The moment the Astral Network unleashed the System Punishment, the Darble Network condensed for a moment and captured all the power within the System Punishment.
Since the function of System Punishment was to punish the Host that revealed the existence of a System, it wouldn't stop until the Host was actually punished. Since the Darble Network captured it, the Astral Network shot out more System Punishment.
The Astral Network continued to shoot out System Punishment while the Darble Network continued to absorb it. Originally, if something like this happened, the Tell-Tale System would have interfered to find out the cause.
But with its death, there was no one to monitor the Astral Network. As a result, it continued through its established rules.
And since Compass Carburettor now possessed Tell-Tale, while creating Secret Society, he established a method for the Darble Network to take advantage of the Astral Network and steal as much System Punishment as possible.
The Darble Network had its limits though, as its foundation was based on the Secret Society members in this world. Once it absorbed enough, it vanished, causing the remainder of System Punishment to fall on Ryutaro. Everything happened in the fraction of a second, so Ryutaro didn't even notice any delays.
The moment he muttered the 'System' after realising its existence, the System Punishment landed on him, stunning both him and the God-Sword System in him.
Ryutaro lost his balance when his paternal instincts kicked in, hurriedly catching his baby to prevent it from being injured. For a newborn baby, a drop to the floor was a death sentence.
He couldn't even move properly. And in that state, he overexerted himself by churning his mana to counter the effects of System Punishment and catch his baby. This only caused the System Punishment to rampage further, destroying his mana circuit.
At this moment, in the Darble Network, Otto stared a large pond that had appeared. It was the liquid form of System Punishment. He touched it and absorbed some of it, hitting his limit quickly.
Right as Ryutaro caught his baby, time seemed to have slowed down as in his senses, he observed the baby revealing a faint smile. Following that, it pointed its index finger at him, condensing an energy blade that expanded in length and stabbed into his head.
Oozing out of the energy blade was System Punishment as the moment it stabbed into Ryutaro, his System was wounded further.
The wetnurse, Grace too absorbed System Punishment from the Darble Network and unleashed a flurry of attacks at Ryutaro.
"You…fooled me!" Ryutaro stared in aghast as he retaliated. But, despite possessing strength surpassing an SSS-Rank Adventurer, he couldn't fight effectively, for the effects of System Punishment suppressed his combat strength.
Swoosh!
Grace severed his head, killing him as she condensed a cubical barrier that enclosed Ryutaro, pumping the interior with the energy of System Punishment, preventing the God-Sword System from returning to the System World.
A System couldn't use the Astral Network's services while being affected by System Punishment that rattled even its Core Skill.
Eugene rushed into the room, dragging a cattle with him as he killed the baby. He plucked out a Warble from its corpse and placed it on the cattle's forehead, watching Otto revive as a teenager.
The trio took turns infusing System Punishment into the barrier until the God-Sword System was unable to endure anymore and fractured.
With its Core Skill destroyed, its existence was wiped out, revealing a Coordinate that hovered above Ryutaro's body. It seemed like it would dissipate any moment when Otto absorbed it into his Darble Dungeon, observing the space within stabilise further and cause the volume to enlarge drastically.
With that, they destroyed a System.
"Good job!" Eugene patted both Grace and Otto, sighing after staring at the Darble Network.
[We had to use up most of the System Punishment. It'll be easier if we could store more in the Darble Network]
Otto observed the changes to his Darble Dungeon and replied with a smile.
[My room for growth has improved after absorbing this Coordinate. As long as the foundation of each of us increases, the quantity of System Punishment the Darble Network can store too will increase]
"Did your abilities improve after absorbing that?" Grace asked.
"Just an improvement in the volume. Nothing else," Otto shook his head. Any sensitive words were exchanged through Telepathy while the rest were conversed normally.
The Darble Network was created to absorb System Punishment while the Darble Dungeon would grow in foundation by absorbing Coordinates.
Moreover, with every Coordinate they absorbed, the universality of each Secret Society member became strengthened. This was the means of growth given to them, carefully created by Compass Carburettor while considering many things.
Unfortunately, the Secret Society couldn't expand in numbers, because only Compass Carburettor had the authority to make people members.
But thanks to Warble, the members were basically immortal. So, as long as the world existed, the Secret Society in it would continue operating.
And as they continue to hunt Systems and absorb their Coordinates, the members would become stronger over time, making the world all the more dangerous for the Systems.
It was only effective at the level of a Grade 1 System, but that was enough. After all, only Grade 1 Systems would be actively farming Mental Energy.
Grade 2 Systems would be fighting in the Central Plains to gather System Elixir while Grade 3 Systems would be fighting and devouring each other to reach Grade 4.
Once Secret Society hunted their first prey in this world, Compass Carburettor arrived to determine their levels of growth. Satisfied, he went towards other worlds, continuing to establish Secret Society in every single world.
At first, the Hatchling Systems were the most affected. But over time, the level of Systems being hunted continued to increase at a steady rate.
A decade later, Eugene let out a breath of air softly, staring at the Coordinate before him. He absorbed it into his Darble Dungeon and observed the changes.
Currently, he possessed over a hundred Transcendent Skills, a dozen or so which were from the Warrior Path while the rest belonged to the Puppeteer Path. Each Transcendent Skill of the Puppeteer Path was regarding a puppet form, including the various functions installed, like a cat, dog, human, worm, etc.
The space within his Darble Dungeon was now eight cubic kilometres. With a height of one kilometre, it meant he had a land area of eight square kilometres. That was a lot of land for one person, so much so that it was getting hard to manage alone.
But that didn't matter as once he was done with his task, he roamed through lands that had faced disasters and brought orphan kids into the Darble Dungeon. They were glad to live in a safe land, free from danger and hunger.
Once there were enough people to take care of his Darble Dungeon, Eugene returned home and relaxed, tallying his energy accumulation, one that had long since trumped his powers of mana as an SSS-Rank Adventurer.
Darlac: 12,796!
