Chapter 117: Kaelen Vance (2)

"Emperor’s Domain."

A heavy, violently glowing ring of golden-red light erupted from Kaelen’s boots, expanding outward in a fifty-yard radius, completely engulfing the courtyard, Silas, Sienna, and the airborne Chimera.

The physical laws within the golden-red ring instantly, and catastrophically shifted.

This was not a simple gravity spell. Emperor’s Domain was a localized enforcement of absolute, conceptual authority. Within the radius of the domain, Kaelen’s willpower dictated reality. Enemies caught within the field suffered an immediate, crushing suppression of all base attributes. Their speed, strength, and magical output were forcibly subjugated, violently scaled down to ensure they remained statistically inferior to the Emperor.

The Blood-Forged Chimera, a Level 52 Sovereign, hit the boundary of the domain mid-lunge and let out a gargling shriek of sudden, agonizing pain. The beast’s momentum was violently arrested as if it had slammed into an invisible wall of solid iron.

"Kneel," Kaelen commanded, his voice layered with the heavy resonance of the system’s authority.

The Imperial Decree activated. The crushing conceptual weight of the domain multiplied exponentially, focusing entirely on the Chimera. The beast fought back, its Level 52 mana core flaring wildly, its muscles bulging as it tried to resist the absolute command. But Kaelen’s SS-Rank talent was a broken, anomalous mechanic designed to shatter resistance.

The Chimera’s front legs buckled. The sound of thick, obsidian-laced bones cracking echoed loudly through the courtyard as the massive beast was forcibly driven down into the stone floor, its chin slamming against the rubble.

Silas and Sienna watched in absolute, paralyzed awe. They were standing inside the domain, but because they were registered as ’Subjects’ to the Emperor, the crushing gravity did not apply to them. Instead, they felt a warm, unnatural surge of adrenaline and stamina—the Imperial Conscription buff that Kaelen passively applied to his pawns.

"Strike it," Kaelen ordered coldly, entirely unbothered by the struggling, roaring beast pinned before him. "I want to see its defensive thresholds."

Silas didn’t hesitate. He blurred into motion, utilizing his highest-tier rogue skills to deliver a rapid flurry of dagger strikes against the Chimera’s exposed, scaled flank. Sienna followed up, launching a barrage of concentrated fire lances that exploded against the beast’s mane.

The Level 30 and 33 attacks barely scratched the Level 52 armor, registering only marginal damage. But the sheer indignity of being attacked by lower-tier entities pushed the Chimera into a berserk frenzy.

The beast’s serpent tail, crackling with necrotic venom, whipped around with blinding speed, entirely bypassing Silas and aiming directly for Kaelen’s throat.

Kaelen saw the lethal strike coming. He didn’t attempt to dodge. He didn’t even blink.

"Imperial Conscription: Substitution," Kaelen whispered.

The golden-red light of the domain flared. The conceptual targeting of the Chimera’s attack was instantly, forcibly redirected by the rules of the Emperor.

Silas, who was standing a dozen feet away, suddenly gasped as the necrotic serpent tail seamlessly warped through the air and slammed directly into his own chest instead of Kaelen’s. The Level 33 Rogue was launched backward like a broken doll, his ribs shattering upon impact, coughing up a massive mouthful of blood as the venom instantly invaded his system.

He hit the floor, writhing in agony, his health bar plummeting to the absolute redline.

"A useful mechanic," Kaelen noted calmly, glancing briefly at his dying subordinate. "My subjects exist to absorb the blows meant for the throne. You should be honored, Silas."

Sienna let out a muffled sob of terror, but she didn’t dare move to heal Silas without permission. She kept her staff raised, her entire body trembling, realizing with absolute clarity that Kaelen would sacrifice her just as easily if the need arose.

"Enough testing," Kaelen declared, his dark eyes locking back onto the pinned Chimera. "You bore me, beast."

Kaelen stepped forward, raising the massive crimson halberd with both hands. He channeled his mana into the weapon, the blade erupting in a localized inferno of superheated, blood-red plasma. He stepped directly in front of the Chimera’s massive, roaring face.

"Execution Decree," Kaelen stated.

He swung the halberd in a devastating, horizontal arc. Because the Chimera was under the absolute suppression of the Emperor’s Domain, its defensive scaling had been stripped away. The superheated blade sheared cleanly through the beast’s thick, muscular neck, entirely severing the heavy, lion-like head from the amalgamated body.

The Chimera collapsed, a fountain of hot, black blood erupting from the stump, washing over the ancient stone of the courtyard.

Kaelen casually stepped back, letting the halberd rest against his shoulder, perfectly avoiding the spray of blood. The golden-red ring of his domain instantly vanished, releasing the crushing pressure on the room.

Ding!

[You have killed "Blood-Forged Chimera (Level 52, Elite Sovereign)"]

[Experience gained.]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 46!]

[Title Gained: Executioner of the Ancients (Epic)]

Kaelen dismissed the glowing blue interface with a sharp wave of his hand. The golden light of the level-up washed over him, completely restoring his stamina and reinforcing his already monstrous physical attributes. He was Level 46. He remained firmly seated among the fifteen who hovered above the impending slaughter of the Initiate rank.

He looked down at Silas, who was currently choking on his own blood.

"Heal him," Kaelen ordered Sienna, not sparing the rogue a second glance. "He is still useful. If he dies, I will hold you personally responsible."

Sienna scrambled forward, tears streaming down her face, and desperately began channeling her highest-tier restorative magic into Silas’s chest, stabilizing the rogue’s failing health bar.

Kaelen turned away from them, walking toward the blood-stained altar to inspect the loot drops.

"Forty-eight days," Kaelen muttered to himself, his voice echoing softly in the ruined temple. "Nearly thirty-three million players are crying into the dirt, waiting for the sky to execute them. They look at me and they see a god. They see the peak of human achievement in this cursed system."

He reached the altar, his leather-gloved fist clenching tightly around the haft of his halberd, the knuckles turning white under the strain.

"But they don’t know the truth," Kaelen snarled, his composure cracking for a fraction of a second, revealing the festering, obsessive wound beneath.

He dismissed his active system interface, closing out the bounty tracking reports he had obsessively monitored for weeks.

"My vault," Kaelen whispered, echoing the screams of his quartermaster from nearly a month ago. "My entire economic empire. Beginner zone monopolies. All of it rendered completely, utterly worthless in the span of a single afternoon."

Kaelen’s SS-Rank talent allowed him to control everything within his radius. He demanded order, hierarchy, and absolute supremacy. But the "Anonymous" player—the anomaly who had casually slaughtered the Sovereign of the Ash and dumped commercial quantities of Adept-tier biologicals into the beginner zone—had fundamentally shattered Kaelen’s worldview.

The anomaly didn’t play by the rules of the system. He didn’t build guilds. He didn’t establish supply lines. He simply walked into a forest, killed things that were mathematically impossible to kill, and broke the global economy as a byproduct of emptying his inventory.

"You stole my Absolute Supremacy," Kaelen said, his dark eyes burning as he stared at the wall of the ruined temple.

He slowly extended his arm, his fingers hovering in the air as though he could measure the void density surrounding him. He knew what the readings meant. The recent Void Catastrophe had been cleared, and only a player could have accomplished something on that scale.

For time, he had hunted the impossible. He had followed the breadcrumbs left behind by shattered zones, anomalous system readings, and broken level curves. Every clue had led him closer to the same conclusion.

Someone had accomplished what should have been impossible.

Someone had taken what he believed was rightfully his.

"I know you’re here," Kaelen continued, his voice laced with barely restrained fury. "I know the Anonymous Player is in Sector 12."

Kaelen wasn’t only surviving the elimination cycle, he was also hunting the anomaly. He needed to find the player who had humiliated him, drag him into the Emperor’s Domain, and force him to kneel. Until he proved that his SS-Rank talent was the absolute pinnacle of Eternal Heaven, his entire existence felt like a hollow farce.

Behind him, Silas let out a ragged, painful cough as Sienna’s healing magic finally knit his shattered ribs back together. The rogue weakly pushed himself up into a sitting position, his face pale and drawn.

"Guild... Guild Master," Silas rasped, his voice weak. He didn’t dare complain about being used as a human meat-shield. "The area is secure. Should... should I consult the territorial map? We need to establish a forward operating base if we are going to continue tracking the anomaly in this sector."

"Do it," Kaelen commanded, turning his back on the altar and walking slowly back down the stone steps.

Silas reached into his inventory with trembling hands and pulled out a large, heavy parchment map. It was a dynamic system map, actively updating with topographical data based on their exploration parameters. He unrolled it across a flat piece of fallen masonry, leaning over it alongside Sienna.

Sector 12 was massive, a sprawling continent of diverse, lethal biomes. The map displayed the towering permafrost mountains, the treacherous southern crags, and the dense, sprawling expanses of the crystalline forests.

"We are currently in the southern ruins," Silas reported, tracing a finger along the parchment. "We’ve scoured the merchant hubs to the east, and the dwarven outposts to the west. We haven’t picked up any rumors of a player matching the catastrophic power profile you are looking for."

"And there’s something else worth noting. After interacting with the various NPCs here, I’ve come to realize that we humans aren’t the only beings transported to Eternal Heaven. In fact, we might be among the most recent arrivals."

He paused, recalling the strange accounts he’d gathered.

"Most of the other beings have been here for days, if not longer, scattered across different sectors. That would explain why some of the NPCs described individuals whose power profiles closely resembled those of players, yet their physical features were unmistakably nonhuman."

Kaelen stopped walking, his crimson armor radiating a low, angry heat. "He is here. A player of that magnitude cannot exist without leaving a wake of destruction. Look harder."

Silas swallowed hard, his eyes desperately scanning the parchment, terrified of disappointing the Emperor again. He looked toward the northern quadrant of the map, his finger stopping over a large, mostly blank area nestled at the base of the highest mountain range.

"Guild Master," Silas said tentatively, tapping the parchment. "There is a massive blind spot here. The topographical scans indicate a large, secluded valley. The system tags it as a neutral NPC sanctuary."

Kaelen stepped forward, looming over the two terrified subordinates, his dark eyes locking onto the designated area on the map.

"A sanctuary," Kaelen repeated softly.

"Yes," Silas nodded quickly. "It’s a dragonkin village up north. We haven’t explored it yet. The regional chatter says the area has been historically choked by an impenetrable Void Mist, making it completely inaccessible to standard players."

"An impenetrable mist," Kaelen murmured, a cold, predatory smile slowly spreading across his sharp features. He placed a heavy, armored hand on the hilt of his halberd.

"Yes, an impenetrable mist that would make searching that area extremely difficult," Silas added.

Kaelen remained silent. Something about the sector’s void density had been bothering him, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the readings weren’t normal.

It was as though an enormous concentration of Void had been cleared from one location, leaving behind a stark contrast with the surrounding region. And as Silas noted, there’s a place in Sector 12 known to be saturated with such an overwhelming amount of Void.

If the anomaly had cleared the Void from that area, it would explain the sudden drop in the sector’s overall Void density.

Kaelen’s eyes narrowed as the pieces finally fell into place.

If his deductions were correct, the anomaly’s most recent trail would lead straight to the valley!

Kaelen then looked down at Silas and Sienna, the golden-red light of his domain faintly pulsing in his dark eyes.

"Pack your gear," Kaelen ordered, his voice carrying the absolute, chilling finality of a death sentence. "We ride north to the dragonkin village."