Glancing at the two women slumped on the ground like wet mud, Ethan felt invigorated after their encounter.
“This Yin-Yang Harmonization effect is pretty good. If applied correctly, couldn’t I mass-produce high-rank professionals in the future?”
Aside from its ability to steal attributes from others, Yin-Yang Harmonization also allowed Ethan to grant temporary attributes to others.
Apart from some extra effort on his part, there were essentially no side effects.
With the two women, Ethan activated teleportation magic, first visiting the Giant Dragon Dark Lord’s lair and emptied out his treasury.
After appropriating the Giant Dragon Dark Lord’s treasury, the resources at Ethan’s disposal ballooned to a terrifying amount.
Meanwhile, the Giant Dragon Alliance’s attack force had returned defeated.
They couldn’t even get past the Dark Elf Dark Lord’s territory and were disgracefully sent back.
Upon their return, they were greeted with more dreadful news.
The Giant Dragon Dark Lord had been slain.
The once mighty Giant Dragon Alliance, which had only been established for a few days, was now disintegrating.
Due to several Dark Lords’ deaths, their territories became ownerless, and the formerly allied Dark Lords began to fight among themselves.
The Dark Lords who were observing the situation didn’t pass up this golden opportunity and began to annex these abandoned territories.
For a time, even without the Heroes of the East Sea initiating any attack, the nearby Dark Lords started a war amongst themselves.
Ethan didn’t care much about the chaos in the East Sea, nor was he interested.
After returning to his territory, he secluded himself in his Dungeon for a long period.
A week later, a terrifying golden glow burst forth from his residence.
His aura was continuously strengthening, his originally golden vertical pupils were tinged with several other colors, and his dragon form had grown even more gigantic, exceeding fifty meters.
From afar, Ethan looked like a golden mountain range, emitting an oppressive aura.
As he was enjoying his newfound power, the system notification gently rang in his ear:
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for reaching S rank strength! Personal panel unlocked, advanced upgrade system unlocked, skill panel unlocked, Dragon’s Lair unlocked!]
[Ding! Detected that the host is the first Dark Lord to reach S rank strength, reward: Platinum Chest X1, various resources X10000!]
[As the first Dark Lord to be promoted to S rank in the Dark Lord camp, the system will announce this in the Dark Lord’s World Channel. Do you want to remain anonymous?]
[Anonymous.]
As before, Ethan chose to remain anonymous, and an eye-catching line of red text popped up in the World Channel.
[System Announcement: Congratulations to XXDark Lord for successfully advancing to S rank, becoming the first S rank Dark Lord in the Dark Lord faction!]
This announcement caused an uproar in the World Channel.
[Goblin Dark Lord: Just a while ago, the Giant Dragon Dark Lord kicked the bucket, and our Dark Lords in the East Sea got beaten so bad we couldn’t find our way home. Those damn Heroes were about to crap on our heads, didn’t expect we have a real tough guy in our Dark Lord faction!]
[Merfolk Dark Lord: Two words for this: Badass!]
[Spider Dark Lord: Could the big shot leak an address? S rank, feels like we could go toe-to-toe with Sunset Empire now!]
[Moon Elf Dark Lord: Can I get to know the S rank big shot?]
[Undead Dark Lord: I’m officially reporting, someone’s cheating. Are we playing the same version? How come someone’s already at S rank?]
[Giant Dark Lord: Damn, I just left the newbie village, no more mining for me, you’re telling us there’s already someone at S rank? That’s insane.]
[Spider Dark Lord: Big shot, show yourself, I want to pay my respects and get some good luck!]
[Merfolk Dark Lord: I want to get some good luck too, give us a chance, big shot.]
[Werewolf Dark Lord: +1]
[Pigman Dark Lord: +1]
…
Ignoring the uproar in the World Channel, Ethan checked on the status of the food he had listed in the marketplace, accepting gold coins as payment.
The number of Dark Lords willing to sell food was quite impressive, causing Ethan’s food stocks to swiftly surpass the 40,000 mark. Together with the loots from Giant Dragon Dark Lord’s horde and the rewards for promoting to S rank, Ethan’s food reserves broke through the astounding figure of 80,000.
Ethan summoned the system and began to inspect his updated attributes panel. Upon advancing to S rank, his attributes panel received a massive upgrade.
[Name: Ethan]
[Strength: S Rank]
[Bloodline: Golden Divine Dragon]
[Skills: Golden Divine Scale (Advanced), Magic Immunity (Advanced), Fiery Dragon Flame, Thunder Claw, Wind Wing, Holy Light Judgment, Holy Shining Form, Deluge, Demon’s Gate, Heart-Eroding Spell, Contrary Scale Space, Transformation, Divine Dragon’s Might (locked), Annihilation Dragon Flame (locked), Dragon’s Domain (locked), Meteor Strike, Tsunami, Corrosive Breath, Healing Field, Dragon Form Transformation, Spatial Shift.]
[Attributes: HP 20000, Spirit 1500, Strength 410, Constitution 380, Agility 220]
Every attribute had doubled, and three special skills were unlocked.
Divine Dragon’s Might: Other creatures facing you will be suppressed by your bloodline, the greater the difference in strength, the stronger the suppression.
Most creatures will lose their will to fight in your presence.
Annihilation Dragon Flame: Your dragon flame carries the power of annihilation, ignoring any defense of the target.
Dragon’s Domain: As a True Dragon, any enemy within your Dragon’s Domain will have their power decreased by one rank.
All three skills were incredibly potent.
Ethan chose to unlock all of them, these abilities along with the boost from activating Holy Shining Form meant that as long as Ethan didn’t mess up, he was practically invincible.
After unlocking his new abilities, Ethan went ahead to open the platinum treasure chest he had just received.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for opening the platinum treasure chest, you’ve acquired a “Resurrection Glyph”.]
“Resurrection Glyph?”
Ethan examined the newly acquired item.
Resurrection Glyph: Upon the host’s death, it will automatically activate, granting a new life.
With this Resurrection Glyph, Ethan essentially had a second life.
Even though he felt that he was practically unkillable given his current strength, having this glyph as insurance gave him an extra layer of protection.
The more of such goodies, the better.
Lastly, Ethan checked out the structure he had unlocked after promoting to S rank – the Dragon’s Lair.
Dragon’s Lair: Once constructed, it can summon dragons.
“Summon dragons?”
Upon seeing this feature of the building, Ethan was genuinely shocked. The power of dragons was self-evident.
Every single dragon possessed a frightening capability to single-handedly threaten a major city.
If he could command a group of dragons… that thought was too magnificent for Ethan to even entertain.
However, the resources required to summon dragons were rather unique – only gold coins were needed.
Yet, the price was jaw-dropping.
A billion gold coins could summon a dragon from the Dragon’s Lair…
“A billion… might as well rob a bank,” Ethan muttered, drooling with envy.
Yet, he gave up on the enticing thought of summoning a dragon just for fun.
A billion gold coins… even if he sold everything in his Dungeon, he probably still couldn’t scrape together that sum.
This gave him a deeper understanding of the Black Dragon in Riverside.
“Well, well, it’s worth a billion… I suppose I should have Rose revise its treatment in due time,” Ethan mused.
While he couldn’t summon a gigantic dragon, the resources at Ethan’s disposal were still sufficient to summon a few more Bipedal Wyverns.
After adding some more of these to his dungeon, along with other types of troops, he turned his attention elsewhere.
In the meantime, the sweeping operation Ethan had assigned to Zachary Barnes was well underway.
Under the menace of the Bipedal Wyverns, the Dark Lords stood little chance and were being annihilated one by one.
As a result, Zachary’s strength was escalating rapidly, and he had now ascended to rank B.
His prowess could now definitely be considered top-tier among the heroes.
After another successful elimination of a Dark Lord camp, one of Zachary’s subordinates hurriedly came to report, “Big brother Zachary Barnes, our scouts have detected a camp of heroes ahead. It seems they hail from Imperial City…”
“Heroes from Imperial City?” Zachary furrowed his brows. 𝗈𝗏𝓛xt.𝗇𝓔t
The strength of the Sunset Empire’s Imperial City, in comparison to Riverside, was incomparable.
Heroes from that place were not to be underestimated.
“First, gather some intel and then report it to Lord Ethan. We will act based on his directives,” Zachary decided quietly.
Riverside, under Ethan’s covert rule, was prospering.
The arrival of these unknown heroes from Imperial City could cause unnecessary trouble if they weren’t careful.
Commanding his troops to return to camp, Zachary headed in the direction indicated by his subordinates to investigate the situation personally.
Even though he had pledged his allegiance to Ethan, Zachary was still a hero in essence, so it was best for him to deal with other heroes directly.
As he navigated through the forest, Zachary suddenly halted in his tracks as he felt an icy blade at his throat.
He was taken aback, considering he was now a B-rank hero himself.
Whoever was able to sneak up behind him so silently must at least be a B+ rank!