Chapter 80: Hunting (2)

The low, guttural roar that rolled across the void carried the raw, resonant vibration of an apex predator. It rattled the shattered archways of the outer drift island and sent ripples through the thick bank of dark fog hanging over the abyss.

Raphael didn’t hesitate.

He drew his four-foot matte-black longsword from his back harness, the adamantine steel emitting a quiet, metallic hum as it cleared the scabbard. Holding the blade loosely in his right hand, he stepped off the edge of the smaller drift landmass.

ZIP.

Executing a long-range Shadow-Step Flash, Raphael crossed the three-hundred-meter void gap in an instant, landing with a soft, heavy thud on the jagged shoreline of the larger floating island.

This landmass was vast, nearly two miles wide, and far more treacherous. It was a graveyard of ancient gothic ruins, massive collapsed stone pillars, and dense thickets of petrified, thorn-covered void briars that bled dark, acidic sap onto the rock.

The air here was suffocatingly dense, saturated with raw, unrefined spatial essence.

Raphael kept his Sovereign’s Veil tightly pinned around his core, suppressing his presence to absolute zero. He moved through the foggy ruins like a phantom, his silver eyes scanning the terrain with razor-sharp focus.

On the ground before him were massive, three-toed claw impressions crushed deep into the obsidian rock. The dark sap from broken void briars was still sizzling on the stone, proving the beast had passed through only moments ago.

[Target footprint: nine feet across]

[Estimated mass: twelve tons]

[Uncatalogued B-Tier Apex Void Alpha]

Raphael tracked the trail deeper into the heart of the shattered landmass, weaving through a labyrinth of collapsed marble amphitheaters and overgrown plazas.

As he crossed the threshold of a massive, roofless cathedral, the black fog around him suddenly turned dead silent. The howling void-wind vanished, replaced by an eerie, heavy stillness that hung over the towering stone pillars.

From thirty feet above, clinging to the shadows of a cracked cathedral arch, the Void Alpha prepared its strike.

Unlike its smaller packmates, the Alpha was a monstrous, twelve-foot-tall horror. Its massive torso was covered in interlocking plates of razor-sharp, obsidian-crystalline armor that reflected the dim purple void light. Its long, serpentine tail whipped through the air, and four massive, glowing crimson eyes burned beneath a heavy bone crest. Extending from its spine were eight thick, whip-like spatial tendrils dripping with corrosive void-fire.

The Alpha didn’t pounce with brute force. It opened its massive jaw and released an ultrasonic, localized spatial shockwave aimed straight at Raphael’s head.

BOOM!

The air between them cracked like a thunderclap as a visible wave of distorted spatial force blasted downward, shattering the stone pillars in its path into fine dust.

Raphael reacted before the shockwave even reached him.

His godlike neural processing speed mapped the trajectory instantly. He executed a sharp lateral Shadow-Step Flash, materializing twenty feet to the left on top of a stone altar just as the spot where he had been standing exploded into a crater of pulverized rock. The Void Alpha let out a deafening screech, realizing its ambush had failed. It dropped from the high arch, its twelve-ton weight smashing into the cathedral floor, shaking the entire floating island.

HISS!

Its eight spatial tendrils snapped outward simultaneously, weaving a blinding net of razor-sharp spatial energy that swept across the entire width of the cathedral floor, leaving no room to dodge physically.

A cold, dangerous smile touched Raphael’s lips beneath his void-silk hood.

"Realm-Breaker."

BOOM!

The 100-meter domain overwrite erupted from his body, snapping into existence with absolute, unquestionable authority. The ruined cathedral was instantly enveloped in pitch-black and silvery-violet spatial mana, and the rules of the world shifted entirely to Raphael’s favor. The eight incoming spatial tendrils hit the boundary of Absolute Weight.

CRUNCH!

The crushing spatial pressure slammed down upon the massive Void Alpha like a falling mountain. The beast’s twelve-ton frame buckled violently, its eight tendrils pinned instantly against the cracked marble floor as the air was forced from its lungs in a wet, guttural gasp. Its obsidian-crystalline armor groaned under the sudden, suffocating weight of Raphael’s sovereign presence.

The beast struggled frantically, its four red eyes blazing with wild, furious terror as it tried to push itself up off the stone. Raphael stepped off the altar, his heavy boots making no sound on the floor. Using Phasing Step, he vanished and reappeared directly standing on the Void Alpha’s massive bone crest, looking down at the struggling monster.

He raised his four-foot matte-black longsword with a two-handed grip, pointing the razor-sharp adamantine tip directly down at the center of the beast’s skull, where its hyper-dense, B-Tier Apex core hummed with dark energy.

"Your hunt ends here," Raphael said quietly, his deep baritone echoing through the domain.

Thanks to Spatial Armor Bypass, Raphael didn’t need to apply massive physical force to pierce the beast’s three-foot-thick obsidian-crystalline bone plate. He drove the blade downward.

ZIP-THUD.

The longsword passed seamlessly through the dense skull armor as if it were soft clay, plunging four feet deep straight into the Alpha’s primary spatial core. The Void Alpha let out a final, muffled screech as its four red eyes flickered violently before going completely dark.

WSHHH.

The massive twelve-ton body began to dissolve rapidly, turning into a vast cloud of sparkling black void-ash that washed over Raphael’s coat and cargo pants. Suspended in mid-air where the beast’s head had rested was an extraordinary reward: a glowing, fist-sized High-Purity Void Matrix Core, pulsing with brilliant, translucent-purple spatial light.

Raphael reached out his gauntleted hand, catching the dense, heavy core.

[TARGET ELIMINATED: B-TIER APEX VOID ALPHA]

[Harvested: 1x High-Purity Void Matrix Core]

[System Notice: High-density spatial asset transferred to Royal Treasury]

Raphael released his hold on the spatial domain, letting the purple void atmosphere recede as the cathedral returned to its quiet, foggy state. He resheathed his longsword across his back, turning the glowing Void Matrix Core over in his gauntleted palm.

The energy radiating from this single apex core was immense, enough to permanently boost The Iron Spire’s defensive wards or fuel his own core reserves for months.

He raised his left hand, absorbing the matrix core directly into his spatial inventory storage.

Raphael looked out past the ruined cathedral walls toward the deep, uncharted expanse of the Sky-Shattered Vault. The hunt on the drift islands had been a complete success: his footwork was sharper, his mastery over Realm-Breaker was absolute, and his treasury of spatial assets had grown significantly.

He activated his Waypoint Gate, stepping into the silvery-violet spatial mirror to return to his fortress.