**Chapter 20: Received Two Thousand "Power Donations"—Thanks for the Rockets, Bros**
Chaos Sector had no dawn—only radiation-stained gray-brown days and nights carved by neon and searchlights like scars across reality's face.
Though the golden beam had extinguished, that lingering higher-dimensional energy scent still attracted the wasteland's greediest hyenas like blood draws sharks to a feeding frenzy.
Station perimeter.
Nearly a hundred heavily modified armed hover-cars suspended mid-air, black cannon muzzles gleaming under spotlights like mechanical teeth in predatory grins.
Vulture Gang—the most notorious raider group within five hundred miles, scavengers who'd turned murder into an art form.
Boss "Vulture" stood on his flagship deck, chewing highly hallucinogenic betel nut that stained his lips crimson. His cybernetic eye rotated with mechanical precision, staring at that wooden sign stuck in the mud like a middle finger extended to chaos itself.
Sloppy handwriting, red paint still wet:
**[Tax Authority Zone Ahead - No Entry Without Appointment]**
**[Violators Subject to Maximum "Illegal Trespass Tax"]**
"Tax?" Vulture spat red residue, revealing diamond-studded alloy teeth in a vicious grin that could make demons nervous.
"Been robbing thirty years—first time hearing robbery requires taxes."
Amplifier activated with electronic feedback that could shatter glass.
His voice, magnified by electric speakers, was harsh and grating, making ground debris jump like frightened insects.
"Listen up, brats inside! This place belongs to Vulture now! You chair-sitter, come kowtow three times. If I'm unhappy, I'll slaughter you all right now!"
Only wind answered—dead silence that tasted of contempt.
That temple's gates remained sealed, radiating the kind of quiet confidence that made predators nervous.
Vulture's single eye narrowed to a laser-focused point of rage.
Patience exhausted like a depleted battery.
He raised his hand, swung down with the authority of someone who'd never been told 'no.'
"Open fire! Blast that broken door to scrap metal!"
*BOOM—!*
Flagship main cannon roared like an angry god clearing its throat.
Dozens of war vehicles' heavy machine guns simultaneously spat fire—a metal storm capable of leveling hills and reducing dreams to dust.
Tracer rounds drew death's barrage, high-explosive shells shrieking as they hammered toward the temple gates with the enthusiasm of missiles seeking their destiny.
Marcus cowered behind a pillar, trembling like a meatball in an earthquake.
"Ethan! We're finished! This is saturation bombardment! They're going to turn us into paste!"
Ethan sat in his radiance-flowing command chair, holding a chipped enamel tea mug with the casual confidence of someone reviewing quarterly reports during an apocalypse.
He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, lenses reflecting incoming fire like twin mirrors catching falling stars.
"Marcus, why panic?" He sipped hot tea lightly, tone flat as discussing weather patterns.
"This isn't an attack." His smile could have powered small cities. "This is enthusiastic citizens delivering 'energy subsidies.'"
The barrage struck a hundred meters from the station perimeter.
No explosions. No flames. No dramatic destruction.
That scene was so bizarre it stung retinas—reality glitching like a broken video game.
All high-velocity projectiles lost kinetic energy upon touching some transparent boundary, like hitting an invisible wall made of bureaucratic authority.
Like a muted video where sound had been taxed into nonexistence.
*Clatter-clatter.*
Thousands of rounds dropped vertically, piling into a half-meter metal grave at the gates—violence transformed into donations.
Simultaneously, temple lighting intensity exploded like a star being born in the underground.
**[Collection Item: Full Kinetic Energy Tax]**
**[Conversion: Pure Electrical Energy]**
**[Credited: 3,500,000 kWh (Overflow)]**
The dome, previously dimmed by renovation, now blazed bright as day—powered by the fury of those who'd tried to destroy it.
Ethan set down his mug with the satisfaction of someone whose electric bill had just been paid by his enemies.
Fingers tapped the armrest lightly—a rhythm that could make hearts skip beats.
External broadcast connected with crystal clarity.
"Thank you, Vulture Gang, for your electricity payment." His voice was cold, echoing above the battlefield with maddening bureaucratic efficiency.
"Due to voltage overload, this office will reward 'valued customers.'"
"Now executing... asset depreciation."
Vulture's grin froze like ice forming on a lake.
Before he could react to this impossible development—
*HUM—*
Gray ripples centered on the temple instantly swept the field like the breath of entropy itself.
Front-line thugs suddenly felt their weapons lighten ominously.
*CRACK.*
A lieutenant's chainsaw blade snapped crisply, those supposedly iron-cutting alloy teeth crumbling into rust-brown powder mid-air like dreams made of metal.
Not just blades. Their exoskeleton armor, firearms, even vehicle armor plating—all experienced a century's corrosion in one second, time itself weaponized against them.
*SCREECH—*
Metal fatigue's death wail echoed across the battlefield.
"My gun! Why did my gun crumble?!" "My leg! The exoskeleton's jammed! Help!"
The charging formation collapsed like dominoes in an earthquake.
The previously imposing mechanized force instantly became a scrapyard's garbage pile—pride reduced to rust.
Oxidized iron slag covered the ground like metallic snow.
Vulture stared at his heirloom blade—now just a handle—chilled to the bone by forces beyond his comprehension.
This wasn't physical attack. This was *rules*—reality rewritten by someone who held the universe's cheat codes.
"Sorcery... this is sorcery!" Fear spread through the crowd like a virus.
Vulture shrieked hysterically, trying to drown terror with rage that could melt steel. "Mage corps! Psychic division! Get up there! Energy barriers can't stop energy attacks! Burn him to atoms!"
Dozens of robed or mutated psychics stepped forward—the gang's trump cards, wielders of forces that laughed at physics.
Fire, lightning, frost. Colorful high-energy reactions lit the sky like a festival of destruction.
Pure elemental bombardment that could crack mountains.
A three-meter fireball howled out, followed by overwhelming lightning serpents that turned air into plasma.
Inside the temple, Ethan watched those brilliant fireworks with greed flickering in his eyes—a capitalist's hunger for untapped resources.
"Was just worried about wasting that stellar seed earlier." He raised his hand, five fingers spread like grasping coins from air.
**[Environmental Management Tax - Maximum Collection]**
**[Classification: Illegal High-Energy Waste Discharge]**
**[Penalty: Confiscate Criminal Tools (Elemental Affinity)]**
*WHOOSH—!*
Like a cosmic whale's intake, those sky-filling fireballs and lightning made no sound upon touching the temple gates.
They were pulled, twisted, becoming pure data streams swallowed whole by that broken station spire—magic transformed into electricity bills.
Next second.
*Puff! Puff! Puff!*
Dozens of outside psychics simultaneously spat blood, their faces draining of color like someone had pulled the plug on their souls.
They discovered in horror that their decades-old "energy sense," that psychic core making them superior to ordinary humans—
Gone. Completely vanished. Like it never existed.
"No... my magic! Give it back!!" Desperate wails rose and fell like a symphony of the damned.
Ethan watched the energy reserve bar instantly refill, satisfaction rising like champagne bubbles.
He straightened his wrinkle-free suit collar with meticulous care.
"Tax collection complete." He looked toward the corner's silent silver-haired auditor with the confidence of someone whose quarterly reports were flawless.
"Officer, does this resource recovery efficiency meet Council environmental standards?"
Extremely complex data streams flashed through the auditor's silver pupils like digital lightning.
She observed those ruined thugs, then the energy-overflowing station that hummed with stolen power.
"...Complies with Efficient Collection Act, Article 3." Voice still cold as liquid nitrogen.
But that killing intent targeting Ethan had dissipated like morning mist.
Ethan turned, gaze piercing the gates toward the completely collapsed battlefield outside where dreams went to die.
"Since taxation's finished, let's begin administrative enforcement." He waved dismissively, like shooing annoying flies from his morning coffee.
"Keep the ringleader as a negative example. Turn the rest into corpse-mechs."
*RUMBLE—*
From the temple's dark depths came the sound of treads crushing ground—mechanical thunder announcing judgment day.
Previously converted half-mechanical monsters wielded hydraulic clamps and chainsaws, red light flashing in their eyes as they pounced on these disarmed, equipment-scrapped sheep.
This wasn't war. This was a slaughterhouse where hope came to be processed.
Screams were isolated outside the temple, muffled by walls that had learned to appreciate irony.
Ethan returned to his chair, fingertips holding a golden card that pulsed with contained starlight.
Just extracted from the system—an [S-Class Authority Card] at full energy, power made tangible.
He inserted the card into that three-era backlog debt tablet with the reverence of someone handling nuclear material.
*BEEP.*
The first name instantly blazed blinding red like a wound in reality itself.
**[Target Locked: Stellar Federation 7th Army Group Commander]**
**[Current Coordinates: S-Class Forbidden Zone - Godforsaken Lands (Instance)]**
**[Entry Requirement: Sacrifice One Royal Direct Bloodline to Open Portal]**
Ethan's finger paused, processing this information with the efficiency of a quantum computer.
Royal bloodline? He remembered—recently on Chaos Sector's bounty board, that highest-priced fallen woman ranked first... seemed to have a "Princess" title attached to her name like a curse.
Ethan adjusted his glasses, lenses reflecting those blood-red coordinates that promised violence and profit in equal measure.
"Marcus, tell the construction crew to hurry up." His voice carried the authority of someone who'd just found the universe's most profitable loophole.
"We're going on a business trip. To invite a special... taxpayer."