Chapter 54: This Core Trait, I’ll Take It Myself
The instant the twenty rockets brought down the entrance to the western fissure, the Ghost Leviathan heaved its massive body upward.
Boulders rolled beneath its belly.
It did not look back.
It only climbed.
If it cleared the collapsed rock, there was still open ground beyond the fissure.
But before the first section of its body could rise over the blockage, twelve streaks of golden lightning were already on it.
"Thunder Javelin."
Sigrid did not raise her voice.
Twelve spears left Stormlance hands almost at the same instant.
BOOM—!
The first punched into the Ghost Leviathan beneath its left abdominal fin.
The second struck just behind it.
The third landed half a meter higher.
The other nine did not spread out.
Every one of them hammered the same section.
Ghost-blue scales burst apart in rapid succession.
The Ghost Leviathan’s enormous body twisted violently in midair.
The volley did not knock it down outright.
But its rising retreat stalled for one instant.
Aurelia was above its head before that instant ended.
Her silver-white light-wings spread to their full span.
Lightning compressed into a ring along her sword.
[Thunder Crown]
BOOM!
The Ghost Leviathan’s pale humanlike face snapped to the side under the direct hit.
The Ghostwater Field shuddered with it.
It did not disappear.
But for the first time, the pressure that had covered the entire western line evenly developed a brief gap.
"Left."
Cassian spoke once.
Aurelia did not keep pressing the head.
She cut left immediately.
The Ghost Leviathan twisted the other way exactly as Cassian expected.
Veyra was already waiting there.
Crimson Oath was still only a thin line of dark red in her hand.
But as the seven Eclipse Chains behind her pulled taut, another weapon took shape in her palm.
Black.
Long and narrow.
The spearhead seemed to drag the light around it inward.
Eclipse Spear.
Cassian glanced at her.
Veyra did not look back.
"Just block it."
"I know."
The next second, Eclipse Spear came down.
Not at the Ghost Leviathan’s head.
It struck directly into the path the monster was about to cross.
BOOM—!
The black spearhead drove into the ground.
The western side of the broken-stone basin seemed to pin itself in place beneath an invisible weight.
The Ghost Leviathan stopped hard just as it tried to turn across that line.
It had not collided with the spear.
It stopped itself.
It could judge danger too.
That hesitation was enough.
"Enough."
Veyra gave the single word.
Eclipse Spear began to fade.
She did not keep burning power for a second strike.
The final kill was not hers.
Aurelia did not follow with Skyblade Descent either.
She only pressed down from above, cutting off the angle the Ghost Leviathan needed to climb again.
The twelve Stormlance kept pouring lightning into the gap their first volley had torn open.
The Ghost Leviathan finally turned.
For the first time, that enormous pale face looked directly at Cassian.
A heavier ring of ghost-blue pressure exploded outward.
The Ghostwater Field tightened sharply.
The loose stone closest to it sank into the ground.
Cassian’s legs grew heavy.
His forward speed dropped at once.
Aurelia’s expression changed.
"Cassian."
"No need."
Predator Step.
Cassian blurred forward in one short burst.
He did not try to cross the whole distance in a single rush.
The closer he moved to the Ghost Leviathan, the heavier the Ghostwater Field became.
By the third step, raw speed was no longer enough to force his way through.
The Ghost Leviathan clearly understood that too.
Its huge head suddenly drove downward.
Not a bite.
A collision.
Cassian did not retreat.
Dread Mantle spread across his left shoulder and chest in an instant.
BANG!
The thin black layer shattered on impact.
Cassian slid two meters backward.
His boots carved two long grooves through the broken stone.
But he stayed upright.
Along the Ghost Leviathan’s abdomen, the opening torn by twelve Thunder Javelins was now fully exposed.
There was no bone beneath it.
Only a mass of ghost-blue tissue contracting again and again.
That was what Cassian had been waiting for.
He moved forward again.
Ten meters.
Seven.
Four.
The Ghostwater Field pressed against him like the weight of an invisible ocean.
At the same time, the Ghost Leviathan began pulling its body back in, trying to cover the opening again.
Cassian planted one foot.
[Ground Anchor I]
The outward drag did not vanish.
The loose stone still rolled away behind him.
Cassian did not go with it.
His right foot carved backward by less than half a boot length.
That half-beat was enough.
He drove his short sword all the way beneath the broken scales.
No pause.
His wrist turned.
The blade cut into the ghost-blue core.
The Ghost Leviathan’s enormous body locked rigid.
For the first time, the Ghostwater Field broke completely.
Every movement that had been slowed around it returned to normal at once.
Cassian did not pull the blade out.
He drove it another inch deeper.
The ghost-blue light went dark.
[You personally killed Ghost Leviathan.]
[Quality: Legendary | Level: 20]
[DEVOUR condition satisfied.]
Cassian did not even look at the drops that followed.
This was the line he had been waiting for.
[Devourable Core Trait detected: Abyssal Pressure.]
"Devour."
Fine ghost-blue threads pulled free from the dead Leviathan’s core.
They did not fly toward the Oath Hall.
They did not fall onto any Troop.
They went straight into Cassian’s chest.
A flash of cold passed through him.
Then he heard his own heartbeat.
Once.
Twice.
The air within a few meters of him seemed heavier than the air beyond it.
[DEVOUR complete.]
[Abyssal Pressure I]
[Actively projects a short-range pressure field centered on the user, continuously suppressing the movement and power circulation of hostile units within range.]
[Suppression increases with proximity to the user.]
This was not the Ghost Leviathan’s Domain-spanning Field.
Cassian had never expected to swallow the full scale of a Legendary Level 20 creature in one bite.
He simply looked to his right.
The Wild Tide Lure had not fully ended yet.
A Rare wild beast had already broken past the second line and was lunging out from behind the broken stone.
Cassian did not move.
[Abyssal Pressure I]
The moment the wild beast entered close range, its lunge visibly lost speed.
Its limbs were still driving forward.
But the force behind them seemed to sink into invisible deep water before it could fully release.
Cassian stepped aside.
His short sword went up beneath its jaw.
The corpse rolled past him.
Veyra had already dismissed Eclipse Spear.
She looked at the Rare wild beast.
Then at Cassian.
"Got it?"
"Got it."
"So was the Lure worth it?"
Cassian flicked the blood from his short sword.
"Worth it."
Veyra gave a quiet snort.
"That answer sounds better now."
After the Ghost Leviathan died, nothing else of the same tier came out of the western fissure.
The remaining wild monsters were still being dragged toward the marker by the Lure.
But the most dangerous thing in the area was already dead.
Veyra took the Eclipse line back over.
Aurelia and the Stormlance began clearing the high-grade targets that had crossed the first line.
The eleven Highbloods kept suppressing Rare monsters from both flanks.
The twenty Rocketiers did not fire a second Rocket Salvo.
There was no need.
Five minutes later, the final wild monster affected by the Lure fell.
The dark-red marker dispersed completely.
The broken-stone basin finally went quiet.
The four Blackfang Cassian had called back into the Domain returned to their external patrol route.
The outermost damaged section of wall was gone.
Several deep grooves cut across the edge of the Muster Hall training ground.
Seven Legionnaires needed full recovery.
There were other light injuries.
No deaths.
Veyra walked the length of the new shield line once.
She did not praise it.
She did not call the test a success either.
She stopped in front of the collapsed section of old wall.
"If you hadn’t deliberately pulled the first line back, this wouldn’t have fallen."
"Yeah."
"But if the real battle brings suppression that hits faster than Ghostwater Field did, the first rotation will slow down."
Cassian looked at the Legionnaires already recovering inside the Aether Mist.
"Then we fix what we can before tomorrow."
Veyra looked at him.
"That hundred-thousand reserve?"
"Not yet."
"The one we just killed will pay for it."
Only then did the system settlement arrive in full.
[Ghost Leviathan Kill Reward]
[Battle Essence +640,000]
[Aether Crystal +280,000]
[Legendary Building Blueprint: Abyssal Dockyard ×1]
[Advanced Attribute Tome ×1 | Bound]
Cassian checked the Blueprint first.
[Abyssal Dockyard]
[Quality: Legendary]
[Requires a construction boundary connected to a large deep-water area.]
Forgotten Shrine did not have one.
And Cassian had no idea what kind of terrain tomorrow’s Regional Boundary would give him.
He could not build it now.
That did not make a Legendary Blueprint useless.
Its turn simply had not come yet.
Cassian put it into storage.
Then he picked up the Bound Tome.
No trading permission.
No transfer value.
Its function was much simpler.
[After use: Free Attribute +20]
"Use."
Light flowed into his body.
[Free Attribute: 20 → 40]
Cassian did not assign the points yet.
He had not seen the enemies from the formal battle.
He could decide where the real gap was after he saw them.
Then the remaining settlement from the Lure wave finished compiling.
[Battle Essence +410,000]
[Aether Crystal +48,000]
His Aether rose from 10,466 to 338,466.
The Battle Essence gained from this fight totaled exactly 1,050,000.
Veyra looked at the two settlements.
"Ready to spend now?"
"I’ll spend the new income."
Cassian opened the growth panels.
First group.
[Eclipse Legionnaire ×200]
[Level: 2 → 5]
[Battle Essence: 360,000]
Second group.
[Eclipse Praetorian ×9]
[Level: 2 → 5]
[Battle Essence: 54,000]
Finally.
[Stormlance Valkyrie ×12]
[Level: 7 → 10]
[Battle Essence: 216,000]
630,000 total.
It came directly out of the 1,050,000 Battle Essence they had just gained from this fight.
After the upgrades, 420,000 of that new income remained.
The 100,000 Cassian had already marked as an emergency reserve stayed untouched.
Columns of growth light rose across Forgotten Shrine one after another.
The two hundred Legionnaires first.
Then the nine Praetorians.
Finally, the twelve Stormlance.
When the light settled over Sigrid’s spear, the lightning around it was steadier than it had been that afternoon.
No new skill notification appeared.
No one suddenly crossed into a higher Quality.
He had simply brought the units that were lagging behind his high-grade core up to a more suitable level.
Veyra swept her eyes over the entire Eclipse formation.
"At least you didn’t empty yourself out this time."
"Tomorrow doesn’t end after one wave."
"I know."
She paused.
"That hundred thousand is still staying there?"
"It stays."
"Fine."
She did not ask again.
Cassian was not preserving that number just to make the balance look safe.
He still had not seen the real Regional Boundary.
That hundred thousand existed for whatever he saw after he got there.
Before dinner, the number of qualified Regional Warden participants reached thirty-three.
At 21:00:
[Rank III Qualified: 79 / 100]
The Regional Channel had actually grown quieter than it had been that afternoon.
Most of the materials that could be bought had already been bought.
Buildings that could be accelerated were already being accelerated.
Everyone was watching the final twenty-one slots.
At 23:42, the golden announcement finally arrived.
[Regional Warden Contest opening condition satisfied.]
[Rank III Qualified: 100 / 100]
[Regional Boundary Defense will officially begin tomorrow at 09:00.]
[Participant list locked.]
Outside the Oath Hall, Veyra looked up at the time.
"Finally."
Cassian looked at her.
"This time I didn’t say there might be another hidden restriction."
"Because you’ve already finished reading them."
"Right."
Veyra smiled once.
Then she turned toward the Muster Hall.
"No more extra training tonight."
Cassian raised a brow.
"You’re saying that?"
"I’m saying it."
"Tomorrow, the whole Domain goes with us."
She did not look back.
"My line goes in at full strength."
Cassian glanced toward the quiet western side.
The Ghost Leviathan’s corpse was still being processed.
Abyssal Pressure was already his.
The Lure had given him his answer.
Tomorrow at nine.
No more tests.