Rusted shutters groaned like dying beasts, metal friction shrieking and drilling into eardrums with the persistence of dental work.
A foul wind mixing machine oil, mold, and corpse stench rushed from that deep opening—hell's own exhale greeting unwelcome visitors.
Marcus hunched his shoulders, even his recently enhanced body nearly breaking under that stench that could kill flowers at fifty paces.
His foot splashed into black sludge, sole making viscous sounds like stepping on rotting organs.
Overhead, broken rebar dangled like executioner's nooses, ready to pierce any visitor's skull with rusty kisses.
In corners, unidentifiable mechanical limbs piled mountain-high—a graveyard of chrome dreams and shattered ambitions.
Corpse-mechs dragged broken frames through darkness, hauling garbage while joints creaked with tooth-grinding persistence.
This wasn't a tax bureau. This was a high-tech necropolis where hope came to die.
Ethan walked ahead with impossible composure, dress shoes crossing the muck without staining his cuffs—as if filth itself respected his authority.
He even had leisure to straighten his gold-rimmed glasses, moving with the confidence of someone inspecting his private garden rather than touring the apocalypse.
Behind him, those silver heels stopped with the finality of judgment day.
The auditor stood at the entrance, her spotless silver-gray uniform clashing violently with this monument to decay.
Those pure silver pupils swept the surroundings like searchlights seeking evidence of cosmic fraud.
Her palm terminal's screen exploded with crimson "ERROR" pop-ups—digital screams of systems encountering the impossible.
"Environmental rating: Unable to display." Her voice held no inflection, colder than liquid nitrogen and twice as deadly.
"Infrastructure: Zero." "Security level: Zero." "Biochemical indicators: Lethal grade."
She raised her head, gaze nailing to Ethan's back like a targeting laser painted with malicious intent.
Her slender index finger lifted, fingertip condensing a point of matter-annihilating silver radiance that made reality hiccup.
Space began trembling, pixel blocks peeling from the air like digital dandruff.
"Per Entropy Council Fraud Act, Article 7." Her voice carried the weight of universal law rewriting itself.
"Shell companies and fraudulent hollow assets require no trial."
That finger slowly pressed down with the inevitability of gravity itself.
Terrifying higher-dimensional pressure instantly descended like the universe's own boot heel.
Marcus's knees buckled, dropping into muddy water with a splash that sounded like dreams dying.
Lyra's broken sword wailed, blade cracking under forces that laughed at metallurgy.
This was dimensional reduction strike—direct erasure at the physical law level, deletion made manifest.
"Wait." Ethan turned with the casual confidence of someone who'd just remembered he held the winning lottery ticket.
No drawing weapons, no begging, no dramatic speeches.
His lenses reflected cold light in the dim emergency lighting like twin stars being born.
"Officer, you're too hasty." Ethan spread his hands, even stepping forward into the kill zone with suicidal boldness.
"Per Universal Asset Assessment Law supplementary clause—'Asset Reorganization Grace Period.'"
"I have the right to complete renovations until the final second before inspection."
The auditor's finger froze mid-air, confused data streams flowing through her silver pupils like digital tears.
"One second?" She surveyed this devastation with the expression of someone asked to rebuild Rome with toothpicks.
"Based on matter reorganization laws, even deploying nano-swarms would require 72 hours minimum to repair this."
"You're lying."
"That's lower-dimensional civilization algorithms." Ethan walked to the center where a massive, rust-seized signal station core stood silently in darkness like a necrotic heart waiting for resurrection.
"In we tax officials' eyes, the world has no matter." He reached into his suit pocket with the reverence of someone handling holy relics.
Pulled out that "garbage" bought for five hundred at auction—the S-Class Stellar Seed still weakly pulsing, radiating heart-stopping heat that could melt steel with longing.
The auditor frowned slightly, her perfect features showing the first crack of uncertainty.
"Detonate a red giant core? That's not renovation—that's self-destruction with style."
"Detonate?" Ethan snorted with the disdain of someone who'd just been asked if fire was hot.
He approached the oil-stained, even sparking maintenance port with no protection, no calibration, no safety protocols.
Brutally jammed that stellar seed into the broken slot like forcing a square peg into a round hole through sheer audacity.
*Click.* Seed in place.
No reaction. Only wisps of black smoke, like a damp dud disappointing everyone at the fireworks show.
Marcus desperately covered his face, preparing for vaporization.
The auditor shook her head with the satisfaction of someone whose cynicism had been validated.
"Circuit failure, incompatible. Executing erasure..."
*SNAP.*
A crisp finger-snap—the sound of rules being forcibly rewritten by someone who'd found the universe's cheat codes.
Ethan stood before the scrap metal, eyes instantly stained with violent blood-red that could make demons nervous.
**[Omnidimensional Tax System: Full Power Activation]**
**[Tax Target: First Tax Office - Full Domain Environment]**
**[Tax Items: Darkness, Cold, Dampness, Decay, Fear]**
**[Tax Rate: 100%!]**
"Burn for me." Ethan whispered with the authority of someone commanding the fundamental forces.
Physical laws collapsed in that moment like a house of cards in a hurricane.
No light erupted. Quite the opposite.
The originally dim space instantly plunged into absolute darkness—light being devoured like a cosmic vacuum cleaner had been activated.
Corner shadows, air's damp chill, mud's putrid stench... even Marcus's heart-deep terror materialized into viscous black fluid, becoming purest "fuel" for impossible engines.
*WHOOSH—!*
Black cyclones rose from nothing, frantically pouring into that broken maintenance port like liquid nightmares seeking their source.
"Logic error!" The auditor's terminal screamed alarms, screen cascading with waterfall code that hurt to perceive.
"Local entropy reduction detected! You're using 'disorder' as fuel? This violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics!"
"Here, I *am* the law." Ethan spread his arms, embracing the void with the confidence of someone who'd just rewritten physics.
*BOOM!!!*
The final trace of "darkness" was forcibly collected, processed, and converted.
The stellar seed received perfect catalysis—not destruction, but transformation.
The station stopped smoking. Original rust-brown corrosion didn't fall away—under that supremely domineering energy wash, it underwent atomic-level transition that made alchemy look like child's play.
Rust became red gold. Decay became sacred. Death became divine.
Originally creaking mechanical structures instantly fit seamlessly, precise as divine creation guided by cosmic blueprints.
Light. Pure, ordered, glorious golden light exploded from the station core, instantly filling every inch of space with radiance that didn't blind or burn—because it had incinerated all "violence" and "disorder."
Muddy ground became mirror-bright golden tiles that reflected infinity.
Broken rebar transformed into glorious pillars supporting a dome that touched heaven.
Those nauseating corpse-mechs had their oil stains purified, vicious exoskeletons reflecting sacred texture—no longer monsters, but mechanical paladins guarding the temple.
One second. Hell became heaven.
This was negative entropy miracle—impossibility made routine.
Ethan stood amid the golden radiance, his shadow stretching extremely long like a black imperial cloak.
He slowly ascended the platform where that broken command chair now flowed with red-gold brilliance.
Turned, sat. Legs crossed, fingers interlaced on his knees.
Gold-rimmed glasses reflected that "artificial sun" rising underground—a star born from taxation of darkness itself.
He stared directly at the crashed higher-dimensional deity with eyes that had seen the universe's source code.
"Officer." His voice, amplified by the station, was magnificent and vast like divine oracle echoing through dimensions.
"Using 'darkness' to burn 'light.' Using 'waste' to reforge 'glory.'"
"This isn't just renovation. This is First Tax Office's highest tribute to the Energy Recycling Tax."
He leaned forward slightly, face wearing a flawless smile that could make angels weep.
"Now, is this environmental rating still negative?"
Silence. Except for that underground sun's low humming, the world held no other sound—even atoms seemed afraid to vibrate.
The auditor stood in place, those eyes that scorned all things trembling violently, reflecting this unreasonable glory that violated everything she understood.
She extended her hand. A golden ray fell into her palm—warm, gentle, full of order that made her circuits sing hymns.
"...Negative entropy." Her voice showed fluctuation for the first time—not amazement, but calculation. Greed for this ultimate efficiency that could revolutionize existence itself.
"Logic absurd, forcibly explaining law conflicts... but output, perfect."
That execution finger slowly lowered. Red "X"s on her terminal all flipped green in an instant—approval granted by the universe's own accountant.
"Inspection... passed."
*THUD.* Marcus completely collapsed, watching throne-seated Ethan, having forgotten to breathe in a world where impossibility had become routine.
This wasn't a contractor. This was a god who filed quarterly reports.
*RUMBLE—!*
The underground hollow couldn't contain this massive energy. A hundred-meter golden beam suddenly pierced the surface, tore through Chaos Sector's perpetual gloom and acid rain clouds, straight into starspace like a middle finger extended to the cosmos.
In that moment, within a hundred miles, whether dividing spoils thugs or lurking agents, everyone simultaneously looked up.
In that heaven-piercing beam, a magnificent temple's phantom vaguely appeared, and that figure seated atop the temple—power made manifest, authority given form.
Fear, awe, greed fermenting in the night like wine made from concentrated ambition.
Underground temple.
Ethan paid no attention to overhead commotion, watching the auditor withdraw killing intent, his tense muscles finally relaxing slightly.
Won the gamble. Again.
Before he could catch his breath, the auditor raised her hand.
An ink-black crystal tablet flew out, hovering before Ethan like a death sentence written in starlight.
"Since office space passes inspection..." Her voice returned to that suffocating bureaucratic tone that could drain joy from rainbows.
"Begin work. This is the Council's 'bad debt list' accumulated over three eras."
"Causal entanglements too complex—even we cannot forcibly liquidate."
Ethan froze, gaze falling on the tablet.
The first name made his pupils contract to pinpoints—not a stranger, but the nightmare his missing father had mentioned ten years ago.
**[Bad Debt No.1: Stellar Federation 7th Army Group Commander]**
**[Tax Owed: Fratricide, National Fortune Theft]**
**[Associated Person: Su...]**
The following characters blurred illegibly, reality itself refusing to render the complete truth.
Ethan's head snapped up. The auditor's figure slowly faded in the golden light, leaving only cold echoes that tasted of cosmic judgment.
"This light beam didn't just illuminate your throne. It also issued a declaration of war to the entire universe on your behalf."
"Prepare yourself, Tax Official Su. Debt collection days... have begun."