The heavy oak doors of the San Remo Grand Auditorium, carved with intricate patterns of thorned briars, groaned as they swung shut behind Allen. The dull, heavy thud of the seam closing was like the fall of an invisible guillotine, severing Allen’s past from this room full of hypocritical noble glory.

  The long stone steps outside extended toward the main thoroughfare of San Remo, which was currently shrouded in a heavy, slate-grey ceiling of clouds. The wind carried the chill of early spring, mixed with the faint, persistent tang of sulfur wafting from the distant mining districts. It brushed against Allen’s face—a face so calm it bordered on the deathly. As he descended the steps, his gaze drifted to his fingertips. A microscopic tremor still lingered there—a physical resonance left behind by the space itself being forcibly warped during the instantaneous burst of the 【Undercurrent】 force.

  Zane’s shattered arm was merely the first shadow cast by the Black Sand’s will onto this hollow world.

  "Lord Earl..."

  A tremulous, humble voice drifted from behind a nearby stone pillar. It was the head butler of House Morey. At this moment, his once-proud, upright spine was bent like a dry branch broken by a gale, his forehead nearly touching the rain-slicked cobblestones. Only half an hour ago, this man had been backstage orchestrating the servants for Allen’s ironic, mock funeral. Now, his clouded eyes were filled with nothing but the raw fear of a shifting power dynamic.

  "Prepare the carriage. We are going to North District Warehouse Number Three," Allen said. He didn't look back. His voice was cold, devoid of inflection, yet possessed a magnetic weight that seemed to freeze the very air.

  "But... Lord Earl, the Old Earl is still inside. Several elders have already prepared the tea room, hoping to discuss the details of the 'authority transfer' and... and the matter of Master Zane's injury..."

  Allen stopped. He turned his head just slightly.

  In ? instant, the old butler felt as though he were no longer facing a human being, but a collapsing glacier. In the depths of Allen’s eyes, a dark, shimmering light flickered—not a reflection of the sun, but a profound, devouring void that seemed to pull in the surrounding light. It was a gaze the butler had seen in the eyes of the Old Earl when executing traitors, or in the eyes of the most ferocious magical beasts, but he had never seen it in a human with such pure, clinical indifference.

  "I said. The warehouse."

  "Yes... as you command, my Lord. The carriage will be ready immediately." The butler’s voice caught in his throat. A chill surged from his heels to his skull. He realized with terrifying clarity that the youth before him was no longer the fragile boy who could be bound by "etiquette" or "family law." This was a terrifying entity from the depths of the earth, wearing the skin of a Morey.

  Allen stepped into the opulently decorated carriage and closed his eyes. His consciousness sank into the depths of his mind, reaching for the spiritual brand left by Del.

  In that void of darkness, Del’s image was not a concrete form but a perpetually pulsing mass of black sand. His voice echoed like the freezing wind of the far north: "Allen, see their faces for what they are. Power is a fragile wooden lever; only resources and strength are the steel fulcrums that move the world. Do not be obsessed with a tin crown. Go. Scavenge. Plunder. Feed the hunger of the abyss."

  Deep within the primary shaft of the North District, in a dead zone sealed by fallen rocks and ancient warding barriers, Del sat cross-legged upon a slab of black crystal ore, cut as smooth as a mirror.

  Dust in the air formed a rotating vortex around him, three meters in diameter—a microscopic manifestation of the 【Undercurrent】 field operating at full capacity. Before him lay five desiccated husks, arranged in a radial pattern. These were once the pride of the Morey family, Mid-Tier knights who had personified the strength that once suffocated Allen. Now, their skin was a grey, translucent parchment. The life essence and Combat Qi cores they had spent decades cultivating had been stripped away by Del in a manner that was brutal, efficient, and utterly illogical by this world's standards.

  [Analysis Progress: 91.73%...]

  Within Del’s mind, the 【Deep Analysis】 system was leaping through logical chains at an incredible frequency. To Del, the supernatural systems of this world were subjects of cold, scientific scrutiny. "Combat Qi," as he saw it, was merely a primitive, low-efficiency bio-energy generated by humans forcibly squeezing their mitochondria through intense emotional fluctuations.

  It was like unrefined, low-grade coal. It produced heat, but the slag and pollution it left behind severely hampered the speed of evolution. What Del was doing now was utilizing the properties of the 【Undercurrent】 to pulverize this crude energy at an atomic level and reconstruct it into a high-grade fuel compatible with the laws of Black Sand.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  As the analysis progressed, the faint golden glimmers within the knights' bodies dissolved into wisps of pale mist. However, the moment this "orthodox" energy touched the black aura surrounding Del, it was instantly assimilated, dyed black, and consumed with a hungry, sizzling sound.

  "Feeding time."

  Del opened his eyes. There were no whites in his pupils, only a swirling mass of ink-colored liquid mercury. He raised his right hand, lifting a blackened sphere of energy that condensed the lifelong essence of five knights, and pressed it directly into the acupoint at the center of his chest.

  THOOM!

  A dull impact resonated through the sealed cavern, causing stone dust to rain from the ceiling. Del’s body shook violently. Beneath his nearly perfect skin, thousands of tiny, dragon-like shadows began to writhe and surge. It was the 【Undercurrent】 force undergoing self-evolution after devouring foreign energy. Every cell in his body was experiencing a cycle of destruction and rebirth amidst high-frequency vibrations. Such agony would have driven the sturdiest knight insane, but to Del, it was merely the necessary performance loss of a system upgrade.

  "Is this the taste of 'high-grade consumables'?" Del whispered to himself, his voice carrying a mechanical edge of pleasure.

  With the total assimilation of this energy, he felt his control over surrounding magnetic fields, gravity, and even molecular spacing climbing at a geometric rate. If he was previously a sharp dagger hidden in the dark, he was now evolving into a micro-singularity—a human black hole capable of swallowing everything.

  At the surface, Allen stood expressionless before the massive, multi-ton steel doors of Warehouse Three. This was the true core of House Morey’s wealth, a fortress of iron and rock. The air here was a heavy mix of machine oil, preservative powder, and the sharp scent of high-grade alchemical reagents.

  The shelves towered toward the ceiling, stacked with resources that would drive any provincial lord to madness: "Holy Healing Potions" capable of stabilizing fatal wounds instantly; "Blue Crystal Dust" extracted from the deep sea to double the potency of Combat Qi; and crates of oscillating blades coated in specialized anti-magic film.

  "My Lord, these items... every single one is registered in the ledgers," the warehouse manager, a rotund man with shrewd eyes, said as he wiped sweat from his brow. "The Old Earl strictly ordered that without his personal signet, not a single screw can be moved..."

  Allen didn't look at him. He stopped before a rack of exquisite potions and rested his right hand lightly on the manager’s shoulder.

  The man’s words died in his throat. He felt a freezing, otherworldly energy seep through his heavy formal coat and into his collarbone. In that instant, his blood felt like it had turned to thick paste, and a jagged, itching pain—like ten thousand ants biting his marrow—spread through his bones. The power didn't explode; it simply hung there like a guillotine blade poised over his nervous system.

  "Lord Allen..." the manager whispered, his voice trembling so hard it was barely audible.

  "The North District Reconstruction Committee requires these. And I am the sole, supreme decision-maker of that committee," Allen said calmly. "Do you wish to be promoted as a hero of the committee, or do you wish to be treated as a 'remnant of the old order' and experience true darkness in the mines?"

  The manager’s legs turned to jelly. The absolute coldness in Allen’s eyes told him the young man meant every word.

  "Pack them... quickly! Pack everything for the Lord Earl!"

  Ten minutes later, over a dozen heavy freight carriages, covered in thick black tarps and fitted with reinforced shock-absorbing chassis, filed out of the warehouse under the cover of dusk. They avoided the noisy main arteries of the city, moving through the night like a pack of ghosts, heading straight for the entrance of the cursed, abandoned old mine shaft.

  This was the first "interest" payment Allen was delivering to his master.

  Deep in the mine, a dark wind began to howl.

  As the first crate of supplies was lowered down the thousand-meter secret shaft, Del perceived the minute change in gravitational waves through the air. He didn't stand up. He merely raised his left hand, fingers splayed.

  Woom—

  An invisible giant hand seemed to manifest in the void. The dozen crates, weighing several tons in total, decelerated sharply in their descent and came to a perfectly stable hover within a ten-meter radius of Del.

  "Holy Healing Potions... biomass energy replenishment rate: 35%." "Blue Crystal Dust... mineral catalysis rate: 42%."

  With a flick of his wrist, a bottle of priceless potion shattered in the air. The pale green liquid didn't fall to the floor; it turned into a shimmering mist that Del inhaled directly. This "miracle drug" was instantly dismantled and reconstructed within his body, repairing the microscopic genetic damage caused by his rapid evolution.

  Within his mind, the system notifications fell like rain: [Analysis level increased to 2.4.] [Physical fortification complete. Current load capacity increased by 60%.] [New Skill Unlocked: 【Magnetic Field Control: Heavy Pressure】.]

  Del slowly stood up. With every minor movement, the surrounding debris hovering in the air was pulverized into primitive dust by a surge of heavy pressure. This dust didn't scatter; it formed a dark, orbiting ring around him.

  He looked up toward the deep shaft. Even through miles of solid crust, he could sense Allen’s aura. Two people from completely different worlds had reached a morbid, perfect consensus through the bond of the Black Sand.

  "Well done, Allen. Go. Continue your performance."

  Del’s voice wasn't loud, but it vibrated through the air, whispering directly into Allen’s ear as if he were standing right behind him.

  "Turn the surface world into a massive petri dish. I want more potions, more ore, and... more arrogant 'test subjects'."

  At the mine entrance, Allen knelt toward the bottomless darkness, bowing deeply. When he raised his head, the noble confusion of his youth was gone, replaced by the fanatical devotion of a high priest.

  "As you command, Master. Every inch of the North District shall bear the brand of the Black Sand."

  In the night of San Remo, conspiracies were fermenting. The Old Earl was smashing every antique in his study, unable to comprehend how the son who used to shake at a loud voice had become a monster that inspired fear. Meanwhile, the armed forces of the Zane family were secretly mobilizing, preparing to end this "miraculous return" with the bolts of elite assassins on the road back to the manor.

  Yet, in a place none of the city’s "strongest" could perceive, the abyss beneath their feet had already opened its eyes.