Chapter 144
The dark, watery spatial tear snapped completely shut behind Ayla’s mass with a soft, pressurized click. The freezing, salt-heavy water parameters of the Frozen Sea World of Niflheim instantly vanished, replaced by the clean, perfectly filtered air of her reinforced private residential suite at the Ascendant Academy.
Pop.
Ayla’s translucent blue body materialized smoothly onto the center of the plush training rug. She floated in place for a brief moment, letting her heavy fluid mass settle onto the soft floorboards. Beneath her sleek, glossy surface, her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core was spinning with a massive, thunderous rhythm that radiated a terrifying amount of permanent cosmic pressure. The cathedral-sized core of the Kraken Leviathan had been completely digested, and its raw, unrefined world code was now perfectly anchored within her biological framework. Her internal gold foundation was sitting at an absolute state of maximized overload.
"Finally, back," Ayla muttered flatly to herself, her multi-layered mental voice carrying her standard tone of supreme, unadulterated boredom. "The ocean was a very good kitchen, but the water was entirely too wet."
"Oh, stop complaining, little monster!" Nexus’s voice chimed inside her head, accompanied by a bright, flashing shower of golden digital trophies popping across her right holographic lens. "You just solo-conquered a Class 3 primitive planet and doubled your total internal mana pool capacity within an hour! If the Grand Dean or the division directors saw your current energy density metrics, they would probably pass out on the spot. You are literally pushing the absolute physical boundaries of the Gold Crusader rank tier!"
Ayla rolled forward a few inches, her translucent blue body bouncing softly against the rug. She panned her golden-ringed pupils across her quiet, dimly lit private quarters. Everything was exactly the way she had left it before her secret cosmic hunt. The silver automatic doors were securely locked, and the ambient magical light fixtures were glowing at a comfortable, low intensity.
"Nexus, what time is it?" Ayla asked, her golden eyes narrowing slightly. "Did the academy push the next sector assignments while I was eating the big fish?"
"Let me check the primary administrative network queue," Nexus clicked her digital tongue, a small loading circle spinning over Ayla’s eye for a fraction of a millisecond. "Ah! Look at that. Speak of the devil. The academy administration didn’t just push a normal mission assignment this time, little monster. Because you completely liquidated the entire second-year vanguard alliance in ten minutes, the Crown Council has forcefully intervened in the freshman progression tracks."
Ayla blinked her golden eyes, and a large, glowing crimson notification window instantly expanded in front of her face, displaying the official high-level academy documentation.
[ Master Council Administrative Directive ]
[ Designated Participant: Vanguard Leader Ayla (Class One) ]
[ Mandatory Assignment: The Ashen Crucible Sector — Tier 3 ]
[ Objective: Harvest One Hundred Crown-Grade Spark Crystals from the volcanic core zones. ]
[ Special Parameter: Joint Deployment Authorized. The Student Senate Elite Vanguard Faction will be operating in the same sector parameters simultaneously. ]
[ Administrative Note: By order of Senate President Sylas, all independent solo options for first-year participants are temporarily suspended for this sector to ensure standardized data collection. ]
Ayla read through the glowing crimson text with her usual deadpan, expressionless face. The technical vocabulary about standardized data collection and mandatory joint deployment was completely useless to her, but the mention of a Tier 3 volcanic sector and a hundred Crown-grade spark crystals caused a sudden, sharp ripple of genuine hunger to travel through her glossy blue mass.
"The Ashen Crucible," Ayla murmured inside her mind. "Are the crystals inside that tier going to taste better than the ones from the sky fortress, Nexus?"
"Oh, significantly better!" Nexus explained, her digital tone dropping into a highly amused, conspiratorial whisper. "Crown-grade spark crystals are not artificial simulation toys. They are genuine fragments of raw elemental law that the academy harvests from the core of the planet to power the senior training vaults. But the real catch here is not the crystals, little monster. It is the team allocation."
"The Student Senate," Ayla stated flatly.
"Exactly!" Nexus laughed brightly, a detailed list of senior participant profiles flashing across Ayla’s right vision screen. "Senate President Sylas has purposely assigned his personal elite vanguard squad to coordinate with you in Zone 1. These are not mid-tier second-year weaklings like Tyrok or Draco. These are elite third-year rankers who have already stepped into the half-step Crown Rank boundary. They are coming to this sector with an explicit command to completely lock down your resource distribution and force you into submission."
Ayla’s golden-ringed pupils expanded slightly as she looked through the profiles of the third-year seniors. A dark, predatory light flickered deep within her center, and her five pitch-black claws slowly extended from her front mass for a brief millisecond with a sharp, synchronized metallic click.
"They want to take my crystals," Ayla whispered, her multi-layered mental voice carrying a terrifying, bloodthirsty edge. "If they touch my food, I will just slice their soul containers into pieces and eat their core frameworks together."
"That is exactly the spirit!" Nexus cheered hysterically. "They think they can use their senior political authority and their half-step Crown pressures to tame a primitive monster slime. They have absolutely no idea that you just ate an ancient deep-sea monarch for breakfast. Let’s get a few hours of sleep, little monster. Tomorrow morning, we are going to roll straight into their trap and clear the entire table!"
Ayla let out a slow, compliant ripple, gradually calming her massive internal aura pressure down. She contracted her fluid blue mass into a tight, perfect ball of jelly, resting comfortably on the plush training rug as the brilliant golden light inside her core slowly faded into a quiet, peaceful hum.
The next morning, the grand central pavilion of the Ascendant Academy was filled with an incredibly tense, suffocating atmosphere. The heavy silver gates that led to the advanced Tier 3 transit pads were thrown open, and thousands of students from the higher academic years were gathered in dense groups around the platform edges.
Standing directly in front of the primary Tier 3 teleportation array was a highly organized group of five third-year senior students. They did not wear the standard crimson armor of the dragon faction or the heavy iron plates of the shield units. Instead, they wore elegant, pure white military coats covered in glowing silver runes that carried the official crest of the Student Senate. Their physical bodies radiated an immense, cold aura pressure that literally caused the surrounding air parameters to warp and freeze into fine crystal frost. They stood perfectly upright, their expressions filled with a supreme, aristocratic arrogance.
"Is the freshman anomaly not here yet?" the vanguard captain of the white-coated group asked coldly, looking at his gold wristwatch. He was a tall, slender warrior with sharp elven ears and glowing silver hair, his name was Kaelen, a half-step Crown Rank powerhouse who served as Sylas’s direct right hand in the Senate.
"She is probably running late because she is terrified," a female mage next to him replied with a mocking sneer, her hand resting on a heavy staff made from ancient celestial crystal. "Wiping out Draco might have made her the king of the second-years, but she has no idea that a half-step Crown Ranker can completely shatter a gold core just with pure aura suppression. President Sylas gave us clear orders. The moment we land in the Ashen Crucible, we strip her of her leadership points and make her kneel."
Before Kaelen could reply, a slow, rhythmic bouncing sound echoed from the main entrance corridor of the pavilion.
Squish. Bounce. Squish.
The thousands of surrounding students instantly went dead silent, their bodies freezing in place as they frantically scrambled backward against the marble walls, clearing a massive twenty-foot path.
Rolling smoothly through the center of the open path was Ayla. Her translucent blue body looked incredibly sleek, dense, and perfectly glossy under the morning sun, reflecting the light like a flawless gemstone. Her golden eyes were wide open, the prominent golden rings around her pupils glowing with a steady, permanent illumination that radiated an invisible, suffocating weight.
She rolled straight toward the silver teleportation pad, completely ignoring the thousands of watching students. She stopped just three feet away from the five white-coated Senate seniors, her golden pupils locking onto Kaelen’s face with an absolute, deadpan indifference.
Kaelen sneered down at the small blue slime, purposely releasing the full force of his half-step Crown physical pressure. The immense weight caused the white marble floorboards beneath his heavy white boots to crack and shatter into fine powder, creating a violent wind that rushed toward Ayla’s mass.
"So, you are Ayla," Kaelen said smoothly, his deep voice carrying a cold, unyielding authority. "Listen well, freshman. In the Ashen Crucible, you are no longer operating independently. You will follow my vanguard squad, you will stay in the rear lines, and you will not touch a single Spark Crystal unless I grant you administrative permission. If you step out of line, I will personally format your core parameters."
Ayla did not release her aura, and she did not say a single word. She simply tilted her round mass upward, staring at his chest cavity with a flat, unblinking gaze. To her, Kaelen’s half-step Crown pressure felt like nothing more than a faint, gentle summer breeze, but the dense, pulsing mana of his internal core framework smelled incredibly rich, savory, and sweet.
A wild, uncontrollable wave of primal hunger instantly bubbled up from her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core, causing her blue jelly surface to ripple with a manic velocity.
"Nexus," Ayla whispered softly through the mind link, her mental voice carrying a sudden, terrifying edge. "The white-coated seniors look very delicious. Can we enter the portal now? I am getting too hungry to listen to him talk."
"Oh, the portal is fully charged and ready, little monster!" Nexus’s voice giggled hysterically inside her head, flashing five bright red targeting matrices across Ayla’s right vision screen. "The transit array is initializing right now. Let’s go to the volcanic sector and show these proud Senate seniors what a real prehistoric predator looks like!"
A loud, automated chime suddenly boomed across the entire transit pavilion, cutting off Kaelen’s arrogant speech.
[ Joint Advanced Mission Verification Approved. ]
[ Target Destination: The Ashen Crucible Sector — Tier 3. ]
[ Initializing spatial deployment for Senate Vanguard Squad and Leader Ayla. ]
A brilliant flash of crimson spatial light instantly enveloped the six participants, and the air parameters around the platform violently compressed. A fraction of a millisecond later, their physical forms vanished from the academy grounds completely, launching the small blue slime straight into her next advanced hunting ground.