Dungeon Corpse Stacker: I Absorb Everything to Become Ominous Monarch
Chapter 16: The Fall of the Apex Titan

Chapter 16: Chapter 16: The Fall of the Apex Titan

The rainy wind howling through the shattered fifty-story penthouse windows sounded like a chorus of weeping ghosts.

Guild Master Richard thrashed helplessly, his hands clawing at the iron grip wrapping around his neck. His three-hundred-pound body, clad in golden-infused mithril armor, dangled five feet above the wet carpet.

The dark violet lightning surging from Renan’s palm crackled through Richard’s chest plate, crawling up his neck and into his eye sockets like living serpents of absolute shadow.

"Gah... hrrgk..." Richard gasped, blood bubbling from his mouth, running down his stubbled chin onto his golden armor. His eyes, once arrogant and commanding, were wide with unadulterated, primal terror. "Renan... please... I have... billions in offshore accounts... spatial rings filled with dragon cores... I can give you... half the city..."

Renan’s purple pupils glowed through the dark rain with an ice-cold, unyielding radiance.

"Half the city?" Renan whispered, his voice quiet, flat, and devoid of a single grain of mercy. "You offered me ten thousand credits to die in that Class-S gate, Richard. You thought my life was worth less than a broken copper potion vial."

Renan tightened his grip. The sound of Richard’s cervical vertebrae creaking under the physical weight of [1,500 Strength] echoed through the ruined room.

"Your money means nothing to me," Renan continued, his voice vibrating straight into Richard’s brain. "Your stats, however, will serve my army well."

[Target: Live S-Rank Guild Master (Richard - Holy Sword Specialist) Detected.] [Initiating Final Forced Extraction...]

THRUSSH!

A thick, pitch-black shadow spear erupted directly from Renan’s right palm, driving straight through the center of Richard’s mithril chest plate, piercing his heart.

"GAAAAAAAH!"

A blood-curdling shriek tore from Richard’s throat, amplifying across the fifty-story skyscraper before echoing out into the stormy night sky of Sector 1.

The extraction was brutal and absolute.

Richard’s body jerked violently in mid-air. His muscle density shriveled into thin, leathery skin in seconds. His high-tier holy mana was violently drained, turning from brilliant golden light into dark purple streams that poured straight into Renan’s raised hand. His silver hair turned white, brittle, and caved into fine dust.

DING! DING! DING!

A cascade of golden-crimson system notifications flared across Renan’s vision, illuminating the rain-soaked penthouse in a brilliant blood-red hue.

[Forced Extraction Successful!] [Target: S-Rank Guild Master (Richard) Extracted.] [Attributes Extracted!] [Strength +310] [Agility +220] [Vitality +280] [Mana +450] [Skill Acquired: Active - Dragon’s Judgement (Rank-S)] [Skill Acquired: Passive - Divine Aura Resistance (Rank-S)]

Renan released his grip.

CRUMBLE!

What was once the most powerful Guild Master in the city collapsed onto the wet carpet like a hollow, dried-up twig before shattering into a pile of gray ash. The stormy wind blowing through the shattered glass windows caught the ash, scattering the remains of Guild Master Richard out over the sprawling metropolitan skyline below.

Renan closed his eyes, inhaling a deep breath as the massive influx of physical attributes settled into his core. His skeletal structure groaned, his muscles weaving together with even greater density.

DING!

[Host Attributes Updated:]

Strength: 1,810

Agility: 1,760

Vitality: 2,050

Mana: 3,200

Renan slowly opened his eyes. The glowing purple hue in his pupils had deepened into an absolute, dark violet void.

Behind him, the heavy double doors of the penthouse suite were blown off their brass hinges.

Shadow General Ignis stepped into the room, its eight-foot executioner’s broadsword held at its side, dripping with the dark blood of the last mercenary guards on the forty-ninth floor. Behind Ignis stood fifty Shadow Knights in five perfect, terrifying rows, kneeling on one knee before Renan.

"My Sovereign," Ignis’s deep, booming voice echoed through the ruined penthouse. "The building is clear. All three hundred Iron Blood mercenaries have been neutralized. The lower floors are under shadow control."

Renan walked toward the floor-to-ceiling gap where the glass windows had been shattered. He looked down at the street fifty stories below.

The plaza was filled with flashing red and blue lights from dozens of news helicopters, police cruisers, and National Hunter Association emergency vehicles. Thousands of citizens and reporters stood behind police barriers miles away, watching the thirty-story Apex Guild logo mounted on the front of the skyscraper.

Renan raised his right hand, extending his index finger toward the glowing steel logo of Apex Guild.

"Ignis," Renan commanded quietly.

"Command me, my Sovereign."

"Bring down their crest."

FWHOOSH!

Shadow General Ignis stepped forward, pulling its broadsword back with both hands. Dark violet lightning and holy gold flames crackled around the eight-foot blade as Ignis swung it in a massive downward arc.

[Skill Activated: Hellfire Cleave (Rank-EX)]

A hundred-foot-wide wave of dark fire shot out from the penthouse window, slicing straight through the structural steel girders holding the fifty-ton Apex Guild emblem to the face of the building.

CRACK-SHATTER-BOOM!

The massive steel emblem—the symbol of Apex Guild’s decade-long reign over the city—was severed cleanly from the skyscraper.

It plummeted fifty stories down, crashing into the front plaza with a deafening explosion that shattered the concrete street and sent shockwaves rocking the surrounding blocks.

The crowd of thousands of onlookers, reporters, and Association guards fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Through the rain and smoke, every camera lens zoomed in on the fifty-story roof.

Standing at the edge of the shattered penthouse window, silhouetted against the dark, stormy sky, was Renan. His midnight-black combat coat fluttered gracefully in the wind. Beside him stood a seven-foot horned Shadow General and fifty midnight-black Shadow Knights.

Renan didn’t say a word into a microphone. He didn’t issue a statement to the press.

He simply raised his eyes, his dark purple gaze locking onto a hovering news drone forty yards away.

Across millions of television screens, computer monitors, and smartphone displays worldwide, the live broadcast captured the face of the former F-Rank porter standing atop the ruins of the strongest guild in the country.

DING!

A global System Notification—visible only to Renan—flared in his vision:

[Milestone Achieved: Destruction of Guild Apex.] [Faction Status: The Ominous Faction is now recognized as an Unranked Underground Calamity.] [Territory Acquired: Sector 1 & Sector 2 Assets.] [Next Target Unlocked: The National Hunter Association Board & Regional Guild Coalition.]

Renan turned his back on the city lights, walking toward the center of the ruined room.

"Victor," Renan said into a small communication device pulled from his coat.

"L-Lord Renan!" Boss Victor’s trembling voice came through the speaker from Sector 4. "I watched the live broadcast! The entire city is in absolute chaos! Apex Guild’s stocks have hit zero! Guild Master Richard’s death has been confirmed by the Association!"

"Take control of Apex Guild’s physical assets, legal deeds, and dungeon gate licenses," Renan commanded coldly. "Convert every financial resource into high-grade mana stones and monster carcasses. I want ten thousand carcasses stored in the Sector 1 vault within forty-eight hours."

"Ten... ten thousand carcasses?!" Victor gasped, his voice squeaking with shock. "Lord Renan... that would require buying out every black market and dungeon disposal yard in three provinces!"

"Then buy them out," Renan replied, his tone leaving no room for argument. "The National Hunter Association won’t stay quiet for long. When they come for us next time, they won’t send Directors. They will send the entire army."

Renan stopped in the center of the penthouse, looking over his fifty Shadow Knights and Shadow General Ignis.

"And when they do," Renan whispered, his dark eyes glowing in the dark, "I will be waiting with an army of ten thousand shadows."

Renan raised his hand, activating his movement skill.

[Shadow Step!]

His body dissolved into a violent vortex of pitch-black smoke, taking Ignis and the fifty Shadow Knights with him into the dark.

The ruined penthouse of Apex Guild Headquarters was left completely empty—a hollow shell of stone and steel, standing as a silent testament to the birth of a new, absolute sovereign.

In the war room of the National Hunter Association Headquarters in the capital, the President slammed a dossier labeled "SUBJECT: RENAN — CLASS-S THREAT" onto a table surrounded by five National-Level Hunters, his voice trembling: "Assemble the Regional Coalition. We are going to war."