Chapter 587: Personalities

All of them here knew it deep down, there was no possible way the First Supreme Monarch had attained the Ecliptic mana rank at the mere age of nineteen.

After a while, they simply decided to stop dwelling on the man. But just as they were about to follow up with another question, Anthony dropped yet another bombshell: the fall of a Supreme Monarch.

The words reverberated like thunder in everyone’s ears.

A Supreme Monarch had never fallen, until now. A god had died.

Anthony went on to explain that it was the Chakram of End, the Supreme Monarch of the military base Alpha-6, who had perished during the base’s invasion.

Dale, Reynold, and Seraphim all felt their chests tighten. Although they had never seen the Chakram of End in person, nor knew her on any personal level, a subtle sorrow crept into their hearts. After all, the woman had guarded their military base with unbending loyalty for millennia, never faltering in her duties.

“How did you injure a fucking Supreme Monarch?” Dale blurted out, unable to suppress his disbelief. He couldn’t wrap his head around it.

Yes, Anthony was powerful, undeniably so, but it didn’t change the fact that, in theory, he should have been an ant in comparison to a Supreme Monarch.

Anthony smiled inwardly, amused by Dale’s astonishment. ‘I’m the protagonist of this story, what do you expect?’ he thought, but refrained from saying it aloud, lest he tempt fate or trigger a red flag Vega would pick up on.

“I’m just built different,” Anthony replied casually with a sly grin. He then added, “Besides, I have the arm of the Supreme Monarch who is a vampire. As a fellow vampire, I’m sure this would interest you, in ways perhaps even you do not yet understand.”

With that, the Second Supreme Monarch’s severed arm materialized in Anthony’s palm. Despite its freshness, not a single drop of blood dripped to the floor, as though Anthony had frozen time itself around the limb.

The moment the arm appeared, Dale felt his blood surge with primal hunger. His instincts screamed at him, the thirst undeniable. If it had been anyone else holding that arm, he might have attacked on sight, no questions asked.

But this was Anthony. Dale knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Anthony could obliterate him before he could even blink.

He didn’t need to be told what that arm represented. Contained within it was an immense reservoir of power, an ancient lineage of blood that had existed for thousands of years. The benefits from consuming or absorbing even a fraction of that blood would be unimaginable.

“What do I have to pay?” Dale asked, eyes narrowing as he fixed his gaze on the severed arm, deliberately avoiding Anthony’s.

Though Dale was known to joke around and often spoke without a filter, he wasn’t naïve. He understood, perhaps more than most, that nothing ever came for free. And even when it did, there were always invisible strings, debts not yet visible, obligations waiting in silence to be repaid.

Anthony chuckled softly, his light laughter echoing through the aircraft’s control room. A space ring appeared in his hand, and with a mere thought, the severed arm disappeared into it. He then tossed the ring toward Dale with practiced ease.

“There’s nothing I need,” Anthony said with a relaxed tone. “I’m richer than you can ever imagine.”

Caught completely off guard, Dale reflexively reached out and caught the space ring mid-air. For a moment, he was stunned, speechless. He had truly expected to pay a price. But if Anthony claimed it was free, he believed him.

Anthony wasn’t the type to lie about things like that. If he had wanted something from Dale, he could have simply taken it by force.

And that thought alone reaffirmed how powerless he was in comparison.

He managed a slow, hesitant smile. Indeed, Anthony was wealthy beyond measure. What could Dale possibly offer that could match a Supreme Monarch’s severed limb?

But unknown to Dale, Anthony’s wealth didn’t come from his Supreme Monarch parents, it came from his sign-in rewards and system shop, both of which dwarfed conventional resources.

“Thank you,” Dale said, a rare note of sincerity in his voice as he offered a genuine smile. He knew without a doubt that he was about to gain an immense power boost. Yet, despite the overwhelming temptation, he couldn’t afford to use the arm now, not while he was still in the middle of a critical mission.

The others in the room were just as surprised. Anthony had handed over such a precious treasure without hesitation or demand. But soon, they arrived at the same conclusion as Dale. Compared to Anthony, they were simply too poor to warrant any kind of transactional exchange.

Vega, however, wasn’t surprised at all. She had seen Anthony give away things without a second thought, just as she had given countless gifts to her best friend, Veronica.

It was simply one of the perks of genuine friendship with a rich and powerful person: sometimes, you got life-changing things out of the blue, for free.

“Uh… Can I keep it with you?” Dale asked tentatively. “When I’m ready to use it, I’ll let you know.”

Anthony immediately understood the reason behind the request. With powerful individuals capable of inspecting space rings through advanced mana control, carrying the item around openly would be dangerous.

A vampire could kill Dale on sight if they discovered the contents of his ring. It was far safer in Anthony’s possession, a person who had just injured a Supreme Monarch and handled a Warlord like a toy.

“No problem,” Anthony responded. With a mere thought, he retrieved the space ring back into his grasp. A moment later, it vanished into his system’s storage space, far beyond the reach of prying eyes.

Seraphim, seated quietly at the side, smiled to herself. Since Anthony’s arrival, the team had progressed in ways they hadn’t even thought possible. He had helped her refine her spiritual energy control.

He had enabled Spectre to earn the approval of Warlord Raelith for his katana training. Dale had even managed to get his hands on a training note from Clement, purchased with system points, to improve his grasp over the darkness element.

Of course, Clement hadn’t trained Dale personally. The two of them couldn’t be more different in temperament, Dale was loud, almost impulsive, and talkative; Clement was a silent, near-mute enigma who didn’t care for idle chatter… or any chatter at all.

Honestly, had Clement tried to give Dale personal lessons, it might have ended in bloodshed. Their personalities clashed so violently that Clement might’ve killed Dale halfway through the first session.