NOVEL NEXT Chapter 180: warning do not unlock
"What's with those expressions?" Noctys's voice rang out, light yet carrying the weight of authority. "You should know exactly how much the Venom Fang Overlord treasures the garden. And let me tell you a little secret—"
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Her hands settled firmly on her hips, the smooth movement radiating confidence. A faint rustle of silk echoed in the otherwise still hall. "—I have cared for that garden for hundreds of years. Only then did the Overlord deem me worthy to lead all of you."
The corner of her lips curled upward in a knowing smirk, her words hanging in the air like a challenge. The ambient silence deepened; only the faint creak of the towering wooden beams and the whisper of distant wind through the gaps broke it.
"Now—" she tilted her chin ever so slightly, eyes sweeping over them like a blade "—get to work."
Her gaze lingered, watching the subtle change in their expressions—the flicker of ambition, the hunger in their eyes. Even the insectoid queen, still reeking faintly of her old hive's pheromones, stood straighter. She, too, clearly dreamed of holding dominion over Stage 3 beings.
They began to turn, ready to carry out their tasks—until Noctys's voice, sharp as a whip crack, rang out again.
"Wait."
The single word cut through the air.
The faint hum of insect wings somewhere in the rafters suddenly seemed louder. A drop of water from the ceiling struck the wooden floor with a hollow tock.
Everyone froze. Slowly, they turned back to face her, their puzzled expressions framed by the flickering shadows of the braziers.
Her smile widened—not with warmth, but with something predatory. It stretched into a grin that showed a flash of sharp teeth.
"The competition to determine rankings will be held one month from now," she said, her tone rich with both promise and threat. "Prepare well. Your position in that tournament will decide your standing in this wooden castle."
Understanding bloomed instantly. The hall seemed to tighten, as if the air itself pressed down upon them.
None of the Stage 3 beings here were saints. Every one of them had climbed over corpses, walked through rivers of blood, and survived storms that would have drowned lesser beings. They knew exactly what such a competition meant.
A faint shift in the air carried the sharp tang of killing intent, so subtle it might have been imagined—but it was enough to draw a faint smile from Noctys.
The room was silent, yet beneath that stillness, the beast inside every soul had begun to stir.
Noctys wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but the air seemed to grow heavier—warmer—until it felt like the room's temperature had climbed several degrees in an instant.
A low, almost imperceptible hum of breath and shifting weight passed through the crowd, like the faint rustle of a predator's tail in tall grass.
She merely chuckled, a rich, unhurried sound, and turned on her heel. Her hips swayed in a languid rhythm as she strolled away, every step a deliberate display of control. The light filtering in from the corridor caught the curve of her silhouette, stretching her shadow long across the wooden floor.
Dozens of eyes followed her retreating figure, each gaze filled with its own mixture of hunger, calculation, and restrained violence. No one spoke, yet the silence seemed louder than speech, thrumming in the air like the taut string of a bow.
One by one, they began to move toward the grove of spiritual trees, their footsteps crunching softly against the wooden planks, the faint scent of sap and damp soil drifting in from the gardens beyond.
Though they had already been aware of the coming competition—Ricky had announced it weeks ago—there had been no fixed date until now. That uncertainty had kept their ambition in check. But with a concrete deadline, the atmosphere shifted.
Darius, in particular, felt the weight of it. Now there was no doubt: the Venom Fang Overlord was serious. The very thought of leaving the kingdom dissolved from his mind like mist under the sun.
Leave this palace… and go where?
Others might remain ignorant, but he knew the truth—Ricky was the sole inheritor of a divine saint. Within his grasp lay a treasury overflowing with artifacts and treasures, each one potent enough to overturn a life's fate.
And with the Overlord's measured temperament—neither blind tyrant nor reckless hoarder—staying here might not only mean survival… but the chance to thrive.
Inheritance Space!
Within the silent depths of the inheritance space, Ricky sat cross-legged, enveloped by a room steeped in the densest concentration of darkness mana.
Shadows swirled faintly across the walls, as if the darkness itself was breathing in rhythm with him.
In the months that had passed, he had yet to break through to Stage 3—but that did not mean he had remained stagnant. Far from it.
Countless pills to temper and sharpen his spiritual force had been consumed, and now every one of his spiritual seeds pulsed at their absolute limit, orbiting him in slow, steady arcs like miniature worlds bound by unseen gravity.
The vast expanse of each spiritual space had stretched far beyond their former limits—more than two kilometers in length, each a dark, humming domain of power.
Yet, they could grow no further. No matter how many soul force–strengthening pills he devoured, there was no more room for expansion.
Unless…
He evolved.
Or created another spiritual space.
Evolving was out of the question for now; the path was closed until certain prerequisites were met.
Which left only one choice.
The fourth spiritual space.
His breathing slowed, focus sharpening to a razor's edge.
Within his mind, the endless darkness hushed, as though the inheritance space itself was holding its breath in anticipation.
And then—
A flicker of gold.
The familiar system prompt unfolded before him, lines of ancient, glowing script painting themselves across his vision.
He had been expecting it.
The cost had already been prepared—one million years of his lifespan, willingly set aside for the creation of the new spiritual space.
But when the final line of the prompt revealed itself, Ricky's eyes snapped open, and for a brief moment, even the darkness around him seemed to recoil.
It wasn't what he had been expecting at all.
"Use 2,000,000 years of lifespan to create the fourth spiritual space."
Ricky's eyes narrowed. He had already braced himself for the cost of a million years, but this number was double that—an absurd demand that gnawed at the edges of even his iron will.
Two million years.
After enslaving nearly a dozen Stage 3 beings, his once-immense lifespan had already been sheared down to nearly half. Now this would take almost half of what remained. The number wasn't just large—it was oppressive, looming over his thoughts like the shadow of a blade waiting to fall.
For a few moments, doubt crept in. His fingers twitched, hovering over the prompt. Was this worth it? What if something went wrong? A single misstep in the creation of a spiritual space could cripple a cultivator permanently.
But then the hesitation burned away. A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. This was no time for fear—hesitation was the province of the weak. He clicked "Yes."
The world did not explode into divine radiance. No rumble of the heavens. No whispers from the One True Eternal Above.
Only silence.
Seconds passed. Then a full minute. His breath was steady, but his senses probed desperately for the faintest ripple—nothing.
Minutes stretched into hours. Hours bled into days. Days became weeks.
In that endless waiting, the world outside continued its quiet march, but Ricky's focus never left the unseen transformation within. His spiritual seeds spun in perfect synchrony, threads of darkness weaving endlessly through them. He could almost hear the faint hum of Amma circulating—patient, inexorable, and alien in its rhythm.
It was only after the fourteenth day, when the air itself seemed to exhale in unison with his own breath, that something shifted deep inside.
The process had finally finished.
Outside, hardly anything had changed—Ricky still sat there, emanating the same quiet majesty as before. But beneath that calm exterior, a transformation had taken root, one so fundamental it was as if the very core of his being had been rewritten.
Eager to examine the changes, Ricky sank his focus inward.
The world within opened to him—vast, boundless, and dark. In the center of this inner cosmos, four spiritual spaces hung suspended in the void, orbiting each other in perfect, silent rhythm.
Three of them were colossal, radiant with the dense vitality of fully matured domains. Their mere presence exuded dominance, like ancient titans that had ruled since time immemorial.
The fourth, however, was strikingly different. It was small—no, tiny—barely the size of a flicker against the immense bulk of its siblings. Compared to their grandeur, it looked pitiful, fragile… as if one careless ripple from the others might crush it into nothingness.
Yet there was something about that small space—a strange, almost ominous stillness—that made Ricky's eyes narrow. The disparity was too stark, and his instincts screamed that this was not mere weakness, but a sign of something hidden, something that could not be judged at first glance.
His expression grew solemn.isisbd