Building My SSS-Rank Universal Empire: From Trash to Cosmic Overlord-Chapter 162: Remain in

Without waiting for the monster to attack, Vale sent a beam of sword arc at him, but the man seemed fused with darkness as he disappeared from his place. The bright red fire scorched the ground with a crack.

He turned, already expecting the mumbling man to be behind him, and he wasn’t disappointed. The mumbling monster was there, tearing something free from the ground in front of him that had turned into black liquid.

Two undead monsters tore through the ground, their bodies made up of stitching, as if different people had been butchered and then joined together again.

One of them raised a hand longer than it should be, and the air around it surged. Water condensed into pillar waves around it, blasting toward Vale in a rush.

"Dominion." Vale didn’t want to waste time on this. A rippling wave of heat and fire came out of him, lighting up the surroundings in red light and cracking the ground. Water hissed, and steam filled the air as the two undead were blasted back, burning immediately.

"Where are you? You’re wasting my time." Vale scowled. He didn’t like that he had to use Dominion, which made him lose his clothes, and now he couldn’t even change back until the end of the fight!

But Dominion was the type of attack needed for things like undead. Their bodies were too dry, and they caught fire easily. It also saved him the time of killing them one after the other.

"I can guess you have resentment for the Commander, who’s my uncle, but I don’t know anything about all this," Vale said, his eyes shifting in the darkness that blanketed the areas his light couldn’t reach.

On his left hand glowed a ball of light and heat from Dominion.

"Lies! Lies! Lies!" It sounded like hundreds of voices shouting at once, coming from all around, making it difficult to pinpoint. "All the Athrimir do is lie! Why make a fortress that shuts down with the death of its Commander? Why? Why? Why?"

"Even the storage and the alchemical workshop... everything shut down!" The voice hissed with malice, years of anger and resentment boiling over. "Oh yes! I’ve been waiting for a day like this... a day where I will get my hands on any of you... You will all pay for your sins!"

Vale sighed, his green eyes darkening. "I’m tired of everyone taking their shit out on me because of what others did. You want to kill me because of some no-name Commander?

"Well, this is good. I need to clean house anyway. I’ll make time to do it."

Vale walked forward. The buildings stopped before the Commander’s own, so he was basically facing the whole village. First, he sent the rest of his previous attack at the nearest buildings, reducing them to crumbled stone and ashes.

The man’s voice came again, followed by a sinister laugh. It rolled in the darkness, a different blend of voices laughing as one. "You want to take over this place? You cruel bastard! All the dead—you’ll dishonor their memories!"

"But haven’t you already? You ate their flesh and consumed their spirits. Is that not why you are alive even now?" Vale said. He had figured that out when he heard the man’s overlapping voices and saw his physical state.

A laugh again—one that ended in a sob. "I only did what I did to survive. It’s the law of nature! But I also heard their pleas! Their anger fed me and kept me alive! Their resentment filled my head and guided my—!!"

Vale didn’t let him finish. He used up half of his core in one go, dumping it all into his fire creation technique. There was an almost instant pause, a moment when everything was normal, and then the underground was lit up in red.

Shimmering heat rolled like dawn’s fog, blanketing the area, roaring forward with sheer force—an explosion of heat and fire. The buildings in front of him were blown away, burning as they cracked and popped.

The bodies hidden in the houses burned with them, turning into ashes. A scream split the air—a long howl that rose and fell like death’s shout, all in different voices. Soon, it lowered and finally ended.

Vale knew it was done then. The man was dead, along with all the spirits he carried with him. He turned toward the Commander’s building as the village burned behind him.

"Maybe I shouldn’t have used that much essence. I’m down to half now," Vale muttered to himself as he put on new clothes.

He walked toward the door, and it didn’t seem like it needed any special method to open. It was just a normal enchanted door with old enchantments. All he did was hack it with his essence-injected sword and cut it open.

The inside was illuminated by his light. It was the typical first hall where people were attended to, with rotted papers and dusty tables.

In front of the door was a pile of long-rotted bodies.

Vale sighed. "Finally, something normal. They must be humans who worked here and couldn’t get out on their own."

He didn’t waste time searching the room. He directly went toward the door that he knew led underground and opened it, revealing a stone staircase descending into the dark.

But before he started climbing, just to be sure, he used his essence senses to sweep the building. When he found nothing unusual, he nodded to himself and climbed down.

The stone was old, but it still held. He climbed down, his light clearing the darkness. As he walked, he thought about a lot of things.

’...How did the Tower—honestly, who gave them that name—return to this place after the Commander died? And if the artifact is strong, then how did he die...?’

The thought actually made him pause, and he frowned. He felt as if something wasn’t right.

"How did he die if the artifact was strong enough for him to hold this place? Did the Rift Lord kill him? Then why wasn’t the artifact taken?"

Vale shook his head. ’...Honestly, these are all the questions I should have asked before leaving... I didn’t even ask how the tower looks... I’m too impatient... I should work on that...’

He finally reached the door that guarded the room to the tower, and his light shone on it. He took a step back in surprise.

The metal door had been torn inward! As if something had forcibly forced its way in!