Free Web NovelChapter 107: [107] Hostile Bid, The Regional Reserve
The interior of the Regional Reserve was massive. It was easily the size of a standard sports stadium. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were all forged from polished, dark obsidian that perfectly reflected the blinding light in the center of the room.
There were no shelves. There were no chests.
The wealth of the entire sector simply floated in the air. freewebnøvel.coɱ
It was Merit Energy. The universal currency of the Celestial Court. It did not exist as paper money or digital credits. It existed as a fluid, glowing silver mist.
Massive, swirling pools of the silver mist hovered gently above the obsidian floor. In the center of the room, the mist had naturally condensed under its own sheer density, solidifying into towering, heavy ingots of pure cosmic capital. The ingots were stacked in neat, perfect pyramids that stretched twenty feet into the air.
It was enough wealth to buy and sell a hundred universes. It was the stolen, hoarded lifeblood of a billion different dimensions.
"Holy shit," Cassia whispered. Her voice echoed softly in the vast room. She stepped over the threshold, her silver eyes reflecting the glowing mist. She looked like a kid in a candy store.
Vane walked in slowly behind her. The scarred frontiersman looked deeply uncomfortable. He stared at the mountains of glowing ingots with a look of pure disgust.
"This is sick," Vane grunted. His grip tightened on his broadsword. "This is what they took from the Margin. They starve the lower wards, they tax the air we breathe, just so they can sit on a pile of glowing fog in a hidden basement."
"It’s not fog, Vane. It’s leverage," Arthur said smoothly.
Arthur walked past them. He did not run toward the money. He strolled through the vault with the calm, arrogant stride of a man inspecting his own private bank account. He stopped in front of a massive pyramid of silver ingots.
He reached out and picked one up. It was incredibly heavy. It felt cold to the touch, humming with raw, unformatted reality-energy.
"System. Give me an appraisal," Arthur muttered under his breath.
[Ding!]
[Analyzing assets...]
[Estimated total value of vault contents: 250 Billion Merit Points.]
Arthur’s jaw tightened slightly. Two hundred and fifty billion. To any normal person in this universe, it was an infinite amount of money. It was enough to build a permanent paradise.
But to Arthur, it was just a drop in the bucket.
His internal system flashed the red, angry reminder of his current situation.
[Current Debt Balance: 999,999,999,970 Merit Points.]
He was sitting on almost a trillion points of cosmic debt. The money in this room wouldn’t even pay off a third of what he owed the Omniversal bank. He was still heavily in the red.
Arthur sighed, tossing the heavy silver ingot back onto the pile. "It’s not enough to clear the ledger," he said aloud. "But it is massive operating capital. We can use this."
Cassia was already moving. She pulled three empty spatial rings from her thigh holster. She didn’t hesitate. She started throwing the glowing silver ingots into the rings as fast as her hands could move.
"Start bagging!" Cassia yelled, tossing one of the empty rings to Vane. "The alarms are still going off upstairs. We have maybe five minutes before the local guard figures out the backdoor is open!"
Vane caught the ring, but he didn’t move toward the gold. He just stood there, glaring at the wealth.
"I am not a thief," Vane growled. "I came here to stop Gildas. I came here to protect the city. I am not stuffing my pockets with stolen money."
Arthur stopped inspecting a pool of silver mist. He turned around. He looked at Vane with a look of profound, exhausted annoyance.
"Vane. Are you actually stupid, or is this just a character you play?" Arthur asked coldly.
"Excuse me?!" Vane snapped, stepping forward.
"This is not stolen money," Arthur said, walking right up to the towering hero. "This is confiscated capital. We are seizing it. You want to rebuild the Margin? You want to feed those people in the lower wards? How exactly are you going to pay for the food synthesizers, Vane? With good intentions and a warm smile?"
Vane opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. He just stood there, his jaw clenched.
"We are buying back an empire," Arthur continued, poking a hard finger into Vane’s armored chest. "We need defense arrays. We need weapons. We need infrastructure. This silver right here? This is how you save your city. So stop playing the righteous hero, pick up the ring, and start bagging the fucking money."
Vane stared at Arthur for a long, tense moment. He looked at the ring in his hand. He looked at the glowing piles of silver. Finally, the frontiersman let out a heavy sigh.
"Fine," Vane grunted. He walked over to the nearest pile of ingots. "But I am auditing the spending. Every point goes to the city."
"We will discuss the budget later," Arthur smirked. He grabbed his own spatial ring and started sweeping the liquid silver mist into the storage dimension.
For three minutes, the vault was filled with the frantic sounds of looting. The heavy clack of silver ingots hitting each other. The whoosh of spatial rings sucking up the glowing mist. They worked with brutal efficiency. The massive piles of wealth began to quickly vanish into their pockets.
They were halfway done when the entire room suddenly shifted.
"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
A loud, piercing alarm echoed directly inside the vault. It wasn’t the standard security alarm from the casino above. This was a direct communication override.
The silver mist swirling near the back wall of the vault violently parted. A massive, central communication terminal blared to life. It was a sleek, obsidian pillar covered in glowing runes.
"Hold on," Cassia warned. She dropped an ingot and immediately drew her sniper rifle, aiming it at the terminal. Vane stepped in front of her, raising his broadsword.
Arthur did not draw his weapon. He just narrowed his eyes and watched the terminal.
A beam of bright blue light shot up from the obsidian pillar. It rapidly expanded, projecting a massive, life-sized hologram in the center of the vault.
The image flickered and then stabilized.
Arthur stared at the projection.
It was a man sitting behind a massive desk of pure, polished gold. The man did not look like the bloated, ugly monsters they had fought in the alleyways. He did not look like the arrogant, flashy Celestial Nobles either.
He looked like a perfect, flawless corporate aristocrat. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
He was dressed in a sharp, pristine white suit with gold trim. His hair was perfectly slicked back. His face was entirely unscarred, handsome, and cold. He was casually swirling a glass of red wine in his hand, looking out through the hologram with an expression of mild annoyance.
[Ding!]
The system in Arthur’s mind instantly reacted.
[Target Identified: Silas Vance.]
[Class: CEO of the Iron Consortium.]
[Status: Sector 5 Regional Monopoly Holder.]
Arthur’s lips curled into a slow, dark smile. The boss was finally calling.
The hologram of Silas Vance looked around the vault. He saw the missing piles of silver. He saw Cassia aiming a rifle at him. He saw Vane holding a chipped broadsword. Finally, his cold eyes locked onto Arthur Sterling.
Silas didn’t yell. He didn’t look panicked at all. He took a slow sip of his wine.
"Well," Silas Vance spoke. His voice was incredibly smooth, dripping with dangerous, quiet authority. "It seems I have a rat problem in my basement."
Arthur stepped forward. He completely ignored Vane and Cassia. He walked right up to the edge of the holographic projection, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.
"You must be the owner," Arthur said casually. "Nice place. Security is a bit sloppy, though."
Silas’s eyes narrowed slightly. He set his wine glass down on the gold desk. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his perfectly manicured hands.
"I know every thief, every bounty hunter, and every rogue in the Deficit Zone," Silas said softly. "I know the girl with the rifle. I know the brute with the sword. But I do not know you. You walk into the Neon Exchange. You bankrupt my tables. You dismantle my floor manager. And now, you are standing in my personal reserve."
Silas smiled. It was a cold, dead smile.
"You have exactly ten seconds to tell me who you are," Silas demanded, "before I lock down that vault and vent the oxygen."
Arthur didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull a weapon. He just stared right back at the CEO of the Iron Consortium.
"My name is Arthur Sterling," Arthur stated cleanly. His baritone voice carried perfectly across the vast room. "I am the CEO of Omniversal Holdings. And I am here to make a withdrawal."
