Free Web NovelChapter 120: [120] Auditing the Iron Consortium, The Monopoly Field
Elias took another step forward. His cybernetic eye glowed brightly.
"You want to hit him, don’t you? You took his train, and you took his slaves. You are going after the Consortium."
Arthur didn’t confirm or deny it. He just opened the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk. He pulled out a bottle of top-shelf celestial whiskey he had saved from Gildas’s personal stash. He pulled out two glasses.
Arthur poured a generous measure of the amber liquid into both glasses. He slid one across the polished wood toward the edge of the desk.
"Have a seat, Elias," Arthur smiled, a terrifyingly ambitious light dancing in his dark eyes. "Tell me exactly how I break into the Iron Tower."
Elias practically collapsed into the leather chair opposite Arthur’s desk. He grabbed the glass of celestial whiskey with trembling hands and downed it in a single, desperate gulp.
He coughed violently as the hyper-refined alcohol burned down his throat, but the color slowly returned to his pale cheeks.
Arthur Sterling just watched him, nursing his own glass. Cassia and Vane stepped into the office a few minutes later, having secured the perimeter downstairs.
"We got a squealer?" Cassia asked, her silver eyes locking onto the nervous accountant. She leaned casually against the bookshelf, her arms crossed.
"We have an inside consultant," Arthur corrected smoothly. He tapped his finger against the mahogany desk. "Elias here is going to draw us a map. Tell them what you just told me."
Elias wiped his mouth with the back of his ragged sleeve. His cybernetic eye whirred loudly, projecting a faint blue holographic grid onto the center of the desk. freewebnovel.cσ๓
"Sector 5 is entirely controlled by the Iron Consortium," Elias began, his voice steadier now that he had alcohol in his system. "The crown jewel of their operation is the Iron Tower. It’s Silas Vance’s personal headquarters. It is a massive, black-metal skyscraper right in the center of the district."
"A heavily fortified skyscraper," Vane grunted, leaning his heavy broadsword against the wall. "They have an army stationed there. Cyber-trolls, blood-mages, the works."
"The army isn’t the problem," Elias shook his head. He tapped the holographic projection, zooming in on the base of the towering black structure. "The problem is the perimeter defense. Silas doesn’t just use guards. He uses a ’Monopoly Field’."
Arthur’s pitch-black eyes narrowed. "Define that."
"It’s a localized reality warp," Elias explained, his cybernetic eye flashing. "The entire tower is encased in a conceptual barrier. It doesn’t physically stop you from walking in. But the moment you cross the threshold, the Field begins aggressively draining your stamina and your ambient mana."
Cassia frowned, stepping closer to the desk to study the hologram. "How fast is the drain?"
"Five percent per minute," Elias stated grimly. "And that’s just on the ground floor. The higher you go up the tower, the heavier the atmospheric pressure gets. By the time you reach the executive penthouses, the field actively crushes your internal organs. Unless your biological signature is registered to the Consortium’s ledger, you will suffocate before you even reach the elevators."
The room went completely silent.
Cassia let out a low whistle, doing the math in her head. "Five percent a minute. That gives us twenty minutes before total system failure. And that’s if we don’t fight anybody."
"I can push through it," Vane declared. The scarred hero pounded a heavy fist against his armored chest. "I’ve fought through poison gas and gravity wells. A little stamina drain isn’t going to stop me."
"It’s not a little drain, farm boy," Cassia snapped, glaring at him. "It’s a conceptual suppression. It deletes your energy directly from the source. You swing that heavy piece of scrap metal twice, and your heart will literally stop."
"She is right, Vane," Arthur said. His voice was a calm, absolute rumble that immediately killed the argument.
Arthur stood up. He walked around the desk, his eyes locked onto the glowing blue hologram of the Iron Tower. He didn’t look discouraged. He looked like a predator dissecting a particularly tricky puzzle.
"We don’t push through it," Arthur stated. "We shut it down."
He turned to Elias. "The Monopoly Field is an automated system. It requires an active energy source and a localized server to maintain the reality warp. Where is the hardware?"
Elias’s cybernetic eye clicked. The hologram shifted, highlighting a heavily fortified room on the fiftieth floor of the tower.
"The central server is housed in the mid-level management sector," Elias pointed a shaking finger at the glowing red dot. "It’s a massive, physical terminal. If you destroy the server, the Monopoly Field drops, and the tower’s internal security grids go offline."
Arthur smirked. He tapped his temple, directly accessing his Omniversal Holdings system.
"System," Arthur commanded silently. "Cross-reference the provided layout with our current operational ledger. Give me a tactical breakdown."
[Ding!]
[Analyzing intelligence data...]
[Target Acquired: Central Server, Iron Tower, Sector 5.]
[Objective Updated: Destroy the Central Server.]
[System Notice: Disabling the ’Monopoly Field’ will severely devalue the Iron Consortium’s overall market share.]
[Estimated Debt Reduction upon completion: 50 Billion Merit Points.]
Arthur’s eyes flared with intense, unadulterated ambition. Fifty billion. It wouldn’t clear his massive cosmic debt entirely, but it was a catastrophic blow to Silas Vance’s operation. It was exactly the kind of leverage he needed.
"I love this company," Arthur whispered to himself.
He turned away from the hologram and walked over to the coat rack. He pulled his heavy, pitch-black Ebonheart Sword from the corner and seamlessly strapped it to his back.
He adjusted the cuffs of his pristine white shirt, his posture radiating pure, undeniable corporate dominance.
"Alright," Arthur declared, looking directly at Vane and Cassia. "The objective is clear. We breach the lobby, we take the elevators to the fiftieth floor, and we liquidate the central server."
Vane grabbed his broadsword, his jaw locked in grim determination. Cassia checked the energy cartridges on her dual stun pistols, offering a lethal, excited grin.
"Cassia. Vane," Arthur said, a terrifying smile stretching across his face. "We’re going to the top floor."
