beasts
[Current Active Shadow Army: 22,900 Units!]
Renan felt the massive, continuous wave of raw stat points flooding through his Monarch core. His veins burned with golden mana as his physical attributes skyrocketed with every second that passed.
[System Stat Bonus: Mass Abyssal Harvest]
+1,200 Strength
+1,100 Agility
+1,400 Vitality
+1,800 Mana
[New Physical Stat Total: 26,350 Points!]
Twenty-six thousand points. The sheer density of Renan’s aura forced the spatial rift above the city to tremble and expand even further.
Suddenly, the sky turned dead silent.
The clouds above Sector 1 parted as a massive, sky-blocking silhouette emerged from the deepest layer of the spatial rift. A colossal, three-headed abyssal dragon—The Void-Eater Leviathan, a Level-Calamity Tier-EX Gate Boss spanning over five hundred meters in length—slithered out of the void, its six glowing crimson eyes locking straight onto Renan.
The Leviathan opened its three colossal jaws, gathering a mountain-sized sphere of compressed, dark-matter energy that threatened to erase the entire Capital Sector from existence.
Renan looked up at the world-ending beast, his glowing golden eyes narrowing into thin, lethal slits.
"You arrived just in time," Renan whispered, stepping forward onto the empty air as dark Monarch armor began to manifest around his chest and arms. "I needed a flagship for my army."