Building My SSS-Rank Universal Empire: From Trash to Cosmic Overlord-Chapter 146: What the

Sevrix nodded as if Vale was saying something they had been previously discussing. "Get him one, Captain Frexon."

Frexon bowed and disappeared in a flash of red light.

Vale and Sevrix stared at each other after that. No... Sevrix stared at him, while Vale could only focus his eyes on Sevrix’s chest. Neither of them said anything.

Vale gently massaged his throat. ’It’s healing, but what in the Infernal hell was that? He nearly killed me... is he some kind of necromancer?’

Frexon returned, and Vale wore the new trousers. They were too big for him, but he didn’t mind. It was better than being naked. ’I really should invest in some fire-resistant clothes...’

Then the room returned to silence. Vale didn’t entertain any fancy ideas that Sevrix didn’t want to kill him. The only reason he could think of for still being alive was that the man wanted to know who was behind him.

’Ah... shit... I might have really gotten in too deeply. How should I get out of this mess now? I’ve been bluffing that I wanted to meet him, and now... here I am... why can’t they just let me disappear before they come looking for me?’

After a while, Sevrix began speaking again. "Do you know what it means to fight in the Borderlands?"

"What?" Vale asked.

Sevrix replied coldly, "We are the thing that stands between the normal world and the monsters. The Clans might not consider this a serious matter and just want to reap the resources. But the threat of the Rifts is real, and the world will fall if the Borderlands stop existing.

"The Rift will scatter its seeds and spread ruin. It will create more ruin breaks until it has the chance to pull off a large army," Sevrix said.

Vale understood all of this. The Rift worked like a plague. The more ruins with Rift seeds it managed to spread, the more ruins it could sprawl into, leading to more ruin breaks.

’Isn’t that why I destroyed the ruin with the Rift seed back in the second layer? Now the Rift won’t have as much reach in the second layer...’

Sevrix continued in a flat voice, "The Borderland is the thing that keeps the tide away. And you dare to mess with it? I will let you see the consequences of your actions, and then I will pass my judgment."

At this, Vale couldn’t help but smile. ’Just how hypocritical can someone be? The Scuffed Bones talking about messing with the Borderlands?’

Vale didn’t let his thoughts show on his face, but some of it must have appeared anyway because Sevrix swept his hand forward, and a tongue of darkness cut through the air, slamming him on the head so fast he didn’t have time to react.

Pain exploded in his head, and he went crashing to the ground, his skull cracking against the stone floor, adding to the painful throb already coursing through him.

By the time he gritted his teeth and stood, Sevrix was gone from his place, and Frexon had approached him.

"Come, let’s go," the man with the red eyes said, and before Vale could say anything, he had been yanked into a portal.

With the attack by Sevrix and the nauseating whirling of the portal travel, it took some time before Vale reorganized his thoughts and looked at his new surroundings.

He was standing above the ground on a portal together with Frexon, and below him spread a forest—a barren one that seemed to have been scorched a long time ago.

Not far in front of him was a fortress-like building, but it was only a single tower, with no walls whatsoever.

"That is one of our outposts. It’s something all the Flagbearers have. It’s a movable fortress, commanded by a Captain," Frexon said.

Vale turned to him in surprise. "You command one of those too?"

Frexon snorted. "In the Borderlands, there are two types of Captains: normal Captains and the ones we nickname Tower Captains. Captains like me fight under them with our men."

Vale nodded. "So they’re like the Ten back in the second layer."

Frexon opened his mouth to say something but then scowled. "Well. Yes."

"And how many of these towers does the Scuffed Bones have?"

"We have four of them. They are so expensive to make and so expensive to maintain. This is because the technique and enchanters that make them are from the Athrimir Clans. It’s war equipment, after all."

Just as they were talking, the air around them changed, and an aura of oppression spread through the environment. It was an aura that Vale knew too well. It was that of the monster he had met the other time! But this one seemed milder somehow.

A few meters in front of the tower, green light and darkness suddenly condensed into a spinning oval that reached into the sky like a pillar. Right after that, monsters began to pour out of the ruin break.

"What the..." Vale whispered.

Frexon smiled. "The closer the Rift, the stronger the power it has over the ruins. There’s a new ruin here that’s carrying a Rift seed, and that’s what the tower is here to clear. But the ruin has the power to defend itself, and now it’s caused a ruin break."

The monsters pouring out of the spinning portal were canine-like but with five limbs and no face. The sides of their necks had slits, and green gas continued to spew out, blanketing the area.

"This is bad. They won’t know the number of enemies coming at them..."

"Watch," Frexon said calmly.

As soon as the green fog carrying the monsters got close to the tower, it suddenly came alive. The top of the battlements flashed with green light, and then a beam of windstorm lashed out. It swept forward and cleared the fog in one go.

Dust and sand bellowed up, mixed with the blood and flesh of the monsters caught in it.

At the same time, the symbols on the tower itself glowed, and more beams of small focused wind blades blasted out, tearing into the ranks of the monsters and turning them into chopped meat.

"Fuck," Vale swore.