Dungeon Corpse Stacker: I Absorb Everything to Become Ominous Monarch
Chapter 32: THE DESCENT OF THE TERRORS

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: THE DESCENT OF THE TERRORS

The heavy, oppressive air inside the lower corridors of Sector 2 was thick with the suffocating stench of scorched ozone, burnt flesh, and the metallic tang of copper. Where two hundred elite Hunters of the Southern Association Strike Force had stood in proud, military-grade formation just minutes prior, only an eerie, unbroken silence now remained.

Renan walked slowly down the central trench of the cavernous tunnel, his tattered black coat brushing gently against the cold concrete walls. His boots stepped over flattened rifle barrels, cracked tactical visors, and shattered armor plates. Behind him, the original fifty Shadow Knights were no longer just fifty.

Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.

A dense, viscous miasma of dark purple energy bled upward from the fallen bodies scattered across the concrete floor like oil leaking onto water. One by one, the armored corpses twitched violently as abyssal steel armor materialized around their frames. Spectral purple flames ignited within their eye sockets, burning with absolute, fanatical devotion to their new master.

[Absolute Extraction System Activated]

Mass Extraction Complete: 149 High-Tier Hunters (Rank-A/B)...

Targeting Mana Cores, Muscle Density, and Combat Instincts...

+1,240 Strength

+980 Agility

+1,450 Vitality

+2,100 Mana

[Shadow Army Expanded: 199 Active Units]

Renan paused, closing his eyes as the massive influx of raw attributes surged into his mana core like a roaring tidal wave. His physical frame absorbed the staggering increase in stats effortlessly. His blood vessels glowed with a brief, radiant golden pulse before settling back into a terrifying, dormant calm.

He slowly raised his hand, testing the ambient air. His senses had expanded so far that he could clearly hear the frantic, uneven heartbeats of the two remaining Directors stationed five hundred meters above at the Sector 2 perimeter command hub. He could feel the subtle shift in their mana, the sudden spike in their adrenaline, and the blind terror beginning to consume their ranks.

"Director Harold... Director Marcus..." Renan murmured into the quiet dark, his voice carrying an eerie resonance that rattled the loose gravel on the ground. "You sent sheep to slaughter a wolf."

Meanwhile, at the surface level of Sector 2, the Association’s tactical command center was in complete, unmitigated chaos.

Inside the reinforced tactical trailer, blood-red emergency lights flashed rhythmically, accompanied by the blaring hum of warning sirens. The central monitors, which had previously displayed two hundred active green biometric signals representing the vanguard strike force, were now rapidly turning black, row by row.

BEEP... BEEP... BEEP... ERROR: BIOMETRIC SIGNAL LOST.

ERROR: UNIT 01 THRU 149 NON-RESPONSIVE.

"What the hell is happening down there?!" Director Marcus slammed his massive, leather-gloved fist onto the steel control console, shattering the reinforced glass display beneath his palm into a thousand pieces. "Gregory’s unit stopped transmitting four minutes ago! Why haven’t we received a video feed?! Where is the telemetry?!"

Director Harold stood motionless near the illuminated tactical map screen, his face drained of all color. His hands, normally steady enough to fire high-precision mana rifles across miles of chaotic battlefields, were visibly shaking. He reached for the primary emergency radio comms unit with a trembling hand and slammed down the broadcast button.

"Gregory! Report immediately! This is Harold! Status on the target!"

Only static answered him—a low, rhythmic hiss that seemed to stretch on forever. Then, a low, metallic scraping sound hummed through the speaker, followed by a voice that sent a icy chill straight down Harold’s spine.

"Gregory cannot answer, Director."

The voice bleeding through the radio was cold, razor-sharp, and unnaturally layered, as if multiple monstrous entities were speaking in unison through a single throat.

"His soul, along with your entire vanguard, now belongs to my legion. Bring the rest of your men down into the dark... or I will come up and harvest them myself."

CRACK.

The radio link died permanently, melting into a lump of fused plastic and metal.

Marcus pulled his twin dual-bladed mana daggers from their sheaths on his back, his body erupting in a violent shroud of red sparks. The sheer heat of his aura melted the heavy rubber flooring beneath his tactical boots.

"That bastard... He wiped out an entire Strike Force in less than ten minutes! Is he an S-Rank catastrophe monster?! A rogue Calamity Boss?!" Marcus screamed, his eyes bloodshot with rage.

"No," Harold whispered, his eyes wide with a horrifying realization as he stared at the dark monitor screen. "He’s not a monster from a Gate. He’s the rogue element that systematically destroyed Guild Apex’s underground supply lines... The Scavenger."

"I don’t give a damn who he is!" Marcus roared, his red mana bursting outward and blowing the reinforced steel doors of the tactical trailer clean off their hinges. "We have twenty artificial S-Rank enforcers and heavy mana artillery deployed at the perimeter line! I’ll tear his heart out with my bare hands!"

Marcus charged out into the open boulevard, his body blurring into a streak of crimson kinetic energy. Harold grimaced, gritting his teeth as he drew his heavy tungsten command baton, his own blue aura flaring as he rushed out to follow.

At the primary entrance of the subterranean stairwell, fifty heavy automated mana turrets locked their glowing red laser sights onto the gaping mouth of the underground passage. Twenty massive, cybernetically enhanced artificial S-Rank enforcers stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a reinforced semicircle, their tower shields locked into the asphalt and their heavy gatling cannons fully spun up, whining with pent-up energy.

"All units, target the tunnel exit!" Marcus screamed, landing at the front of the defensive line, his twin daggers blazing with heat. "The moment he shows his face, pulverize the entire sector! Turn him and his abomination into dust!"

Then, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble.

It wasn’t a localized vibration; the entire structural foundation of Sector 2—the concrete roads, the abandoned steel skyscrapers, the iron sewer grates—began to shake as if a violent earthquake was tearing through the city’s roots. The floodlights mounted on the armored transports flickered and hummed beneath the heavy pressure of localized gravitational distortion.

BOOM!

The massive, three-ton reinforced steel blast doors sealing the subterranean entrance blew outward, flying hundreds of feet into the night sky like paper before crashing into an armored transport vehicle, flattening it instantly.

Out from the smoking, jagged crater stepped Renan.

He walked forward alone at first, his tattered coat swaying gently in the cold night breeze. But behind him, emerging from the dark, gaping maw of the subterranean cavern, marched an unending tide of abyssal soldiers. Nearly two hundred Shadow Knights advanced in absolute, terrifying silence, their dark steel armor absorbing the harsh white floodlights of the Association’s perimeter.

And at the very front of the advancing shadow legion stood the towering figure of Director Gregory, his abyssal form holding his massive iron barrier shield high in the air.

Marcus’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated horror as he recognized the spectral face behind the Shadow Knight’s helmet. "Gregory... What in God’s name did you do to Gregory?!"

Renan didn’t answer with words. He slowly raised his right hand toward the dark, starless sky, his golden eyes locking onto the two remaining Directors with absolute, sovereign dominance.

[Absolute Extraction System: Battle Protocol]

Target Locked: 2 Association Directors & 20 Artificial S-Rank Enforcers.

Commencing Total Sector Domination.

"Harvest them all," Renan commanded quietly.

With a unified, terrifying roar that shattered every glass window within a five-block radius, the Shadow Army surged forward like a wave of pure, living darkness.