The ascent up the eastern mountain took significantly less time than any of them had originally anticipated, primarily because they did not encounter a single hostile monster on the way up.

The dense, zero-mana domain pressing down on the forest had driven out the standard wildlife, leaving the rocky trail eerily silent as they marched higher into the crags. Thick veins of raw, unrefined gold occasionally broke through the gray stone under their feet, confirming Marrick’s panicked assessment about the sheer wealth hidden in the sector.

Juna kept her ears pinned back flat against her head, constantly scanning the dead treeline while holding her posture stiff.

"Something is extremely wrong here," she muttered, glancing down at the sheer drop falling away from the narrow path, "a territory this dense with resources should be crawling with high-tier monsters fighting for dominance."

"They are not fighting because they already lost," Vella pointed out, trailing slightly behind her with a deeply unamused expression on her face, "whatever owns this mountain cleared the board before we even arrived."

Hajin did not slow his pace, leading them straight toward the highest peak jutting into the morning sky.

He knew perfectly well they were walking into a localized death trap, but turning back empty-handed was out of the question when his territory was currently bleeding dry.

They finally breached the summit roughly an hour later, stepping onto a wide, flat plateau exposed to the harsh mountain wind.

Sitting right on the edge of the cliff was a tall, unnervingly elegant figure wearing a sharp, tailored coat, its legs crossed casually as it looked down at the sprawling Sixth Region below. Slowly turning its head to look at them, the figure revealed a human-looking face with sharp, aristocratic features, pale skin, and glowing pink eyes that locked immediately onto Hajin.

The moment its gaze shifted, a dense, gravity-warping pressure slammed into the plateau, instantly forcing Juna and Loccy to drop to one knee as their natural beastkin instincts screamed at them to submit.

Vella managed to stay standing, though her dark-violet mana immediately flared around her shoulders to desperately push back against the sheer weight of the aura trying to crush her into the ground.

Hajin did not drop to his knees, nor did he bother manifesting his Rings, instead keeping his hands casually stuffed in his coat pockets as he walked straight toward the terrifying figure.

"You must be the local landlord," he greeted bluntly, stopping exactly ten feet away from the cliff edge.

The Pink-Eyed Watcher stared at him for a long moment, the dense pressure hanging in the air before a smooth, melodic laugh finally slipped past its lips.

"You are exactly as bold as your actions in the town suggested," the Watcher noted, its eyes curving with genuine amusement as it rested its chin on a slender, pale hand, "I was wondering if you would actually have the nerve to come all the way up here, little lord."

"I am currently running a region filled with hungry people and collapsed infrastructure," he explained, ignoring the condescending tone as he looked the apex monster right in the eye, "I do not have the time or the energy to be nervous."

He gestured vaguely toward the gold veins bleeding out of the rock near their feet, getting straight to the point instead of wasting time with political pleasantries.

"I need roughly four hundred thousand gold pieces to fix my town, and my clerk tells me you are sitting on the largest unmined vein in the kingdom," he added smoothly, his tone sounding more like a business transaction than a conversation with an apex predator.

The Watcher blinked in genuine surprise, apparently not expecting the young human to actually walk into a predator’s domain and casually demand a fortune.

"You came all this way to ask me for money?" It asked, its voice dropping into a dangerous, rumbling frequency that made the very air around the plateau vibrate.

"I am negotiating," he corrected, keeping his expression flat, "the King gave this region to me, and you happen to be sitting on my gold. Therefore, we need to reach an understanding before my people run out of food."

The stream chat, which had been deathly silent since they reached the peak, finally started rolling rapidly in the corner of his vision.

[ CringeSlayer91:] bro is literally trying to extort a boss monster for tax money

[ Ashley (MOD):] please don’t die please don’t die please don’t die

[ NewViewer_02:] his negotiation skill is just asking to be murdered

The Watcher threw its head back and laughed loudly, the sound tearing through the wind as it uncrossed its legs and stood up, towering easily over seven feet tall.

"Fascinating," the Guardian Beast murmured, taking a slow step toward him while letting its pink eyes glow brighter, "your King throwing you into my territory has made for a very entertaining board, and you are by far the most interesting piece on it. However, I do not just hand over my gold to anyone who asks nicely."

It raised a single slender hand, pointing a finger directly at Hajin’s chest.

"I will let you mine this mountain, little lord, on one simple condition," it hummed, tilting its head slightly as it waited for his reaction.

"Name it," he answered instantly, entirely unfazed by the glowing finger pointed at his heart.

"Survive my raw aura for exactly thirty seconds without falling to your knees," it proposed, a sharp, predatory smile pulling across its aristocratic face, "if you bow, I eat you and your bizarre little pets. If you remain standing, the gold is yours."

"Deal,"he agreed immediately, rolling his shoulders back and planting his feet firmly into the ground.

He did not even bother to mentally prepare himself, simply trusting the Goddess fragment humming quietly inside his chest and Aria’s stabilizing presence to handle the incoming pressure.

The creature’s smile widened into a terrifying grin as it finally stopped holding back, dropping its human disguise and unleashing the true, unsealed weight of an ancient predator directly onto the plateau.

The impact of the aura did not merely press down on his shoulders, it warped the very space around him, instantly cracking the ground beneath his feet into deep, jagged craters. The ten-Shard spider mother had felt like a falling building, but this presence felt like the entire sky collapsing directly onto his spine.

He realized immediately that he had miscalculated, the raw density of the beast’s mana proving it was leagues above the spider anomaly, existing on a scale he had never actually encountered before.

His bones groaned audibly under the sheer force of the pressure, blood leaking slowly from his nose as the Goddess fragment surged to keep his internal organs from rupturing.

A blaring, crimson system warning flooded his vision just as his knees finally began to buckle, leaving him desperately fighting to stay standing as the mountain tore itself apart around them.