Dungeon Corpse Stacker: I Absorb Everything to Become Ominous Monarch
Chapter 19: The Harvest of Northern Steel

Chapter 19: Chapter 19: The Harvest of Northern Steel

The screaming at the Northern Gate did not stop when the dark smoke settled.

Seven hundred dark pillars had solidified into seven hundred tall, terrifying figures clad in obsidian plate armor. Their visors burned with cold violet flames, and their hands gripped shadowy broadswords created from the very mana of their past lives.

They didn’t look at Renan with hatred; they turned around in flawless military formation, bowing their armored heads on one knee toward the young man in the black coat.

S-Rank Guild Master Marcus Vane, pinned beneath Renan’s boot inside a five-foot deep crater, spat out a mouthful of crimson foam. His face was pale, his eyes wide with an absolute, shattered spirit.

"My... my men..." Marcus wheezed, his fingers clawing at the rough concrete as his blood-mana flickered like a dying candle. "You turned... my entire vanguard into your puppets..."

Renan looked down at Marcus, his purple pupils glowing with an unyielding, predatory light.

"They are no longer your men, Marcus," Renan said softly. "They are the vanguard of the Ominous Faction."

Renan raised his right hand, his fingers curling into a claw above Marcus’s chest.

"And now, your turn."

[Target: Live S-Rank Guild Master (Marcus Vane - Blood Blade) Detected.] [Initiating Forced Extraction...]

THRUSSH!

A thick, pitch-black shadow tendril erupted directly from Renan’s palm, impaling Marcus’s cracked Flame Drake armor and driving straight through his heart.

"GAAAAAAAH!"

Marcus’s shriek tore through the three-mile pitch-black dome, echoing off the concrete highway barriers and sending chills down the spines of the remaining two thousand three hundred coalition Hunters.

The extraction was brutal and swift. Marcus’s seven-foot muscular frame shriveled like a dry leaf. His high-tier blood mana was forcibly ripped from his circuits, swirling into Renan’s palm in a torrent of crimson-violet energy. His red hair turned white, and his skin hardened into pale, fragile ash.

DING! DING! DING!

[Forced Extraction Successful!] [Target: S-Rank Guild Master (Marcus Vane) Extracted.] [Attributes Extracted!] [Strength +340] [Agility +280] [Vitality +310] [Mana +420] [Skill Acquired: Active - Blood Dragon’s Decapitation (Rank-S)] [Skill Acquired: Passive - Blood Mana Core (Rank-S)]

CRUMBLE!

Marcus’s remains shattered into fine grey dust, blowing away in the icy wind.

Renan flexed his fingers as the massive influx of blood-type attributes fused into his circulatory system. His heart beat with a heavy, metallic rhythm, and his passive physical density hardened even further.

Across the highway, the remaining two thousand three hundred Coalition Hunters took ten collective steps back.

"M-Marcus is dead..." a coalition captain whimpered, dropping his enchanted rifle onto the asphalt. "He extracted Guild Master Marcus in plain sight..."

"He has seven hundred shadow soldiers... plus the fifty from Sector 2..." another officer shrieked, his hands trembling so violently he couldn’t hold his staff. "WE CAN’T WIN THIS! RETREAT! FALL BACK TO SECTOR 1 BORDER!"

"RETREAT!"

Panic spread like a wildfire through a dry forest. Two thousand three hundred elite Hunters broke formation, turning their backs on the Northern Gate, fleeing toward their armored transport vehicles in a chaotic, desperate stampede.

Renan stood at the edge of the crater, his dark coat swaying in the wind.

He didn’t run after them. He simply raised his left hand, snapping his fingers.

"Ignis," Renan commanded.

FWHOOSH!

Shadow General Ignis materialized from the darkness beside Renan, its eight-foot executioner’s broadsword dripping with dark violet flames.

"My Sovereign," Ignis’s voice boomed like rolling thunder.

"Take the seven hundred new Shadow Knights and seal their escape route," Renan ordered coldly. "Leave the four remaining Guild Masters to me."

"It shall be done."

Ignis raised its broadsword, letting out a deafening roar that shook the highway girders. The seven hundred new Shadow Knights moved simultaneously, leaping across the concrete barriers like black lightning, cutting off the Coalition’s retreat path with a impenetrable wall of obsidian shields and dark spears.

Renan stepped forward, his body blurring into a streak of pitch-black smoke as he activated [Phantom Blitz].

SWOOSH!

In less than a hundredth of a second, Renan materialized three hundred yards down the highway, landing directly in front of the four remaining S-Rank Guild Masters’ command vehicles.

BOOM!

The concrete street cratered under Renan’s boots as he landed.

The four S-Rank Guild Masters—Catherine Vance (Shield Sovereign), Kaelen Voss (Elementalist), Jared Drake (Shadow Assassin), and General Ironclad (Military Vanguard)—instantly slammed on their magical barriers, jumping out of their armored vehicles with their weapons drawn.

"He’s here!" Kaelen Voss, the lightning elementalist, shrieked, his hands glowing with blinding blue electricity. "Don’t let him get close! Cast all wide-area destruction spells now!"

"Calm down, Kaelen!" Catherine Vance, the female Shield Sovereign, shouted, raising a massive white diamond tower shield that radiated a blinding S-Rank defensive barrier. "Form a defensive square! My [Diamond Aegis Domain] can withstand three S-Rank attacks simultaneously! He can’t break through us if we stay together!"

Renan walked toward the four Guild Masters with slow, unhurried steps.

The rain parted around his body. His dark purple eyes locked onto Catherine’s diamond shield, then swept over the other three terrified S-Rank leaders.

"A defensive square?" Renan asked dryly, a cold, mocking smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You saw what happened to Boros, you saw what happened to Richard, and you saw what happened to Marcus."

Renan stopped five paces from Catherine’s diamond barrier. He slowly raised his right fist, dark violet lightning mixing with Marcus’s newly extracted blood-flame mana around his knuckles.

[Current Physical Strength: 3,350 Points] [Mana Density: 5,420 Units]

"Did you really think a piece of shiny glass would protect you from me?" Renan whispered.

Catherine gritted her teeth, pouring every drop of her S-Rank mana into the diamond shield. "This is not glass, you arrogant porter! This is forged from the heart of a Tier-S Diamond Golem! IT IS IMPENETRABLE!"

"Impenetrable?"

Renan pulled his fist back into a simple, straight punching stance.

"Let’s test that."

As Renan threw his straight punch into the center of the diamond barrier, the sky above Sector 1 split open with a crimson flash, and Catherine’s legendary diamond shield didn’t just crack—it turned into fine, powdered sand that cut through the armor of the three Guild Masters standing behind her.