The cultivation cavern for an Abyssal Lord of the Corpse was several tiers above the chambers reserved for Abyssal Guardians like Varcor.

After all, within the Ninth Bone Legion’s district or any district of Lower Grave Strata, status was reflected not only by authority but also by elevation and proximity to the central corpse-veins that fed the Corpse Clan’s cultivation grounds.

The higher one’s cavern was positioned, the purer and denser the Corpse Qi that flowed through it, and this particular cavern was embedded deep within a towering wall of fossilized black stone.

The cavern’s entrance was sealed by a powerful corpse-rune array that pulsed steadily like the slow heartbeat of a dead titanic beast. Faint streams of Corpse Qi leaked through microscopic gaps in the formation, drifting like gray mist along the corridor outside.

Inside, the cavern was vast. It was far larger than Varcor’s chamber and far more refined. The walls had been carved smooth and engraved with intricate corpse-runes that guided Corpse Qi into controlled spirals.

Thick veins of pale corpse-light ran along the floor like underground rivers, feeding into a massive cultivation platform at the center of the cave. That platform had been carved from the skull of a colossal abyssal beast. Its curved bone surface was etched with ancient refining diagrams, each one glowing faintly as the surrounding Corpse Qi continued to pour into its center.

The entire cavern throbbed with dense, oppressive energy, and at the heart of the platform sat a towering figure. His name was Dargoth Veyr, an Abyssal Lord of the Ninth Bone Legion.

The corpse vessel he wore was not humanoid in the ordinary sense. It was the preserved body of an Abyssal Thunder Demon, a rare abyssal creature that had long been extinct from the Abyssal Plains, and the Corpse Clan had acquired it from the Upper Ancient Battlefield.

The vessel stood nearly three meters tall, its frame massive and muscular like a living thunder calamity frozen in death. Its skin was dark gray, with streaks of deep-violet lightning veins running across its limbs and torso.

Jagged horn-like protrusions curved backward from the skull, while faint arcs of corpse-lightning occasionally flickered along the corpse-veins embedded beneath its flesh.

Two hollow eye sockets glowed with dim corpse flames, casting faint violet reflections across the cavern walls. At this moment, the massive corpse vessel sat cross-legged upon the altar as corpse Qi surged toward it in dense currents.

The Qi flowed into the corpse vessel and channeled directly into the Undead Soul hidden within.

Inside the corpse vessel, Dargoth Veyr’s Undead Soul floated, completely immersed in cultivation as his entire consciousness was focused inward.

Dense strands of Corpse Qi continuously poured into his soul, refining and compressing it as if hammering raw metal into a sharper blade. This was not just usual cultivation but the sign of a breakthrough!

For over a century, Dargoth Veyr had remained trapped at the middle-stage (Six-Start Stage) of the Abyssal Lord Realm, as countless attempts had failed to push his soul into the next stage.

But recently, a rare opportunity had emerged when a fluctuation within the legion’s corpse-veins had temporarily increased the density of Corpse Qi within this district. It was a fleeting phenomenon that might not appear again for decades.

Dargoth Veyr had immediately sealed himself inside his cavern, and his corpse vessel refinement underwent a successful breakthrough.

Because of this, even the upcoming Great Corpse Carnival had failed to draw him away. Compared to the chaotic slaughter on the Upper Ancient Battlefield, a breakthrough into the late-stage (7-Star) Abyssal Lord Realm was far more valuable.

Even his superior within the Ninth Bone Legion had approved his decision. After all, a stronger Abyssal Lord was far more valuable to the clan than another soldier in the carnival.

Now the moment had finally arrived as inside the corpse vessel, Dargoth’s Undead Soul pulsed with intense fluctuations. The gray-black soul-light around him expanded and contracted like a beating heart as the accumulated Corpse Qi pushed his cultivation toward the next threshold.

He was completely immersed and focused, but this also made him completely vulnerable. But within the Undead Boundary, inside the secure district of his own legion, surrounded by formation barriers and with nearly all outsiders unable to even cross the boundary there was no reason to be cautious...or so he believed.

Just as the corpse Qi within him began to condense toward the threshold of the late stage, something strange happened: a foreign presence slipped silently into the cavern.

It did not disturb the formation or trigger the corpse-runes, for it was so subtle that even the surrounding Corpse Qi failed to react.

The next moment, a thin ripple of mysterious Qi infiltrated the chamber like a silent ghost, and before Dargoth’s focused consciousness could react, the ripple pierced through the corpse vessel and sank directly into his soul-core.

Inside his inner soul world, the Undead Soul suddenly trembled!

"What...?"

Dargoth’s thoughts barely formed because at that exact moment, the Mirror Embryo within Ace’s knowledge sea activated as silver glyphs surfaced faintly within his pupils.

He stood outside the sealed cavern while his gaze penetrated through the formation because the barrier did not exist under the Law Thief Sense’s ability, the Primordial Law Sense!

At that moment, the Grand Mirror Phantom Scripture awakened as a thin, translucent ripple shot forward, bypassing the corpse vessel and defensive seals; it struck the Undead Soul, just as it had with Varcor!

Inside the soul-core, Dargoth Veyr’s Undead Soul convulsed violently as a terrifying, unknown pulling force suddenly seized it.

’What is this...?!’ His thoughts erupted in shock.

He tried to mobilize his power, then triggered emergency defenses, and even tried to sever his connection to the corpse vessel to escape.

But it was already too late as the invisible force tightened like a noose around his soul, and then it tore as his Undead Soul was violently dragged out of its core, ripped from the corpse vessel like a spirit being yanked from a shattered body.

Within the cavern, the massive corpse vessel trembled slightly before its corpse flames flickered. But the sealed formation prevented any outward disturbance.

Outside the cavern, Ace stood silently in the shadows while inside his knowledge sea, the stolen Undead Soul plunged directly into the waiting Mirror Embryo.

Liquid silver engulfed it instantly, and just as before, the mirror shards rotated slowly around the captured soul, their surfaces glowing with eerie reflections as they began reshaping it.

Dargoth Veyr’s consciousness struggled violently as his Abyssal Lord Realm Undead Soul unleashed every defensive technique he knew. Corpse energy surged outward in waves of resistance.

But the moment those energies collided with Ace’s Darkness Force, they collapsed just like Varcor’s soul earlier; Undead Souls seemed to face a natural suppression when confronted by Ace’s Darkness Force.

Dargoth’s resistance weakened rapidly, and the struggle faded as the mirror shards wrapped around the soul like a cocoon. Then it began to reconstruct its appearance, aura, and corpse resonance, and finally the Cultivation fluctuations.

Everything was copied perfectly, and within seconds, the Abyssal Lord’s Undead Soul lost its final spark of consciousness, transforming into a new mirror persona.

Ace felt the weight settle within the Mirror Embryo as a new reflection had been created; a far more valuable one than Varcor Dain. Because this time, he had just stolen the identity of an Abyssal Lord and also one of the Corpse Captains of the Ninth Bone Legion!