Chapter 41—The Black Market of Nightmares.
Chapter 41—The Black Market of Nightmares.
The neon-lit pulse of the undercity Zone Zero hummed like a dying machine beneath the bedrock of the capital. Streams of corrupted violet mana flowed through copper pipes strapped along the damp cavern walls, casting distorted shadows across thousands of masked figures crowding the central avenue.
Exiled dark mages, rogue mercenaries, disgraced noble assassins, and underground merchants rubbed shoulders in a lawless labyrinth where money, blood, and physical strength were the only recognized currencies.
Walking through the dense crowd, Kaelen pulled the cowl of his dark coat lower over his face. Beside him, Lyra wore a borrowed grey mantle that concealed her distinctive silver hair and holy crest, while Tsubaki walked half a step behind them, his dark katana kept loosely inside his cloak, ready to unsheathe at the slightest hint of hostility.
"Keep your heads down," the Red-Eyed Player advised in a low, muffled voice through his white porcelain mask as he led them down a narrow, descending stone stairway. "Zone Zero is divided among five crime lords known as the Void Syndicate. This sector—the subterranean Grand Bazaar—belongs to Lord Vane, the ’Blood Collector.’ His enforcers do not ask questions. If they smell clean surface mana on you, they will slaughter you for your organs and sell your gear at auction."
"Let them try," Tsubaki muttered, his pitch-black eyes scanning the rooftops above, where archers armed with heavy, repeating crossbows kept watch from the iron balconies.
Lyra reached out and gently grasped the sleeve of Kaelen’s coat, her fingers trembling slightly. "Kaelen... the informant the Red-Eyed Player spoke of... is it true? Is the Night Lily actually being sold here tonight?"Kaelen turned his gaze toward her. Underneath the deep shadow of his hood, his galaxy-bright violet eyes glowed with a faint, reassuring warmth.
"We’ll get it, Lyra. I promised you we’d save Elena, and I don’t break my promises."Lyra bit her lower lip, nodding tightly as a wave of relief washed over her. For months, the knowledge that her younger sister was slowly dying from a mysterious, soul-rotting poison administered by a corrupt noble house had eaten away at her heart. Knowing that the rare, legendary Night Lily—the sole alchemical ingredient capable of neutralizing the royal poison—was being auctioned just a few hundred feet away gave her the first real glimmer of hope since entering the capital.
The staircase ended before a pair of towering, iron-gilded doors guarded by six massive, ogre-like enforcers wearing spiked plate armor. Each guard carried a heavy, two-handed warhammer dripping with dark, corrosive acid.
"Halt, surface rats," the lead guard grunted, his bloodshot eyes lingering on Lyra’s slender frame. "The entry fee to Lord Vane’s Grand Auction is ten thousand high-grade mana crystals per head. Or..."A disgusting, predatory grin twisted his face as he leveled his warhammer toward Lyra. "The girl stays with us for the night, and you two enter for free."Tsubaki’s hand instantly dropped to the hilt of his dark katana, a whisper of lethal sword intent leaking into the damp air.
"Tsubaki, wait," Kaelen said softly.
Kaelen didn’t draw a weapon. He simply took one calm step forward and raised his right hand.
CLANG!
---
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Skill Activated: Void Sovereign Authority — Gravity Press
Effect: Compresses atmospheric pressure within a 10-meter radius.
Cost: 500 Units
---
BOOOOOOM!
The atmospheric pressure directly above the six armored guards instantly multiplied by a factor of fifty. The air crackled with purple lightning as an invisible, cosmic anvil slammed down upon their shoulders.
CRUNCH!
Without even being touched, all six giant enforcers were violently slammed face-first into the stone floor. Their heavy plate armor crushed inward like aluminum cans under the absolute weight of Kaelen’s S-rank authority. Blood spurted from their visors as they writhed helplessly on the ground, unable to lift so much as a single finger against the suffocating gravitational pressure.
"I don’t pay entry fees," Kaelen said coldly, his voice echoing with a low, cosmic vibration that made the iron doors vibrate on their hinges. "And if you look at her like that again, I won’t just press you into the dirt—I will collapse your lungs into spatial singularities.
"The lead guard coughed up a pool of dark blood, his eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated terror. "S-S-Rank... A sovereign... Please... take the doors! Lord Vane welcomes you!"Kaelen released the skill with a flick of his wrist. The crushing pressure vanished, leaving the guards groaning in pools of their sweat and blood.
With a heavy, sweeping kick, Kaelen blasted the iron doors wide open, stepping into the grand amphitheater of the subterranean auction house.
The interior of the auction hall was massive, structured like an inverted Roman colosseum carved directly into the black volcanic rock.
Hundreds of wealthy underground buyers sat in tiered velvet boxes, while at the center of the stage stood a towering, pale man in an immaculate crimson suit. His fingers were adorned with heavy gold rings, and his pale skin was covered in pulsing red runes—Lord Vane, the Blood Collector.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the abyss!" Vane’s voice boomed across the hall, amplified by a floating sound-rune artifact.
"We have reached our ninth prized lot of the evening! Sourced directly from the forbidden royal gardens of the surface world... the one and only Night Lily!"
Two female guards pushed a glass display case onto the stage. Inside, floating in a pool of glowing azure liquid, was a breathtaking, dark blue flower that radiated a soft, soothing, holy luminescence.
Lyra gasped, her knuckles turning white as she clutched Kaelen’s coat. "That’s it! That’s the flower!""The bidding for this divine ingredient begins at fifty thousand golden blood coins!" Vane announced, a sharp, greedy smile spreading across his face.
"One hundred thousand!" a fat noble merchant shouted from an upper balcony box.
"One hundred and fifty thousand!" a masked dark alchemist countered from the front row.
Lyra’s face turned pale. She had managed to scrape together barely twenty thousand coins from her tournament rewards—nowhere near enough to compete with the lawless wealth of the undercity overlords.
"Kaelen..." Lyra whispered, her voice cracking with despair. "I... I don’t have enough..."
Kaelen didn’t hesitate. He stepped out of the shadow of the entrance archway, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the stone floor, echoing loudly over the clamor of the bidding war.
"The Night Lily is not for sale," Kaelen’s calm, commanding voice cut through the noise like a razor blade.
The entire auction hall fell dead silent. Hundreds of masked heads turned in shock toward the hooded young man walking down the central aisle toward the stage, flanked by a silent samurai and a silver-haired maiden.
Lord Vane’s eyes narrowed into dangerous, slit-like crimson pupils as he glared down at Kaelen. "Who dares interrupt Lord Vane’s auction? Guards! Flay his skin and throw his bones into the blood pits!"
SHOO-SHOO-SHOO-SHOOSH!
Over forty elite shadow assassins dropped from the rafters above, their twin daggers coated in black paralysis poison as they swooped down upon Kaelen from every conceivable angle in a lethal, synchronized execution storm.
"Kaelen!" Lyra cried out, reaching for her blade.
"Stay back, Lyra," Kaelen said quietly. "This is a good time to test a gift from the void."
Kaelen extended his right hand toward the dark ceiling.
SHOOOOOOOOOM!
A tear in the very fabric of space opened above his palm, radiating a blinding wave of dark stellar light. From the depths of his soul space, the divine longsword [Eclipse] materialized into his grip. The dark obsidian blade hummed with ancient, god-slaying power, its violet runes flaring with apocalyptic intensity as the entire auction hall trembled under the sudden weight of its S-rank pressure.
"What... what is that aura?!" Vane gasped, stumbling backward on the stage as his golden rings shattered from the sheer atmospheric pressure leaking from the sword. "That weapon... it’s a divine relic?!"
Kaelen didn’t answer. He simply performed a single, effortless horizontal strike through the air.
---
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Skill Activated: Void Sovereign — Dimensional Cleave
Effect: Cleaves space itself, bisecting anything within the trajectory.
Cost: 1,500 Units
---
SWIIIIIIIIIIISH!
A crescent wave of pure, pitch-black spatial energy erupted from the tip of Eclipse. It was not a physical slash but a localized tear in reality that cleaved through space itself.
The wave swept through the air, passing silently through all forty falling shadow assassins.
For a second, time seemed to freeze.
Then, as Kaelen casually lowered his blade, the space where the forty assassins hovered distorted violently. Armor, weapons, daggers, and bodies were instantly bisected along the exact spatial plane of the wave. Before a single drop of blood could hit the floor, the spatial tear collapsed inward, devouring all forty corpses into nothingness.
CRASH-BOOM!
The spatial wave continued onward, slamming straight into the heavy stone stage behind Lord Vane. The massive obsidian structure was sheared clean in half, collapsing into a mountain of dust and rubble.
The entire auction hall erupted into absolute pandemonium-fueled horror. Hundreds of wealthy buyers shrieked in terror, scrambling over one another as they fled toward the exit doors, terrified of being caught in the crossfire of an S-rank monster.
"You... what are you?!" Lord Vane screamed, his crimson suit covered in stone dust as he scrambled backward across the ruined stage, pulling a heavy blood axe from his dimensional ring. "You can’t be a commoner! Who sent you?. The King?"
Kaelen walked up the shattered steps of the stage, his galaxy-bright eyes staring down at the trembling crime lord. The divine blade Eclipse rested lightly in his hand, its tip leaving a thin line of distorted, melting space along the stone floor.
"The King tried to chain me," Kaelen said coldly, stopping three feet from Vane. "The Marquis tried to burn me. And you... you are sitting on something that belongs to my companion."
With a swift, blinding flick of his sword, Kaelen shattered the glass display case containing the Night Lily. He caught the floating azure flower gently in his left hand and tossed it toward Lyra, who caught it with trembling, tear-filled hands.
"Elena..." Lyra choked out, pressing the glowing flower against her chest as tears of pure gratitude spilled down her cheeks. "She’s... she’s going to live..."
"Now," Kaelen turned back to Lord Vane, his voice dropping into an icy, terrifying register. "Let’s talk about the Void Syndicate, Vane. You have two choices. You give me the map to the first heavenly seal... or I test what happens when I cleave your entire sector in half."
Vane looked at the dark blade hovering inches from his neck, felt the crushing S-rank aura suffocating his heart, and realized with sickening clarity:
The surface world thought they had executed a commoner brat, but they had actually banished a god into the abyss.