Chapter 139: 139
The next morning arrived with a loud, ringing chime that echoed across the entire residential block of the Ascendant Academy. Ayla opened her golden eyes, her round blue body expanding smoothly on the plush training rug as her consciousness returned to full alertness.
Her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core was perfectly silent, spinning with a heavy, massive rhythm that radiated the dense, unyielding authority of a maximized Peak Gold Crusader.
She did not waste a single second. She rolled toward the automated silver doorway of her private suite, releasing the locking mechanisms with a quick touch of her fluid mass. The heavy doors slid open with a soft hiss, and Ayla waddled out into the wide stone corridor, completely ready to claim her next meal.
The hallway was already packed with hundreds of freshman students who were gathering their gear for the day’s missions. The moment the small blue slime rolled into the corridor, the loud chatter of the recruits instantly vanished. The scaly reptile-men, the heavily armored humanoids, and the elven mages all dropped their weapons and frantically scrambled backward against the stone walls, creating a massive twenty-foot gap for her to pass through.
Their eyes were filled with a heavy mixture of burning envy and absolute terror. They had spent the last twenty-four hours reading the internal campus forums, learning how Ayla had single-handedly cleared a five-man mechanical sector in just eleven minutes. To these beginners, the tiny piece of jelly was a walking monster that they could never hope to compete against.
Ayla ignored their frightened stares completely, treating the entire crowd like invisible pieces of dirt as she rolled calmly toward the grand transit pavilion.
"Nexus, let’s go straight to the Floating Sky Fortress Sector," Ayla communicated through the mind link, her mental voice carrying her standard flat tone of pure boredom. "Instructor Argenta said the dragon faction is going to be there. I want to collect the fifty aerial crystals quickly."
"The spatial transit coordinates are already locked into your student interface, little monster!" Nexus’s voice giggled happily inside her head. "Because you were promoted to a Middle-Tier Elite Ranker yesterday, the system has bypassed the standard freshman lines for you. We are dropping straight into Tier 2, Zone 1 right now. Let’s see how those proud seniors react when you steal their food!"
Within a few minutes, Ayla reached the center of the grand transit pavilion, stepping onto a massive silver teleportation pad that was glowing with a dense purple spatial mana. She pressed her fluid mass against the primary interface terminal, verifying her advanced mission parameters.
A loud, automated chime echoed across the platform.
[ Advanced Mission Verification Approved ]
[ Target Destination: The Floating Sky Fortress Sector — Tier 2 ]
[ Initializing independent spatial deployment for Elite Ranker Ayla ]
A brilliant flash of purple light instantly enveloped Ayla’s round body, and the spatial parameters around her mass violently compressed. A fraction of a millisecond later, her physical form vanished from the academy grounds completely.
Boom.
A heavy, echoing sound vibrated through the air as Ayla’s body dropped smoothly onto a hard metallic platform.
She opened her golden eyes and immediately looked around her new surroundings. Tier 2 of the Floating Sky Fortress Sector was a colossal network of massive, automated metal islands that floated thousands of feet above a sea of endless white clouds. The island she was currently standing on was built from ancient, gleaming white alloy plating and surrounded by high, transparent crystal barriers that blocked the fierce high-altitude winds. The sky above was a brilliant, crystal-clear blue, completely different from the dark, flooded underground facility she had cleared yesterday.
Floating in the air between the different metal islands were dozens of glowing, football-sized crystals that radiated a pure, dense golden mana. These were the fifty Aerial Matrix Crystals required for her mission.
However, Ayla was not the only one in the sector. Standing just fifty meters away from her position on the main platform was a large, highly organized group of twenty second-year senior students. They all wore identical crimson armor sets covered in glowing dragon scale patterns, and they carried heavy, high-grade magical weapons that radiated intense aura pressures.
Standing at the very front of the crimson group was a towering, majestic humanoid warrior who was easily eight feet tall. His skin was covered in dark red, metallic dragon scales, and a thick, heavy tail whipped slowly behind his legs. A pair of sharp, black dragon horns protruded from his forehead, and his burning yellow eyes carried a supreme, arrogant disdain.
This was Draco, the elite leader of the Roaring Dragon Faction and a renowned second-year genius who possessed a mutated Dragon Core framework.
"So, the freshman anomaly actually dared to show up," Draco sneered, his deep, booming voice echoing across the wind-shielded platform. He took a slow step forward, his heavy iron boots creating a loud, echoing thud against the white alloy plating. "Instructor Argenta warned us about you, slime. Wiping out a few weak freshmen and some basic mechanical drones might have made you arrogant, but this is Tier 2 territory. The Floating Sky Fortress belongs to the Roaring Dragon Faction."
Ayla did not reply. She dropped her round body into a low, comfortable position on the smooth white plating, her golden-ringed pupils locking onto Draco’s chest cavity. Beneath his crimson armor plates, she could clearly feel the dense, pulsing heat of his mutated Dragon Core. It smelled incredibly rich, deep, and savory, far better than the fake artificial energy of the mechanical robots.
A small, pleasant ripple traveled through her blue fluid mass as her monstrous hunger instantly awakened.
"Nexus, his core is very high quality," Ayla whispered inside her mind, her multi-layered mental voice carrying a sudden, predatory edge. "It smells like a real meal. Can I eat him before I collect the crystals?"
"Oh, absolutely!" Nexus giggled hysterically inside her head, flashing a detailed block of red stat charts across Ayla’s right holographic lens. "Draco’s core density is equivalent to a peak Gold Crusader, but his ancient dragon framework gives him an extra fifty percent physical defense buff. He thinks his scales are completely indestructible. Break his pride, little monster!"
Draco noticed Ayla’s complete silence and her unblinking, deadpan stare. To a proud dragon heir who was used to absolute obedience from his peers, being treated like an invisible piece of trash by a tiny piece of blue jelly was a massive, unforgivable insult to his dignity.
"You stupid piece of fluid!" Draco roared, his yellow pupils contracting into sharp vertical slits as a massive wave of pure, hot crimson aura erupted from his body. The intense heat wave completely warped the surrounding air parameters, causing the white alloy plating beneath his feet to turn bright red. "Let’s see if your pitch-black claws can slice through the absolute defense of an ancient dragon! Faction members, lock down the aerial crystals right now! Do not let her touch a single point!"
"Yes, Commander!" the nineteen crimson-armored seniors shouted in unison, instantly activating their flying boots to soar into the air toward the floating golden crystals.
Draco did not wait for his team. He lunged forward across the platform like a red meteor, his scaled right fist gathering a massive, swirling vortex of compressed dragon fire. The physical force of his charge was so immense that it shattered the transparent crystal barriers nearby into fine powder.
"Die, freshman!" Draco yelled, bringing his burning fist down toward Ayla’s center with a thunderous speed.
Ayla did not bother using her Abyssal Shadow Blink to avoid the incoming fire meteor. She wanted to test her maximized Peak Gold density against a real physical vanguard leader. She stayed exactly where she was, letting Draco’s burning fist slam directly into the top of her blue fluid mass.
Boom.
A massive explosion of crimson fire and hot shockwaves detonated across the white platform, kicking up a giant cloud of white metallic dust that completely obscured their coordinates.
The senior students flying in the air stopped for a second, letting out a loud chorus of mocking laughs. "Commander Draco completely flattened her! A single physical strike from a dragon framework is enough to vaporize a normal Gold ranker’s soul container!"
However, before their celebration could even finish, Draco’s arrogant laughter suddenly choked up completely inside his throat.
As the white dust quickly cleared away, the older students stared down at the platform, and their faces instantly turned completely pale with pure, unadulterated horror.
Ayla was standing in the exact same spot, completely unharmed. The terrifying dragon fire vortex had failed to leave a single scratch on her glossy surface. Her translucent blue jelly body had simply compressed by three inches to absorb the massive physical kinetic energy, and then it snapped right back into its perfect, round shape like a flexible rubber ball. Her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core pulsed once, instantly absorbing the ambient thermal pressure and converting it into clean mana.
"Your fire is very weak," Ayla’s multi-layered mental voice boomed like a heavy thunderclap directly inside Draco’s brain pathways. "It feels like a warm bath."
"What—what kind of monster are you?" Draco stammered, his yellow eyes widening into dinner plates as a massive wave of sudden, primitive survival fear rushed into his heart. He frantically tried to pull his right fist back to retreat, but Ayla’s fluid mass instantly wrapped around his wrist like a thick, unbreakable liquid vice.
Deep within her center, her gold core throbbed with an extreme level of manic hunger.
"Rend of the World-Order," Ayla commanded flatly.
Five majestic, pitch-black claws instantly extended from her front mass with a sharp metallic click, their surfaces shimmering with intricate golden runes. With a single, fluid upward sweeping motion, she dragged her black claws across Draco’s crimson chest plates.
The high-grade dragon scale armor and the ancient physical defense buff that Draco was so proud of did not offer a single ounce of protection. Ayla’s claws completely ignored eighty percent of his defensive parameters, slicing cleanly through the thick metal plates, through his hard red scales, and deep into his internal organ structures like a hot knife cutting through soft grease.
"AAARGH!"
Draco let out a high-pitched, agonizing scream of pure pain as a massive fountain of dark red blood erupted from his chest, splashing all over the white alloy floorboards. The permanent bleeding effect of her law attribute trait instantly latched onto his soul container, creating a state of constant, burning torment that made it physically impossible for his dragon regeneration traits to seal the cuts.
Ayla did not let him fall. She twisted her fluid tendrils, reaching straight through his severed armor plates, and drove her hand directly into his core chamber. Her grip locked tightly around the massive, pulsating red Dragon Core.
"Removal," Ayla ordered smoothly.
She forcefully erased the concept of life retention from his mutated core framework.
Instantly, Draco’s violent screaming stopped completely. His massive eight-foot body went entirely limp, his yellow eyes rolling into the back of his skull as his heart stopped beating within a fraction of a second due to the complete conceptual shutdown. Ayla pulled her hand back, forcefully ripping the glowing red Dragon Core straight out of his chest and swallowing the hot entity directly into her center.
[ System Notice: Elite Senior Target ’Draco’ eliminated ]
[ One mutated Dragon Core successfully digested ]
[ Your internal gold core density has increased by five percent ]
The nineteen faction members floating in the sky froze completely mid-air, their weapons slipping from their trembling fingers as they stared down at the lifeless body of their commander collapsing onto the bloody floorboards. The absolute first-place genius of the second-year bracket had just been thoroughly liquidated and eaten within less than two minutes.
Ayla did not pause to appreciate her victory. She turned her golden-ringed pupils upward toward the sky, looking at the nineteen paralyzed seniors and the fifty glowing golden crystals floating between the islands.
"Now," Ayla whispered into the quiet wind, her pitch-black claws extending back out with a sharp, synchronized click as she prepared to launch herself into the air. "Let’s collect the rest of the snacks."
She activated her Gale Acceleration, her gold-ranked body becoming a devastating blue blur that shot straight up into the sky, completely ready to clear the entire Floating Sky Fortress Sector ahead of schedule.
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