[HOST INTEGRITY: 35%]
[LOCATION: THE LAST STOP FACTORY - ROOF]
[TIME: 01:00 AM]
The stolen Ley Line hummed beneath the factory. The rusted floorboards vibrated with raw, golden power.
Down in the main hall, Dr. Zhu's mixing vats boiled at maximum capacity. The Iron-Husked Myrmidons packed millions of black, jagged sticks of Dragon-Tooth Ash into wooden shipping crates.
Jian stood on the rain-slicked roof, holding his modified tablet. He looked at the massive pile of crates stacked on the loading dock below.
"Ren, we have too much," Jian shouted over the storm. "Sector 9 is already hooked. We don't need a million units. Where are we sending this?"
Ren Wu stood at the edge of the roof, his black umbrella shielding him from the acidic rain.
"To Sectors Eight, Seven, and Six," Ren said.
Jian wiped his glasses. "I hijacked ten of the Consortium's automated cargo drones when we stole the grid. They are loaded and ready."
"Launch them."
The factory's rusted roof hatches ground open. Ten sleek, white Consortium drones rose into the dark sky, their cargo bays stuffed with black Ash. They flew in a tight formation, accelerating toward the border of Sector 8.
Ren watched them go. He waited.
The drones reached the invisible boundary separating the districts.
Suddenly, the sky tore open.
A massive, geometric wall of burning red light ignited in the smog. It didn't look like a physical wall; it looked like thousands of weeping, red eyes stacked on top of each other. The modern border control of the Underworld.
The drones hit the red light. They didn't explode. They simply dissolved. The white metal, the cargo, the engines—melted into a rain of grey slag that splashed uselessly into the mud below.
Jian dropped his tablet. "What was that?! The airspace... it's locked. Nothing can cross the border!"
Ren didn't blink. He watched the burning red eyes fade back into the smog.
"They changed the architecture of Hell," Ren whispered, his voice cold. "Two thousand years ago, the rivers flowed freely. The new Kings have built cages. They are paranoid."
"We can't export the Ash," Jian panicked. "We have millions of units of dead weight!"
"We don't need to export the physical ash, Jian," Ren said. He turned away from the border. He walked back toward the stairwell. "We just need to export the weight of it."
The Scales of Dust
[LOCATION: REN'S OFFICE]
The stolen golden energy pulsed from the thick copper cable in the center of the room.
Ren sat at his desk. He didn't look at Jian's screens. He opened the heavy, iron-bound ledger of the Last Stop Factory.
"The Alchemist Consortium derives its power from starvation," Ren said, dipping his calligraphy brush into a pot of red ink. "They hoard the healing pills. They control the supply. If you control the supply, you dictate the value."
"But we can't break their supply," Jian said. "The borders are locked."
"Then we break the value," Ren said.
Ren painted a single, complex character on the blank parchment. It was the ancient rune for Worth.
He picked up the Tiger Seal.
"The Consortium's wealth is recorded on the Grand Ledger of the Underworld. Right now, that Ledger says their pills are worth gold."
Ren slammed the black jade block onto the wet red ink.
"I say they are worth dirt."
Ren pressed his bleeding thumb against the Tiger Seal, burning 2% of his Integrity. He shoved the stamped paper directly against the exposed, pulsing copper cable of the stolen Ley Line.
The golden energy violently absorbed the paper. The stamp shot through the cable, traveling at the speed of light into the deep, foundational veins of the city.
It wasn't a physical attack. It was an administrative curse.
Ren didn't hack a computer. He used his Authority to overwrite the fundamental law of value in Sector 9. He registered a billion tons of Dragon-Tooth Ash on the city's metaphysical scales, pricing it at absolutely nothing.
The scales broke.
The Blind Kings
[LOCATION: REGIONAL DIRECTORATE - SECTOR 1 (THE UPPER TIER)]
Far above the smog, beyond the reach of the acidic rain, the sky was clear.
The Regional Directorate was a monolithic tower of smooth, black obsidian. Inside the central chamber, there were no desks. There were no computers. There was only a massive, floating pool of liquid silver suspended in the center of a pitch-black room.
Three figures stood around the pool. They wore immaculate white suits. Where their faces should have been, there was only blurring, shifting grey static.
They were the Adjutants. The hands of the new Yamas.
The liquid silver in the pool acted as a map of the nine lower sectors. Sector 9, usually a dull, profitable blue, suddenly violently boiled.
The blue turned to blinding gold.
One of the faceless figures leaned forward.
"Anomaly detected," a voice synthesized from the static. "Sector 9 spatial gates have severed. Power tether is broken."
"A rebellion?" the second figure asked. "Did the Vermin class riot?"
"Negative," the first figure replied, dipping a gloved hand into the silver pool. The liquid rippled, forming the shape of a square red stamp. "The wards were not broken by force. They were legally overwritten. The local Consortium branch value just zeroed out."
The room grew freezing cold.
"A glitch in the Grand Ledger?" the third figure asked.
"The Ledger does not glitch. Someone in Sector 9 possesses a Seal of Antiquity. They just executed a hostile repossession of a corporate zone."
The faceless figures stared at the golden burn in their perfect silver map. They did not know Ren Wu. They did not know about the factory, or the Ash, or the Iron Legion. They only knew that a ghost in the slums had just kicked down their door.
"Send the Hounds," the first figure ordered. "Burn the sector until you find the Seal."
The Voided Contract
[LOCATION: ALCHEMIST CONSORTIUM HQ - SECTOR 9]
[TIME: 02:00 AM]
The security barracks inside the Ivory Tower were dark. The red emergency lights cast long, bloody shadows across the armory.
Two hundred Elite Enforcers sat on metal benches. They wore heavy combat armor and carried plasma rifles. They were mercenaries. Cultivators hired from the fighting pits to protect the Consortium's assets.
They were waiting for Section Chief Zhao's order to march on the factory.
The room was dead silent. The tension was thick enough to chew.
Then, two hundred wrist-comms beeped in perfect unison.
The sound cut through the dark like a knife.
The Lead Enforcer, a scarred brute named Kael, lifted his heavy arm. The holographic display on his wrist usually showed a healthy, six-figure bank balance in Spirit Coins.
Right now, the numbers were spinning backward. Fast.
The digits blurred. Thousands. Hundreds. Tens.
Zero.
[TRANSACTION FAILED.]
[INSUFFICIENT CORPORATE FUNDS. ACCOUNT FROZEN. VALUE: 0.00]
Kael stared at the screen. He tapped the glass with his armored finger. The red text glared back at him.
He looked up. Around the room, two hundred heavily armed killers were staring at their own wrists. The blue light of their visors slowly shifted to angry, violent red.
Cultivators did not fight out of loyalty. They fought for the coin. When the coin stopped, the leash snapped.
Kael stood up. The heavy plates of his armor clanked in the silence. He unholstered his plasma axe. He didn't look at the window overlooking the slums.
He looked at the ceiling. Toward the penthouse.
"The contract is void, boys," Kael grunted, spitting a wad of black phlegm onto the pristine floor.
He racked the slide of his rifle.
"Take what you can carry."
The Wolves Turn
It was not a rebellion. It was a feeding frenzy.
The disciplined corporate security force instantly turned into a ravenous pack of wolves. They didn't march down the stairs to fight the Iron Legion. They marched up.
They kicked open the doors to the executive suites.
A Consortium accountant tried to run down the hallway holding a briefcase of jade slips. Kael didn't even slow down. He swung the plasma axe, taking the accountant's head off his shoulders. The body slumped to the floor, smoking. Kael grabbed the briefcase and kept walking.
The Enforcers smashed the glass walls. They ripped the expensive copper wiring out of the ceilings. They tore the ancient spirit-art off the marble walls, shattering the frames to get to the canvas.
They shot the automated turrets. They gutted the vending machines.
The Consortium had spent a century extracting wealth from the starving ghosts of Sector 9. Now, its own employees were stripping the headquarters down to the studs like rats on a sinking ship.
The screaming echoed up the elevator shafts.
The Surrender
[LOCATION: ZHAO'S PENTHOUSE]
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Heavy plasma axes bit into the thick oak doors of the penthouse office. Wood splintered. Smoke poured through the cracks.
"Chief!" Kael's voice roared from the hallway, muffled by the heavy wood. "Open the door! Your head is worth a bounty on the Black Market! Don't make us burn you out!"
Section Chief Zhao backed away from the door.
His expensive silk suit was soaked in cold sweat. His hands shook violently. He had pushed his heavy bone desk against the doors, but it was only a matter of time. The wood was giving way.
He looked around his ruined, pitch-black office.
The massive, rusted mechanical heart of the Chem-Mutant still sat in the center of his carpet, leaking a slow puddle of green acid.
He walked to the shattered glass window. The freezing wind whipped his face. He looked out at the dead, black expanse of Sector 9.
Only one building had power. The Last Stop Factory glowed in the distance, bathed in pure, warm gold.
Zhao realized the truth. The only safe place left in the city was at the feet of the monster who had caused this.
He stumbled to his desk. He opened a hidden compartment and pulled out a heavy, secure comm-link. He tuned it to the factory's open frequency.
He pressed the button. His breath hitched.
"Minister." Zhao choked on the word. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I... I surrender. The branch is yours. Please. Call them off. My own men are going to skin me."
The radio crackled with static.
For ten agonizing seconds, there was only the sound of axes hitting the oak door behind him.
Then, Ren Wu's voice hissed through the speaker. It was cold, detached, and utterly empty of pity.
"Bring the Corporate Seal to the factory."
CRACK. An axe blade pierced the center of Zhao's door.
"Use the front door."
The comm-link went dead.
[AUTHOR NOTE]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
> Consortium Enforcers: "We are elite corporate soldiers!"
> Ren Wu: Deletes their bank accounts.
> Consortium Enforcers: "We are now elite corporate pirates! Get the boss!"
>
Next Chapter: The Section Chief Kneels.
The siege is over. Zhao takes the longest walk of his life through the slums he used to terrorize. Ren Wu prepares to collect his prize.
The Ivory Tower falls! Drop a Power Stone to claim your share of the loot! 💰🔥