Chương 325: A Market of Meat

The moment of transition was a violent, multi-dimensional jolt that lasted less than half a heartbeat. It was the precise fracture in reality I had anticipated, the subjective "white noise" between locations where the Viceroy's absolute law momentarily stuttered as it recalculated thirty two high-density Tier 7 souls for a secondary location.

"Get ready!" I commanded across the Void-link. Working in a frantic, cold harmony with the Prime System's blue lifeline, I tapped into the Zeroth-Tier [Symphony of the Animus Arch]. I didn't merely draw mana from within; I pulled three meticulously crafted Signature Dummies from the dark, obsidian continent housed within my own Soul.

I had fed these constructs the exact essence-frequency of my allies and myself — precise blueprints containing our mana-circulatory paths, our Mythic authorities, and our System signatures. The Symphony provided the atmospheric camouflage, masking the swap with the exact frequency of the expected changes. In that sliver of chronological chaos, I stepped our true selves fully into the subspace layer of the Void, pushing the hollow Echo-Dummies forward to take our places in the material plane.

When the golden light of the Adjudicator's portal settled, our true physical bodies were safely "veiled" beneath hollow shells. We stood on a vast, bone-white expanse that stretched into a featureless horizon under a grey, sunless sky. Before we could even stabilize, the three platinum-masked Tier 9 attendants drifted over. One by one, they presented the shimmering dark-vellum scrolls. The scrolls pulsated with an invasive, hungry gold light.

I watched with a hardening, icy rage as they completely bypassed the seeded heirs. Thalassa of House Vane, recently healed but still looking shell shocked, didn't have to touch a scroll. The boy-scion of House Remora, a young monster named Cera, stood with his hands tucked into his fire-silks, ignoring the officials. Only the "unknowns" were stopped. The solo-climbers from newer planets, the survivors like Forn, and the fighters who didn't possess an Imperial bank account.

Our clones were also given a lot of extra attention this time, probably due to our short encounter with Thalassa.

"Stay perfectly still," I whispered.

"Let's not test the limit of the Veil." My Echo raised its hand. It pressed a thumb firmly onto the vellum. The gold runes flared with a blinding, predatory brilliance, locking onto the construct's internal pathways. To the Judge, a soul had signed. In reality, a hollow mana-shell had agreed to an eternity of service.

"Contracted," Crys projected, her mental voice a low, obsidian chime.

"Your copied puppet is officially a very loyal citizen of the Silver Horizon."

"THE INTEGRITY PROTOCOL IS ACKNOWLEDGED," the Adjudicator's voice boomed from the clouds.

"PHASE TWO: THE HEXDECIMAL STAND-OFF COMMENCES. TEAMS HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED BASED ON STRATEGIC VIABILITY. THIS IS AN EXHIBITION NO CONSEQUENCE BATTLE." The bone-white world underwent a geometric reconstruction. We were divided into two groups of sixteen. My side, the Obsidian Division, was a bizarre assembly of specialists. I scanned my "allies" for this round. There was Krux, a massive, four-armed biped from the Titan-Bridges, covered in obsidian plating and weeping molten mercury from his joints.

Beside him stood Xilythe, a nightmare entity of semi-liquid shadow possessing a Mythic skill called [Abyssal Threnody]. She didn't use any weapons; her very aura hummed a song that caused the surrounding marble to physically crumble as its molecular bonds surrendered to her harmony. On the far left was Phoros, an avian-type with iridescent feathers and six hollow eyes.

He possessed a support-class Mythic, [Sanctuary of the Eternal Seed], which I realized was non-combative but vital — he was maintaining a permanent, ultra-fast regenerative field for our front liners. The opposing team was a fortress. Led by the Remoran scions and the cadre of three Demon-lords from the Burning Spine sector, their power felt consolidated. One of the demons, a Peak Tier 7 named Galthar, activated a Mythic known as [Calamity's Hearth].

As the battle commenced, Galthar slammed a lava-encrusted palm into the floor. Instead of a wave of fire, the entire ten-mile battlefield simply warped. Everyone without high-tier flight or spatial grounding was yanked horizontally toward him. The difference in Mythic skill execution was immediately apparent to my [Lattice Perception].

"Mythic" was clearly a very broad tag. Galthar's fire was high-level, but its Authority was tied strictly to his fire-affinity, making it a "Extremely High-Efficiency Brute Force" tool. Whereas Xilythe's sound-waves operated on a Conceptual level — she wasn't pushing mass; she was telling reality what state it belonged to. The battlefield became a storm of competing Laws. Sargis, the massive Steel-March warrior on my side, triggered [Gears of Inevitability].

Every punch he threw produced a loud, metallic grinding sound that echoed across the planet. He wasn't hitting fast, but he was hitting with certainty. No matter how many temporal shields his opponent threw up, his fist would arrive simply because the skill dictated the "outcome" before the strike happened. I watched as Vesper, the glass-winged avian, tore through three of the opponents' flankers in less than ten seconds.

They utilized a Mythic [Shatter-Step] that used wind mana — Vesper wasn't stepping into the Void, but his Affinity felt somehow similar.

"Stick to the support roles," I projected.

"Don't draw any unnecessary attention. We keep our proxies looking useful but unthreatening." We played our part. I used subtle pulses of gravity — simple, standard Tier 7 maneuvers — to stumble a demon charging our flank. Crys used micro-warps of time to assist Phoros' shield stability. Forn moved as a nuisance, throwing distraction blades that sizzled with minor shadow essence. The spectators were the most disturbing part.

High above the golden dome, hundreds of opulent ships were broadcasting our profiles to planetary systems I hadn't even heard of yet. We were listed as "Available Lots." Investors from various sectors were bidding quintessence in real-time on our heads — promising future sponsorships, better catalysts for Ascension, and protection, all contingent on us winning the tournament and honoring our fealty contracts. This story originates from a different website.

Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. One "Lesser House" was bidding heavily on my dummy profile, interested in my stable gravity control for their mining operations in a high-pressure star system. I was a specialized tool being vetted for purchase.

"They treat us like we're barely conscious cattle," I muttered, my real body's pulse slowing with a cold, absolute Spite. The 16-vs-16 was a slaughterhouse. Vesper and Xilythe carried the bulk of the carnage. Between the bird's telekinetic glass storms and Xilythe's reality-disintegration humming, twelve of the opposing team were wiped in minutes. Their protective avatars burst into grey mist, and they were forcibly returned to the holding hall with their seedings destroyed.

The Remaining four on the enemy team were seasoned fighters from the Hearth-Fyre worlds, and they managed to force a brutal stalemate by fusing their Mythic flames into a single, planet-level sun-bubble that Sargis struggled to breach. But Xilythe merely hummed. Her [Abyssal Threnody] accelerated. She stepped into the sun-fire bubble, and where she walked, the flame simply died. It lost the semantic permission to burn. She walked up to the demon leaders and whispered a singular note. The bubble popped.

Four demonkin disintegrated into grey dust. [HEXDECIMAL CLASH TERMINATED.] [OBIDIAN DIVISION VICTORIOUS.] The Adjudicator appeared in a flash of blinding gold above the bloody expanse.

"CLEANSE THE FILTH. COMMENCE THE BANQUET OF RADIANCE," he intoned.

"YOUR EVALUATION SCORE HAS BEEN UPDATED. PREPARE FOR SPONSORSHIP ENCOUNTERS." The bone-white world vanished, replaced by an impossibly grand ballroom floating atop the clouds of the Silver Palace. It was a space made of starlight-marble and pillars carved from ancient world-trees that still sang in a low, harmonious tone.

Attendants — real Ascendants from minor houses, serving as high-tier waiters — glided through the room carrying trays of rare, mana-saturated spirits and fruits that tasted like concentrated dreams. The air was heavy with the smell of sweet spices and arrogance. I stood with my hollow proxy near the periphery of the ballroom, clutching a goblet of glowing indigo wine I didn't plan on drinking. The surviving thirty-two were now celebrities.

Survivors who had lost in the clash but stayed on the winners' team were now fielding offers. A woman draped in the scales of a galaxy-eel approached Crys. She represented the Nebula Merchants Association and began speaking in a honeyed voice about "long-term temporal lease opportunities." Crys handled it with the cold, bored elegance she'd perfected on Syntheia's estate, which only seemed to make the bidders more desperate. Then came my turn.

A heavy, armored man reeking of ozone — a representative of the Iron-Sky Consortium — marched up to me.

"Aspirant Kai. Your gravity work shows excellent stability under high-tier pressure. The Consortium is looking for a planetary enforcer to secure our mining spires in the 7th sector. Sign with us after your tournament, and we can offer you a Void-Crystal heart to fuel your Ascension."

"I'll weigh the ledger," I said, my puppet's voice monotone and professional. As the night progressed, a distinct shift happened in the crowd's density. Normally, the attendees surged toward the Scions of Remora or Vesper. But a new figure entered from a side-corridor — a place not marked on any map. He was a tall man in a simple, unadorned robe of charcoal linen. He carried no artifact, no title, and no scent.

But the Void-Star inside my actual body, tucked deep into its pocket dimension, gave a singular, terrifying jolt. I looked at him through my [Lattice Perception] and saw... nothing. He was a black hole in the shape of a man. His existence didn't displace reality; it merely chose not to acknowledge it. As he walked through the crowd, the Scions — even the sun-fire heir of Remora — involuntarily stepped back.

They gave him a wide, respectful birth, their faces tightening with an instinctive dread they couldn't quite hide. They recognized something ancient, something that bypassed the "rank" given to them by the System. The man walked straight to the colonnade where I was standing with my friends. The consortium representative who was talking to me immediately fell silent, his eyes widening in alarm. He took a jerky, panicked step back, bowing his head so low it almost hit the wine-trays.

"Apologies... Excellency... I did not know you were interested in the stock..." the merchant stammered before fleeing into the crowd as fast as his heavy armor would permit. Silence followed in his wake. The robed man turned to me. His eyes were sharp and his presence felt absolute. Like the deep gaps between the galaxies where gravity goes to die.

"Aspirant," he spoke, but he didn't use sound. The vibration resonated through the [Symphony of the Animus Arch], bypassing my proxy's physical structure to hit the real me hiding in the subspace folds of my soul. He looked directly at the spot where I actually existed, ignoring the puppet altogether.

"A signature bound to a constructed construct is quite the performance," he whispered into the resonance.

"The Adjudicator is so dazzled by the light of the Scions that he cannot hear the silence of a King walking right under his nose."

"Crysanthe, Forn, get away. Now," I projected.

"Who are you?" I communicated directly back, the Void-Star spinning faster, my flame sparking for the first time since the Arrival. The man tilted his head.

"The Silver Horizon has turned the Ascendancy into a trade-show. I am merely a librarian's assistant without a home. I have been waiting patiently, constantly visiting to see if the rumors of the 'Lost Soul' were exaggerated." He gestured with a thin, pale hand toward a corridor made of unpolished iron that seemed to sit between the palaces of the Viceroy.

"You have five containers waiting for Law to be etched. Yet, you are preparing to hide during the 1-on-1s. To let them win." The stranger stepped closer, and for the first time, my [Void Emperor's Omnipresence] reacted. He wasn't pressuring me; he was inviting me to fall.

"Meet me in the deeper layers in five minutes. Unless you truly desire to spend eternity being sold as a mining tool to bureaucrats." The man dissolved. He didn't teleport. He didn't step through the Void. The space simply rearranged itself to reflect that he had never stood there in the first place. I stood frozen in the opulent starlight-ballroom, my puppet still clutching the drink. Crys moved to my side, her skin as jagged as broken obsidian.

"He looked through your Veil like it was cellophane, Eren," she hissed.

"Everyone moved out of his way like he was death itself. Are you really going down there?"

"He knows about my empty skill slots… Crys. He knows about the faked contract," I looked at the dark, unpolished door.

"I can't let him walk away without knowing how."

"It's a cliff, Eren. If you walk through that door, you leave the protection of the Golden Hall's 'non-death' rules," Forn warned, his tail twitching. I looked back at the Heirs, the Sponsors, and the Judges laughing at the meat on display.

"That non-death rule is stupid anyways," I said.

"I'll check in every fifteen minutes. If the Viceroy's guards come for the dummy, I'll know, and I'll use everything I can to get us out." I turned, following the man who had seen through a God's court. The gala faded into the distance as I stepped through the door of rusted iron, entering the deeper silence.