Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!-Chapter 382: Deagon: The Slave That Eats His Masters

Everything slammed down on them.

The weight was invisible but relentless, like the very gravity of the world had decided they were no longer necessary. Their knees buckled instantly. The man hit the rooftop with a grunt, his face scraping against the concrete. The woman collapsed beside him, choking on air that now felt thick and burning in her lungs. Their veins bulged under their skin, black and blue and red all fighting for space as their bodies trembled beneath the crushing energy.

Their eyes bulged, wide, panicked. They were agents of the Dark Pantheon. They did not kneel. They did not break. But Daegon wasn't something they were trained to resist. He wasn't just corrupted power. He was divine memory weaponized by wrath.

The man gasped, blood edging his lips. "You… y-you're making a mistake... going against the Pantheon... this isn't wise—"

Daegon crouched down, eye to eye now, smiling like a god who just found a mortal pretending to be brave.

"Going against?" he repeated, voice calm and deep. "No."

He tilted his head, softening his expression like this was just a casual conversation.

"Who would cut off the hand that feeds them?"

He looked between the two, amused now. "I'm not stupid. I need the Dark Pantheon."

The pressure loosened—but not fully. Just enough for them to breathe. Their lungs dragged in air like dying fish, veins still twitching as Daegon stood upright again, backlit by the fractured moon and the snow that no longer obeyed gravity.

He walked a few steps past them, hands clasped behind his back like a lecturer giving a quiet tour through hell.

"I'm not here to rebel. I'm here to grow."

He paused, glancing back over his shoulder, eyes still glowing with soft malice.

"You should be glad you saw this early. That you got to witness the beginning. It means you'll know where to stand when everything shifts."

He didn't wait for a response. He knew they couldn't speak yet. Their bodies were still trying to remember what silence felt like.

The agents coughed as their lungs relearned the concept of oxygen. The pressure faded, but its memory lingered—coiled around their bones like a lesson branded into flesh. They'd seen monsters. They'd seen gods fall, cities burn, mortals turn into abominations in the name of the Pantheon.

But nothing—nothing—felt like this.

And yet, despite the fear thick in their throats, they still had their orders. Still had their pride.

The woman's voice cracked, her lips trembling. "What… what exactly are you doing, Daegon?"

Her partner wiped blood from the edge of his mouth and followed up, tone rough but edged with fear he couldn't quite hide. "You go against us or try something funny with us, you go against the Pantheon itself."

Daegon didn't stop walking.

But he did laugh.

Low. Smooth. Mocking.

It wasn't the laugh of a man. It was the laugh of something that had outlived wars, gods, and empires—and never once felt regret.

He stopped, turned slightly, the side of his face visible under the dim light, that damn smile still carved there like it belonged to him more than his name.

"Don't overestimate yourselves," he said, his voice velvet laced in iron. "You're not the Pantheon."

The woman stiffened. The man clenched his fists. But they didn't interrupt.

"You're slaves," he continued, as if commenting on the weather. "Decorated, trusted, well-positioned, but still…" He turned fully now, eyes locking onto them with that familiar, lazy disdain. "Slaves."

He stepped forward once, just a single stride, and it was enough to make both agents flinch instinctively. "To think the will of the Four 'Great' Leaders extends to you…" he clicked his tongue, shaking his head slowly. "How laughable."

And they knew he was right.

In their bones. In their blood. In the way they didn't rise when he had dropped them.

In the way they didn't scream when he insulted them.

In the way they just watched, because deep down, they knew:

He could crush them.

And he would walk away with nothing more than a slap on his wrist, from above.

Because Daegon wasn't replaceable.

He wasn't moldable.

He wasn't even loyal.

But he was useful.

And the Pantheon, for all its power, fed on results.

The two agents exchanged a glance—torn between rage, humiliation, and the cruel clarity of their position. They were still trying to scare him. Still trying to play the system like it had rules for everyone.

But it didn't.

Not for Daegon.

Not for the ancient.

Daegon laughed—not like a man amused, but like something ancient stretching its limbs for the first time in centuries. The kind of laughter that didn't come from joy, but from the sheer absurdity of being challenged by things so far beneath him they hadn't even evolved the right fear.

"Relax," he said casually, waving a hand like he was brushing away dust. "I'm not trying to kill you."

He took a step forward. Slow. Measured. "I just don't want to end up like you."

The air thinned as he crouched before them. Close now. Too close. His voice dropped lower, quieter, and yet somehow it carried like it was braided into the wind itself. The night took his words and curled them around the agents' ears like secrets whispered into the soul.

"I'm just getting myself an insider in the very

inside of the Dark Pantheon."

His eyes locked onto theirs—voids carved into a human face—and his lips twitched with a smile that did not belong in any mortal dream.

"And who better… than the agents themselves?"

The woman's eyes widened, her chest rising sharply. The man flinched like something ancient just touched the back of his mind. Neither of them had breath left to speak, but their shock radiated off them like heat.

This man…

They had heard stories. Whispers. Myth turned warning.

But they had never expected this.

"You—" the man croaked, blood thick in his throat. "What are you planning?"

Daegon tilted his head like a father humoring a particularly slow child. "Tell me," he said softly, "since when does a master share his plans with mere slaves?"

Their bodies stiffened at the insult, but what came next made the fear twist into rage.

"The Pantheon's watching!" the woman snapped, her voice a final, desperate blade. "They know what you're doing! They see you!"

Daegon stood slowly.

And then he laughed again.

Full. Violent.

Shoulders rising as the sound echoed into the night, deeper than thunder, louder than prophecy.

He spread his arms to the sky as the corrupted flakes of the Dark Winter fell around him, cloaking his figure in silence and power. His voice cracked the illusion of fear like a mirror.

"No shit they're watching."

He turned his head, his grin stretching just enough to reveal the monster beneath the skin. "Do you think I didn't know?"

Then his tone changed. Still calm. Still smooth. But with a weight that shifted the very air between them.

"Do you know what I am?"

He took a step forward. The wind obeyed.

"I'm a master of most elements of nature. Earth, wind, metal, smoke, ash, storm. I don't just bend them."

Another step.

"I am inside them."

He looked up at the sky, eyes flickering with something too vast to belong to a man.

"With a thought, I can disappear into the elements. Into the sea. Into a leaf. Into the damn breeze brushing your neck right now. And even the so-called and self-proclaimed Omniscient beings might struggle to see me."

He turned back to them, and his voice dropped to a growl as ancient magic sparked in the air.

"So what makes you think the Four Leaders of your pathetic little cult—who are only Omnipotents—can see me through my domains? Enough chit chat."

His arm lifted, and reality bent around his will.

"Ah… right." He chuckled, voice dripping with mock regret as the pressure around them began to rise again. "About that part where I said I wouldn't kill you?"

He leaned in, eyes gleaming like storm-soaked obsidian.

"I lied."

"Funny thing about promises," he said, walking closer, voice calm and cold, "they don't really mean much when the people I make them to stop being useful."

He tilted his head, eyes glowing.

"So… consider this your exit interview."

A rush of darkness pulsed from his palm. It was not loud. Not violent. Just final. Two streaks of sin—one sloth, one pride—like coiling serpents of shadow, darted from the air and burrowed into the agents' chests.

Their eyes went wide.

Then still.

No screams. No final words. Just silence.

Their dark lights—their souls—were ripped clean from their flesh, drifting above like vapor caught in moonlight, still shaped like them but weightless and confused, beginning their drift toward the great cycle— The Reincarnation Circle waited for them—cold, fair, inevitable.

But Daegon wasn't done.

"Oh, no you don't," he whispered.

He stretched out his hand, and it shifted—flesh turning to obsidian-black scales, clawed fingers lengthening, glowing faintly with the dragon magic that once shook mountains.

The claw reached up—and closed.

The two souls didn't even get the chance to scream.

He pulled them in—into his palm, into his being—and consumed them whole.

The energy pulsed through him instantly. Their memories, their fears, their secrets. Their sins, their identities. The files they carried. The truths they buried.

He saw the names.

The operations.

The sigils.

The lies.

He exhaled sharply. A ripple of dark heat rolled off his skin, the air bending around him like it was trying not to touch him. The stolen memories settled in his mind like dust on ancient shelves—organized, vivid, humming with opportunity.

But more importantly...

Visions laced with blood and secrecy unfolded in his thoughts—flickering scenes of hallways drenched in sterile light, reinforced doors veined with divine inscriptions, and a lab hidden beneath sacred ground. Beakers, sigils, chains. Screams muffled behind thick glass.

Symbols etched in a tongue even the gods had forgotten how to read.

"Oh…" he muttered, a slow smirk curling across his lips. "Interesting."

He saw what they were doing. He saw what they were building.

He knew where it was now.

And more than that—he knew what to do next.

****

Who's missing Parker?