Inside the pitch-black abyss of his own soul, Rayn's spiritual form was violently trembling.
The glowing hologram of his Origin Core was completely covered in terrifying, jagged cracks. The dark, necrotic energy of the Gambler's Heart was aggressively clashing with the Void Scribe, expanding like a parasite.
"The clock is entirely out of time, Rayn," Silas warned, his demonic voice stripping away its usual mocking tone, replaced by absolute, catastrophic urgency. "Your physical body is shutting down. You have to make the absolute choice right fucking now. Either permanently rip the White Griffin out of your core and release it into the world, or violently shatter your Collector Matrix and cast your seventeen minor powers into the void."
Rayn clenched his fists, his supreme intelligence desperately calculating billions of microscopic variables.
"Silas," Rayn demanded, his crimson eyes locking onto the inner demon. "Is there absolutely any other possibility? A third option where I walk out of this alive without sacrificing a single fraction of my arsenal?"
Silas slammed his heavy walking stick into the invisible floor.
"No, Rayn! There is no heaven-defying miracle right now!" Silas roared, the void violently shaking around them. "If you do not manually make a choice, your Origin Core will violently detonate. Your physical body on that mountain will explode into a mist of blood and bone, and your soul will be permanently erased. Choose!"
Outside of the spiritual realm, the physical reality was descending into absolute despair.
At the peak of the colossal, heaven-piercing mountain, Vespera was entirely on her knees beside Rayn's unconscious body. Her hands were glowing with blinding silver light, desperately pouring her ancient spatial Gnosis into his chest.
But it was completely useless.
Rayn's stomach was turning a horrific, rotting pitch-black, and the dark necrosis was violently creeping up his neck. The absolute genius, the invincible Conqueror who had casually orchestrated the slaughter of thousands, was silently dying on the freezing stone.
Freddy and Victus stood nearby, completely terrified. Without Rayn's dictatorial authority and flawless tactical mind, the Executioners felt entirely blind.
Suddenly, the heavy, synchronized sound of thousands of boots echoing against the stone shattered the silence.
Magnus—still wearing his muscular disguise as Peter—walked to the absolute edge of the cliff. He looked down through the freezing clouds and his green eyes widened in absolute, terrifying shock.
They had severely miscalculated the Supreme Leader's resources.
The 10,000 bandits they had slaughtered in the valley were only the Vanguard. The Supreme Leader had secretly called upon the entire combined underworld forces of the three surrounding domains. Surging up the mountain paths like a catastrophic ocean of yellow vermin were over fifteen thousand heavily armed bandits.
"You guys stay here and monitor Rayn's vitals," Magnus commanded, his voice cold and resolute. "I am going to violently handle the trash climbing this mountain."
Vespera briefly looked up from Rayn's rotting chest. "Peter, wait. You cannot hold off an entire army alone. If Rayn's condition stabilizes, I will completely eradicate them myself."
Magnus let out a dark, arrogant laugh. He casually rolled up the sleeves of his blood-soaked tunic.
"You seem to have completely forgotten exactly who I am, Vespera," Magnus sneered, his Phase 5 Gnosis violently flaring. "It is an absolute piece of cake for me to handle these pathetic mortals."
Vespera hesitated, then slowly nodded. "Go. But do not fucking die. If Rayn wakes up and finds out I let his strongest pawn get butchered, he will be absolutely furious."
"You can bet your life I am not going to die to these motherfuckers," Magnus promised.
Magnus stepped directly to the absolute edge of the precipice. Below him, hundreds of elite bandits were scaling the vertical rock face, driving heavy iron pitons into the stone to reach the summit.
Magnus smiled. He casually opened his right palm.
Tapping into his supreme Merchant's Dao, a massive pile of highly condensed golden coins materialized in his hand. But this time, he didn't throw them.
He brought his palm to his lips and gently blew a breath of Phase 5 kinetic Gnosis over the gold.
The golden coins violently shot off his palm. As they hit the freezing air, they aggressively duplicated. Fifty coins violently multiplied into five hundred, and five hundred violently multiplied into five thousand.
It was an absolute rain of golden death.
The localized storm of armor-piercing coins violently shredded the bandits scaling the cliff. Skulls were completely pulverized. Hands were cleanly severed from wrists. Screaming in absolute agony, hundreds of bandits violently plummeted thousands of feet back down the mountain, their bodies shattering against the jagged rocks below.
Seeing the climbers eradicated, Magnus decided it was the perfect time to unleash an absolute massacre.
He took one step back, completely bypassing the edge, and violently hurled himself off the top of the mountain.
The thousands of bandits marching up the wide mountain pass looked up in absolute horror. Falling directly toward them from the freezing clouds was a single, heavily muscled youth.
In mid-air, Magnus violently manifested a heavy, profound broadsword forged entirely of golden kinetic energy. He crashed directly into the center of the massive bandit formation like an absolute meteor.
BOOM!
The kinetic shockwave of his landing completely cratered the mountain path, violently launching dozens of bandits over the edge. Magnus didn't stop. He became a blur of golden light, aggressively severing heads and bifurcating torsos, while his autonomous storm of golden coins continued to violently pierce skulls from above.
"Come and fight me, you pathetic trash!" Magnus roared, completely bathed in black blood.
But as he slaughtered his way through the ranks, Magnus realized the catastrophic reality of the situation. He hacked down ten men, and twenty more instantly took their place. He crushed a skull, and five more swords violently swung at his back.
There are too many, Magnus thought, his breathing growing heavy. We butchered 4,000 in the valley... but there are over 15,000 of them here!
High above on the summit, Victus and Freddy looked down at the apocalyptic sea of bandits completely swarming Magnus.
Victus violently gripped his broadsword. "Vespera. We are going down there. The total count is over fifteen thousand. Peter will be completely overwhelmed."
Even Vespera, an ancient spatial demon, was entirely shocked. She had vastly underestimated the sheer numerical volume of human vermin in this world.
"Go," Vespera commanded, her voice strained as she pushed more Gnosis into Rayn's failing body. "Help him as much as you absolutely can. If Rayn's condition improves even a fraction, I will come down and join you."
Victus and Freddy didn't hesitate. With a synchronized roar, they violently leaped down the mountain path, crashing into the ocean of bandits to reinforce the struggling Magnus.
"Why the hell did you two come down here?!" Magnus shouted, violently kicking a bandit's chest cavity in.
"We aren't just going to stand there and watch you die, old man!" Victus roared, completely severing two bandits in half with a single, brutal swing.
"I might be an old man, but I am going to die fighting beside you!" Freddy echoed, completely unleashing his Gnosis.
The Dao of Commerce: Compound Interest.
Magnus felt a strange, twisted sense of pride looking at his little brother fighting beside him. The three Executioners formed a triangular formation, aggressively butchering everything that stepped into their absolute kill zone.
For an entire hour, the mountain path was a literal river of blood. They flawlessly slaughtered over a thousand men.
But mortal bodies have absolute limits.
Their Gnosis reserves were violently depleting. Their muscles were screaming in agonizing pain. And despite the mountain of corpses they had built, the bandits just kept coming.
On the summit, Vespera looked down. She saw Victus take a heavy slash to his shoulder. She saw Magnus's golden coins slowing down. They were completely exhausted from the previous valley fight.
Vespera looked at Rayn. His breathing was terrifyingly shallow.
Gritting her teeth, Vespera gently rested Rayn's body against the trunk of a massive, frozen pine tree on the summit.
"I will be right back, my Conqueror," Vespera whispered.
She violently teleported directly into the center of the battlefield. With a catastrophic wave of her hand, she unleashed a massive spatial rift, instantly bisecting fifty bandits.
"Vespera is here!" Victus cheered, spitting blood.
With all four conscious Executioners fighting together, they held the line for another agonizing two hours. The sheer brutality of the battle was heaven-defying. They slaughtered their way through the ranks until only 13,000 members remained.
But even Vespera, whose core was vastly superior, was slowly beginning to violently pant. She hadn't fully recovered her demonic strength since awakening, and the sheer volume of targets was draining her spatial energy.
Suddenly, a booming, arrogant voice echoed across the mountain.
"Activate the Absolute Array! Trap them like the rats they are!"
The Supreme Leader had finally arrived at the front lines.
Flanking him were exactly 4,000 elite cultivators from the King's Battalion. Instead of forming a single defensive wall, the 4,000 elites violently scattered, completely surrounding the four Executioners on all sides.
They violently bit their tongues and slammed their silver shields into the mud.
BOOM!
A catastrophic, deep-purple barrier violently erupted from the earth. But it didn't just form a wall—it formed a massive, impenetrable, glowing cubic prison, completely locking Vespera, Magnus, Victus, and Freddy inside.
"We have to retreat!" Magnus shouted, his golden sword completely bouncing off the purple energy wall.
"We can't!" Vespera screamed in absolute frustration, her spatial magic failing to pierce the dense Gnosis of 4,000 linked elites. "They formed a complete 360-degree barrier! We cannot even fly out! We are completely trapped!"
Victus desperately slammed his broadsword against the barrier, but the kinetic force violently reflected back, shattering his wrist.
Vespera tried to tap into her ancient bloodline. She needed to transform into her absolute Spatial Dragon form to shatter the array. But she instantly coughed up a mouthful of black blood. Her energy was catastrophically low. If she forcefully transformed now, her core would permanently shatter. It was guaranteed suicide.
Suddenly, Victus looked through the translucent purple barrier, staring up at the summit of the mountain.
His eyes widened in absolute, catastrophic horror.
A small squad of exactly twenty elite bandits had entirely bypassed the main battle. They were currently scaling the final ledge, violently pulling themselves onto the summit.
Sitting completely defenseless against the frozen pine tree, completely unconscious and rotting, was Rayn.
"Vespera!" Victus roared, his voice cracking with sheer terror. "Look at the summit! They are going to butcher Lord Rayn!"
Vespera's head violently snapped up. She saw the bandits drawing their heavy swords, slowly walking toward Rayn's unconscious body.
"NO!" Vespera shrieked, an absolute, primal sound of raw despair.
She violently threw herself against the purple barrier, aggressively punching the Gnosis Array with her bare, bloody hands. She didn't care about the catastrophic pain reflecting into her arms. She didn't care that her bones were fracturing.
She was completely trapped, forced to watch the mortals approach her Conqueror.
Inside the pitch-black abyss of the spirit realm, the structural integrity of Rayn's Origin Core violently reached its absolute limit.
CRACK!
A massive, glowing fissure tore completely across the hologram.
"Rayn!" Silas roared, the void violently shaking. "Your physical body is about to be completely decapitated by mortals, and your core is detonating! CHOOSE!"
Rayn opened his crimson eyes. They burned with a terrifying, absolute clarity. He finally understood the fundamental law of the universe.
Versatility is the crutch of the weak, Rayn thought coldly. Having twenty different tools makes you a master of none. To be an absolute Conqueror... you must possess absolute, concentrated power.
Rayn raised his hand, pointing directly at the glowing, chaotic matrix holding his seventeen minor powers.
"Silas," Rayn commanded, his voice echoing with dictatorial, heaven-defying authority.
"I am completely shattering the Collector Matrix."
Rayn violently closed his fist.
"Out of the eighteen mortal Daos, I claim only the Light. Let the other seventeen shatter, for this Light will be the absolute catalyst of my evolution."