The holographic display shook violently, casting crimson shadows across the underground cavern like blood spatter on concrete walls.
Three starships hung in triangular formation above the wasteland—predators circling wounded prey.
Below their prows, fusion cannon charging arrays outshone the sector's dying star, bathing everything in apocalyptic blue light.
The air grew scorching. Not from rising temperature, but from high-energy reactions about to shatter molecular bonds and reduce matter to its component atoms.
"We're finished."
Steel Bone's proud mechanical frame groaned under unbearable stress, hydraulic fluid gushing from his thigh joints like mechanical blood. Kneeling on the ground, his hands clawed desperately into concrete cracks.
"My lord! Those are 'Tyrant-class' fusion strikes!" His electronic voice nearly shattered the speakers with raw terror. "One shot can burn through planetary crust! The station has zero shields—we'll be instantly vaporized!"
Marcus forgot to breathe, his lungs seizing like broken bellows. Instinct screamed at him to shield the others, but his legs refused to obey—genetic-deep submission to annihilating force.
Static exploded through the comm channel like digital screams.
A half-mechanized beast-man's face filled the screen, countdown timers shrieking in the background like electronic banshees. Scars crisscrossed his features, and his single remaining eye blazed with the madness of someone who'd stared into too many suns.
"Hand over the divine fragment!" Bloody Hand spat, saliva hitting the camera lens. "Or I'll burn this patch of dirt and you insects into glass!"
Ethan sat on his black-gold throne with the composure of a man reviewing quarterly reports.
He raised his hand—not defensively, but in a dismissive shooing motion. Like swatting an uninvited fly buzzing around his morning coffee.
"Too loud."
He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses with surgical precision, eyes calm as someone reviewing an incorrectly filled tax form.
"Lyra, record this." His voice carried the authority of absolute bureaucracy. "Noise pollution. Maximum penalty rate. Late fees calculated by the second."
The screen-bound Bloody Hand's expression froze like a glitched video feed. Then exploded in rage that could melt steel.
"DIE!!"
The crimson launch key slammed down with the finality of a judge's gavel.
*ROAR—!!*
The heavens collapsed in blue fire.
Three beams over ten meters in diameter pierced the atmosphere like spears thrown by angry gods. Clouds instantly vaporized, leaving nothing but superheated plasma trails.
This wasn't light. This was pure destructive will—the violence to reduce all matter to atoms, pouring downward with the weight of collapsed stars.
Hundreds of scavengers couldn't even scream, only close their eyes in despair as their retinas burned from the approaching annihilation.
Vision consumed by blue radiance that promised the end of everything.
Ethan sat motionless, watching the approaching apocalypse with the interest of an accountant reviewing expense reports.
His fingertip touched empty air with casual precision.
The station's obelisk hummed—a sound like reality clearing its throat.
No massive shield rose. No dramatic energy barriers materialized.
Instead, a gossamer-thin, nearly transparent golden grid appeared across the beams' path—delicate as spider silk, beautiful as death.
Steel Bone stared at that "fishing net" with his electronic eye nearly cracking from disbelief.
Block nuclear fire with *that*?! It looked like it couldn't stop a paper airplane!
Ethan offered no explanation, no dramatic speeches. He simply watched the world-ending beams with cold, greedy eyes—like the strictest customs auditor who'd found contraband in a tourist's luggage.
"Per First Tax Office Import-Export Control Regulations." His voice, amplified by rule-force, drilled clearly into every eardrum with bureaucratic inevitability.
"High-energy particle beams classify as 'Class-1 Controlled Bulk Commodities.'"
Ethan's pen traced a red line through the air, signing an invisible death warrant.
"Undeclared border crossing." Each word fell like a hammer blow. "Full confiscation."
Physical law twisted absurdly, reality bending like heated metal under the weight of administrative authority.
The destruction beams struck that seemingly fragile golden grid.
No explosion. No shockwave. No dramatic clash of opposing forces.
The grid blazed blinding red, pulsing with the rhythm of a cosmic heartbeat—
**[Class-1 Tariff Barrier: Activated]**
**[Applied Rate: 400%]**
*Sizzle—!*
Like a hot knife through butter, but in reverse.
The massive, violent beams had 90% of their destructive kinetic energy forcibly "stripped" upon grid contact—taxation made manifest in the physical world.
Stripped energy instantly lost its destructive nature, becoming docile golden data streams that rushed through grid conduits into the station's parched energy reserves like water flowing downhill.
The beam passing through the first grid instantly "slimmed" to one meter diameter—still dangerous, but no longer world-ending.
Marcus's jaw dislocated with an audible pop. "Holy shit? You can *tax* physics?!"
Ethan shook his head with the disappointment of a teacher watching a slow student. Apparently still unsatisfied with the remaining energy.
His finger flicked with casual authority.
Second and third golden grids lit up in sequence, each one hungry for its share.
**[Environmental Tax: 50%]**
**[Value-Added Tax: 20%]**
**[Luxury Consumption Tax: 30%]**
Each grid was a greedy gate, a bureaucratic checkpoint that demanded its due. Every layer the beam passed stripped another skin of energy, like peeling an onion made of concentrated destruction.
The originally annihilating attack now resembled prime beef in a meat grinder, carved clean by blades named "taxation."
Finally, after eighteen tax checkpoint baptisms that would make any accountant weep with joy, the "Tyrant-class" strike that had terrified Steel Bone reached Ethan.
Now it had transformed from a world-ending beam into a lighter-flame-sized, weakly flickering blue spark—heartbreakingly docile, like a tamed dragon reduced to lighting cigarettes.
It hovered three inches from Ethan's fingertip, pulsing with embarrassed energy.
The underground cavern fell pin-drop silent. Even the dust motes seemed afraid to move.
Ethan leaned forward slightly, pulling a cigar from his suit pocket—recently acquired from Steel Bone's personal collection during their "negotiations."
The cigar tip approached that "particle beam" cluster with casual indifference.
*Hiss.*
Tobacco ignited with a sound like a dying whisper.
Ethan drew deeply, harsh smoke circling his lungs like incense in a temple of bureaucracy.
*Exhale.*
Smoke puffed onto that priceless particle flame, treating it like a common lighter.
The flame wavered and died with a pathetic whimper.
"This is your 'Tyrant-class'?" Ethan held his cigar between two fingers, voice tinged with the disappointment of a wine connoisseur served cheap beer.
His words broadcast through the PA system straight to the heavens carried the weight of cosmic judgment.
"Insufficient firepower." He looked up, meeting the completely stunned beast-man leader's gaze through the screen with eyes that had seen empires crumble over unpaid taxes.
"Also, no tax paid."
---
Warship command center.
Bloody Hand watched the incomprehensible scene unfold, crushing his reinforced alloy cup into scrap metal with bare hands.
"What... what the hell is that thing?!" His voice cracked like breaking glass, shrieking like a castrated rooster facing its executioner. "That was five hundred million terajoules! Did he *eat* the energy?! Where are the laws of physics?!"
On the ground, Steel Bone watched the smoke-puffing man with the expression of someone whose entire worldview had just been fed through a paper shredder.
His mechanical knees finally gave out completely—not from fear this time, but from collapsed faith in everything he'd once believed.
He finally understood. This "tax official" didn't wield power—he wielded interpretation rights over reality itself.
If he said it was a weapon, it was a weapon. If he said it was cargo, it was cargo. In that man's designated domain, even conservation of energy had to queue at the window to pay taxes!
**[Station Charging Complete]**
**[Current Energy Reserves: 120%]**
**[Communication Jamming Module: Repaired]**
**[Gravity Traction Module: Online]**
Pleasant system notifications chimed like church bells announcing salvation.
The station hummed with satisfaction, golden data streams flowing across its previously rust-covered surface, illuminating the underground cavern like artificial daylight.
"Retreat! Retreat now!!" In the sky, Bloody Hand finally snapped back to reality, frantically pounding his console with the desperation of a drowning man. "This is a monster nest! Turn around!!"
Ethan watched the screen showing several ships turning chaotically, spewing erratic exhaust trails like panicked animals fleeing a forest fire.
He extinguished his barely-smoked cigar with the regret of wasted luxury.
"Since you're already here..." Ethan rose from his throne, straightening his wrinkle-free tie with meticulous care.
Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes gleamed with purer greed than any pirate had ever possessed—the greed of someone who could tax the very concept of existence.
"Per First Tax Office Anti-Smuggling Act." He raised his right hand toward the heavens like a conductor preparing for the final movement.
"Cargo confiscated." Each word carried the weight of universal law. "Transport vehicles... impounded."
*RUMBLE!!*
The earth shook violently, as if the planet itself was clearing its throat.
Atop the station, the beam array that had devoured countless energy suddenly reversed its flow like a river changing course.
Dozens of black gravity chains burst skyward—tentacles from the abyss of bureaucratic authority, instantly crossing thousands of meters to wrap tightly around the three fleeing starships.
*Screech—*
Tooth-grinding metal distortion echoed across the sky like the screams of dying giants.
Those massive starships were forcibly yanked to a halt mid-air, engines whining in protest against forces that cared nothing for their engineering specifications.
"Now." Ethan's voice was bone-chilling—the final judgment of a cosmic auditor who'd found discrepancies in the universe's books.
"All of you get down here."
His smile could have frozen supernovas.
"Pay your head tax."