Chapter 138: The Harvester’s Awakening

Chapter 139: The Harvester’s Awakening

As if responding to Asher’s command, the massive basalt door behind them snapped shut with a deafening thud.

Then another gate slammed down in the adjacent archway.

And another.

Within seconds, every exit in Sector Three was sealed tight, locking the chamber into complete isolation.

Ambiel stared up at the heavy stone slabs, her whip tight in her grip. "Is it trapping us?"

Seana slowly lowered her dark blade, her bare, striking face devoid of panic. "No."

Her eyes followed the glowing golden leylines spreading across the floor like spiderwebs.

"It is arranging us."

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the chamber.

Then—the Ancient Palace spoke. Not through a spoken language, but through a cold,

blood-red system prompt that flashed directly into the minds of every survivor:

[Sector Three Integration Formation: ACTIVE]

[Required Components Detected:]

• Life Energy

• Blood Essence

• Spiritual Core

• Refined Qi

• Combat Data

[Phase Two: BEGIN]

The golden leylines ignited into blinding, violent light.

Across every quadrant of the Ancient Palace, the slaughter began.

BOOOOOOM!

Hundreds of human screams erupted simultaneously across the lower sectors.

——————————

[In Sector Four — The Core...]

Lothe’s [Spatial Perception] suddenly flared with a horrifying cascade of dying energy signatures.

His expression turned to ice.

One death. Ten. Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred.

His purple eyes snapped open. "What the hell..."

Lucan turned to him sharply. "What did you sense?"

Lothe looked calmly ahead, a thin shroud of purple Void Qi leaking from his palms. "People. Hundreds of them."

Professor Sy’s face turned deathly pale. "How many?"

Lothe stared directly at the silver-black heart suspended at the center of the room. "Too many."

THUMP.

The Core expanded, greedily drinking the incoming torrent of refined human essence.

Lothe finally grasped the complete, horrifying design.

The Extraction, the Refinement, and the Integration weren’t separate trial systems. They were sequential stages of a single, automated slaughterhouse.

And now, the palace had gathered enough raw material to complete the cycle.

Lothe gripped the shaft of his Void Spear, his voice dropping into a dangerously calm register. "This place... has begun its harvest."

THUMP.

The Core pulsed again, sending a shockwave through the floor.

[FINAL INTEGRATION: 42%]

[PROCESSING CONTINUES]

[SURVIVAL IS NOT A REQUIRED CONDITION]

[ONLY COMPLETION]

——————————

In the Corridors...

BOOOOOOM!

The palace groaned as golden extraction leylines spread through the passages like glowing veins. Every corridor, every hidden chamber, every trial hall was connected to the same dying grid.

Everywhere, human cultivators were running for their lives.

"RUN!"

"DON’T STOP!"

"THE DOORS ARE CLOSING!"

BOOM!

A massive stone gate dropped behind a group of fleeing martial artists, sealing them off. Something heavy slammed against the other side.

BANG!

The stone bowed inward under the impact.

A wounded cultivator stumbled and fell. "Keep moving without me!"

Another grabbed him by the collar, dragging him across the flagstones. "If you fall behind, you die!"

They ran blindly, their robes soaked in blood, their weapons notched and broken. Nobody knew where the path led—they only knew that staying still meant being digested by the floor.

——————————

In a collapsed subsidiary chamber, a small group of humans had barricaded themselves behind a fallen pillar.

Seven survivors remained.

Or so they thought.

A man pressed a bloody hand against a deep gash on his stomach. "We lost six people back there..."

A woman shook her head, tears streaking her dust-covered face. "Nine."

The man looked up at her. "What?"

"Nine people," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Nine of our group didn’t make it."

Silence fell over the room. Then someone whispered into the dark: "Where is Young Master Oren?"

Nobody answered.

BOOM!

The rear wall exploded into a cloud of stone fragments and dust.

Every survivor scrambled to raise their broken weapons.

A tall figure stepped out of the dust cloud. Long white hair flowed down his back, his noble robes torn and blood-stained. Yet his sharp eyes remained calm and resolute.

"Oren!"

Oren wiped a line of blood from his jaw. Behind him, a second figure emerged from the rubble—a young man with messy black hair, sharp features, and a long sword strapped across his back. Purple lightning crackled softly across his knuckles.

Justin.

Oren exhaled. "We found you."

The survivors stared at them with desperate hope. "Did you find the others? The main team?"

Justin glanced back toward the destroyed corridor. "We didn’t. We barely escaped the sector collapse ourselves."

Nobody spoke.

Oren’s eyes turned cold. He worried desperately for his sister, Nyren, but right now, basic survival was taking everything they had. "There are things hunting outside."

"What things?"

Oren looked toward the dark corridor behind them. "Palace constructs. But they aren’t like the mindless beasts from Sector One."

Justin’s hand hovered over his hilt, his purple lightning snapping sharply. "They’re learning our techniques. And they’re getting faster."

Tap.

A faint, light step echoed from the dark corridor.

Everyone froze.

Tap. Tap.

Slow. Measured. Calm.

Justin drew his sword with a sharp metallic shriek.

SHING!

Purple lightning wrapped around the blade like a coil of serpents. "Everyone behind us. Now!"

The footsteps stopped at the edge of the shadows.

Then, a woman’s smooth, cold voice drifted out: "Humans."

Oren raised his hand, his telekinetic power flaring. Dozens of heavy stone fragments lifted into the air around his shoulders, hovering like floating shields.

Multiple silhouettes stepped out of the darkness.

Light-green silk robes. Emerald serpent insignias stamped across their chests. Cold, emotionless faces.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty.

The entire corridor filled with green-robed women—the elite force of the Emerald Venom Corps.

Justin’s expression turned to iron. "Who are you?!"

The woman at the front smiled, her eyes cold. "Your executioners."

HUM!

Every member of the Venom Corps formed a synchronized hand seal. Emerald light erupted across the walls, and a massive, serpent-shaped extraction array ignited beneath the feet of the trapped survivors.

Justin’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. "MOVE!"

BOOOOOOM!

——————————

In another section of the labyrinth...

Thirty members of the Emerald Venom Corps blocked the only exit, trapping a group of thirty terrified cultivators.

One man swallowed hard, his sword shaking. "Who are you people...? Why are you doing this?!"

A calm, dry voice answered from behind the green-robed women: "Because you were invited here for a purpose."

The women parted, bowing as a figure stepped forward.

Situ Li.

Draped in his simple gray robes, his expression remained entirely unbothered as he walked past his squad. He glanced at the trembling humans, then cast a look deeper into the palace.

"The integration has begun," Situ Li murmured.

One of the female commanders bowed her head. "Commander—"

"Do not use that title here," Situ Li interrupted coldly, his eyes watching the crimson leylines pulse beneath the floor. "Here, the palace dictates who is useful..."

He looked back at the terrified crowd, a faint, cruel smile touching his pale lips.

"...and who is merely fertilizer."

"AAAAARRGGGH!"

Screams erupted as the Emerald Venom Corps advanced. They didn’t butcher the humans immediately; they herd them with terrifying precision, driving them like cattle directly into the active extraction arrays.

Every escape route was sealed. Every defensive stand was crushed.

——————————

[Back in Sector Three...]

Jules suddenly stumbled, his dark lightning flickering wildly.

CRACK.

Something had shifted.

The crystalline sphere hovering above the platform—the object that had been whispering into his skull—abruptly went silent.

Jules frowned, staring at the pedestal. "What...?"

KRRRR...

A jagged crack split the surface of the crystalline sphere. Then another.

BOOM!

The sphere shattered into thousands of harmless glass shards.

Everyone froze.

There was no ancient artifact inside. No supreme weapon. No immortal inheritance.

Only an enormous, pitch-black cavity torn into the fabric of space.

Jules stared into the abyss, his face twisting into an ugly, unhinged scowl. "You... You tricked me?!"

He clenched his fists, his voice shaking with rage. "You were using me the entire time?!"

The palace offered no answer.

Instead—something inside the dark cavity opened its eyes.

Two colossal, blood-red eyes ignited in the void, radiating an ancient, suffocating pressure that flattened the air.

BOOOOOOM!

A wave of kinetic force blasted outward, throwing Jules backward off the platform!

Asher immediately raised Myriad Forge, stepping in front of the Argon sisters. Seana shifted her stance, her dark blade humming with blood Qi.

Even the glowing extraction leylines on the floor temporarily flickered.

Then, a voice emerged from the abyss. Cold, ancient, and heavy with absolute disgust:

"DEFECTIVE."

Jules’s eyes bulged. "What did you just call me?!"

The blood-red eyes stared down at him with unblinking disdain.

"CONTAMINATED BIOMASS."

Thick strands of pitch-black, necrotic lightning erupted uncontrollably from Jules’s skin. He stared at his own arms, his mind fracturing as confusion turned into toxic rage.

"Don’t..." Jules growled, his teeth grinding together until they bled. "...DON’T YOU DARE CALL ME THAT!"

BOOM!

A massive hand covered in jagged, pitch-black scales reached out from the cavity, slamming down onto the ancient platform and shattering the basalt into dust!

The entire chamber shuddered violently.

Asher’s expression turned grim. "Something was sealed inside that sphere..."

Seana stared at the scaled arm, her eyes narrowing behind her dark hair. "No."

She looked toward the ceiling vents, where the palace’s energy was converging.

"It wasn’t sealed," Seana whispered. "It was sleeping. And we just woke it up."

——————————

[Sector Four — The Core]

Lothe’s eyes snapped open.

THUMP.

The Core detonated with a massive pulse of energy.

Lothe’s [Spatial Perception] reached deep into the lower levels, and instantly, a new, terrifying presence registered in his mind.

Ancient. Massive. Unfathomably violent.

Lucan noticed the sudden shift in Lothe’s posture. "What is it? What did you feel?"

Lothe shook his head slowly, his voice tight. "Something ancient just woke up in Sector Three."

Professor Sy looked toward the silver-black heart. "The primary host...?"

Lothe nodded grimly.

Before he could speak further, another familiar energy signature entered his perception.

It was moving rapidly through the upper corridors, approaching Sector Four at terrifying speed—dense, suffocating, and carrying the unmistakable scent of high-tier poison.

Lothe’s eyes narrowed into slits of ice.

Qing Lian.

Lucan glanced at him. "Who is coming?"

"The woman who wants my head on a spike," Lothe said, stepping toward the archway.​