After A Billion-Year Torture, I Returned As A Transcendent Player

Chapter 70: Breakthroughs, Dire Messege

The Shelter Hub’s trade hall was packed by mid-morning, and Aidan walked into it carrying a full day’s worth of plunder in his inventory.

The day before had been nothing but work, and good work at that. He, Solenne, and the whole gang of summons had scoured the new Legendary-rank dimension end to end, clearing out every Terror nesting in it while collecting a lot of things.

Monster meat by the tons. Cores, bones, hides, and organs from Legendary-rank beasts that fought back exactly hard enough to make it fun. And the crown of the haul, a hidden meadow tucked behind a ring of storm-wrapped peaks, growing exotic Legendary-rank herbs and resources that most Hunters only saw in auction catalogues.

That meadow alone was why he was here.

He found the biggest bulk broker in the hall and started unloading.

The broker’s professional boredom lasted about four items deep into the pile. By the time the meadow’s herbs came out, glowing faintly in their preservation cases, the man had called over two appraisers and stopped pretending this was a normal morning.

"Where did you even..." the broker started.

"Got lucky," Aidan said, the same lie as always, worn smooth with use.

The counting took a while.

[Sale complete. 26,480 Legendary-rank Spirit Stones received.]

’Beautiful.’ Aidan swept the glowing mountain into his inventory and left before the questions could organize themselves.

[Arthur: Master. Master. I saw the number.]

’I know you did, buddy.’

[Arthur: I’m at Legendary-10 Attack, but my other stats are a bit shy of peak. If I eat enough of those stones, I will finally hit the peak. All stats. The whole mountain top.]

’Yeah, yeah.’ Aidan grinned as he walked. ’You’ll get your share. Everyone’s eating today.’

...

Back inside the dimension, they turned the riverbank camp into a feast hall for power.

Aidan sat cross-legged first, drew ten thousand Legendary-rank Spirit Stones into a ring around himself, and absorbed.

The stones crumbled into rivers of light, and this breakthrough felt different from the last one. Epic-rank had been fuel for a starved engine. This was fuel for meeting an engine that had already tasted a Conceptual Technique, and his foundation drank the flood without a single tremor of resistance.

The wall at the top of Epic-rank cracked, groaned, and gave way.

[’CLIMB! CLIMB! CLIMB!’]

[’LEGENDARY, BABY!’]

’One important moment of silence. Just one. Ever.’ Aidan grinned through the shouting of his bonds as his stats surged into new ground.

[Breakthrough successful.]

[Base Rank raised: Epic-rank to Legendary-rank.]

Tom went next.

The little Threadseer sat primly in the center of his own ten thousand stones, looking deeply unimpressed by the ceremony of it all, and absorbed the entire ring in one long, continuous pull. Space folded faintly around him as his Epic-10 frame stretched, cracked, and reset itself one rank higher.

[Tom: Legendary. Finally. Do you know how embarrassing it is to threaten people at Epic-rank?]

’You threaten people?’

[Tom: Constantly. Now it’ll land.]

Arthur inhaled his four thousand seven hundred and fifty stones with none of Tom’s dignity and all of the enthusiasm of a dragon at a buffet, and when the light finished pouring into him, every one of his attributes sat flush at the ceiling.

[Arthur: PEAK. ALL OF IT. LOOK AT ME.]

He did a full aerial loop over the river, roaring at absolutely nothing, and nobody had the heart to tell him to stop.

Solenne worked quietly, off near the waterfall, surrounded by neat rows of Tier-10 resources and spirit stones, absorbing them one measured breath at a time as her foundation climbed steadily toward the peak of SSS-rank. She didn’t celebrate. She just kept eating power like she was possessed.

Aidan checked what remained of the morning’s fortune and let out a low whistle.

"Dayum. Now I am only left with 1,730 Legendary-rank Spirit Stones. We splurged our whole day’s earnings."

"Which was the 34% of the total resource this Legendary-rank dimension held," Jovan added notedly.

"And we didn’t find any Spirit Vein in this dimension." Tom licked his paws. "Tough luck."

"Meh, who cares. We got what we needed."

Aidan stretched his arms over his head, feeling Legendary-rank settle into his bones like a suit finally tailored right, and his mood climbed somewhere it hadn’t been in a while. Light. Jolly, even.

It was noon, the sun was out, and he had absolutely nothing urgent left to do.

’Right, then.’ He headed for the exit gate. ’Time to go chill and have some fun.’

He made it exactly eleven steps outside the dimension before his Digicard chimed.

The name floating above it made him pause. Nila Reben. Guild leader of Blue Vortex.

He accepted the call, and her voice came through taut and carefully controlled, the voice of someone holding a door shut against something heavy.

[Nila Reben: Mister Garen, I’ve called you out of my duty towards a member of my guild, who is also my best friend, Beatrix. She...is in trouble. I have no idea how you are connected to her, but she told me to contact you. If possible, I would also like to request you to lend a hand in this matter.]

The jolly noon light didn’t change at all.

But Aidan’s expression did.

[Aidan: What’s going on? What happened?]

[Nila: She caught the eye of someone from Cloud Whirl Alliance. She has always been a looker, after all. The problem is, Beatrix has no one in her family, and no backing except our guild, which is powerless against this adversary.]

[Aidan: Someone wants to forcefully take her?]

[Nila: And forcefully marry her. This person...came to Earth two days ago with his harem of sixteen women and collected four more women like accessories, offering them riches and power. But he also came to Beatrix, and received a hard no, which...]

[Aidan: Which wounded his little ego? And now he is being forceful?]

[Nila: Beatrix is imprisoned. He also showered a lot of things, especially Legendary-rank resources, on the GHA, and wants to hold a grand marriage with the women he just collected on Earth. And nobody dares to oppose him. The other people from Cloud Whirl Galactic Alliance also told us not to bother getting on his bad side because....]

[Aidan: Because, let me guess, he got a solid backing. A family with a Divine-rank Hunter, I suppose?]

[Nila: Yes...]