[HOST INTEGRITY: 35%]
[LOCATION: SECTOR 9 - THE UNDERMARKET]
[TIME: 03:15 AM]
Section Chief Zhao did not take a hover-car. He did not have an armed escort.
He walked.
He had escaped the Ivory Tower through a garbage chute just as Kael's plasma axe broke through his office door. Now, he limped through the flooded, freezing streets of the Undermarket. His expensive silk suit was torn, stained with black grease and his own blood from a deep cut above his left eye.
The acidic rain washed the blood down his cheek, stinging his skin. He clutched a heavy, black velvet box tightly to his chest.
The slums were dead quiet.
There were no sirens. There was no gunfire. The Consortium's automated security grids were offline.
But Zhao was not alone.
As he dragged his ruined Italian leather shoes through the mud, he looked at the rusted fire escapes and the dark alleyways.
They were watching him.
Thousands of starving ghosts—the Vermin class he had taxed, beaten, and evicted for a decade—stood in the freezing rain. Their eyes burned with a solid, unblinking gold light. They didn't hold weapons. They didn't throw rocks. They didn't scream insults.
They just watched him walk toward the factory.
Zhao stumbled over a cracked piece of concrete and fell hard to his knees, splashing into a puddle of foul water.
A ghost in a rotting grey sweater stood ten feet away. Zhao flinched, holding his hands up, expecting a kick to the ribs or a rusted pipe to the skull.
The ghost didn't move. He just stared with those burning golden eyes, waiting for Zhao to get back up.
It was worse than a riot. A mob was driven by anger; anger could be manipulated. This was total, terrifying obedience. The citizens of Sector 9 weren't touching him because they knew he didn't belong to them.
He belonged to the Law.
Zhao swallowed the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He forced himself to his feet. He clutched the velvet box tighter and kept walking toward the blinding golden light in the distance.
The Gates of Iron
[LOCATION: THE LAST STOP FACTORY - COURTYARD]
The mud in the courtyard was baked into smooth, black glass, a permanent scar left by the Nine Pillars of Punishment.
Five hundred Iron-Husked Myrmidons stood in perfect formation. The acidic rain hissed as it hit their matte-black armor.
As Zhao approached the shattered front gates, the Iron Legion did not raise their weapons. With a synchronized, deafening CLANG, the massive soldiers pivoted, parting down the center to create a wide aisle leading directly to the factory's main doors.
Zhao walked down the aisle.
He felt the heat radiating off the iron shells of the Myrmidons. He felt the sheer, crushing density of the army Ren Wu had built in a matter of days.
Ye Lingshan stood at the end of the path, her hand resting casually on the hilt of Winter's Edge. She looked at Zhao's ruined suit and bleeding face. She didn't smirk. She just pushed the heavy iron door open.
"The Minister is waiting," Lingshan said, her voice flat.
Zhao stepped inside.
The Court of Rust
The interior of the factory didn't look like an incense manufacturing plant anymore.
The massive copper cable running from the floor to the ceiling throbbed with the stolen golden energy of the city's Ley Line. The light cast long, sharp shadows across the concrete.
Jian sat on a stack of wooden crates near the door, eating a cup of instant synthetic noodles. He watched Zhao walk in, slurped a long noodle, and pointed a plastic fork toward the far end of the hall.
Dr. Zhu floated near the ceiling, his mechanical eyes whirring and focusing on the velvet box in Zhao's hands.
Ren Wu stood at the end of the hall.
He wasn't sitting behind his cheap wooden desk. He stood on a raised iron platform, directly in front of the bubbling mixing vats. He wore his simple black suit, holding his black umbrella like a walking cane.
Zhao stopped ten feet away from the platform.
He opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to offer a deal. He had hidden offshore accounts in the Upper Tier. He had access to Consortium trade routes. He was a valuable asset.
Ren tapped the tip of his umbrella against the iron floor.
Clack.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[FAITH RESERVOIR TAPPED]
[ACTIVATE: MANIFESTATION OF THE FIRST COURT]
[COST: 10% INTEGRITY]
The air in the factory violently compressed.
Jian dropped his noodle cup. The plastic hit the floor, but the broth didn't spill; it froze perfectly in mid-air, caught in a sudden, crushing gravitational anomaly.
A blinding, spectral gold light erupted from Ren Wu's body.
It didn't form a shield. It projected upward, expanding outward until a massive, twenty-foot-tall avatar overlapped Ren's physical body.
It was a Judge.
The spectral projection wore the ancient, flowing robes of a Minister of the Ninth Era. But the fabric wasn't made of silk. The robes were constructed entirely of burning, floating text. Millions of lines of calligraphy shifted across the giant's shoulders—death warrants, tax codes, eviction notices, and laws that hadn't been spoken aloud in two millennia.
The giant's face was hidden behind a smooth, golden veil of light, but its eyes—two massive, grinding gears of the Grand Ledger—stared directly down at Zhao.
The physical pressure in the room multiplied by fifty.
Zhao's legs snapped.
He didn't choose to kneel. The gravity of the Manifestation physically crushed him to the floor. His kneecaps hit the concrete with a sickening crack.
The velvet box slipped from his hands, popping open.
A heavy block of pure, white bone—the Corporate Seal of the Alchemist Consortium's Sector 9 Branch—spilled onto the floor.
"Minister," Zhao gasped.
The air was so heavy he couldn't expand his lungs. Blood poured from his nose, dripping onto the concrete.
"I surrender," Zhao choked out, pressing his forehead against the cold floor. "Take the bank accounts. Take the Ivory Tower. Spare my life. I can work for you. I know the Consortium's internal codes!"
Ren looked down at the bleeding, broken man.
When Ren spoke, his human voice was perfectly synchronized with the deafening, double-layered harmonic of the twenty-foot golden giant towering over him. The sound rattled the iron bolts in the factory walls.
"Your money is worthless, Zhao. Your Ivory Tower is stripped to the copper. Your Enforcers are currently butchering each other for scraps."
Ren stepped down from the iron platform.
The massive golden avatar moved with him, the burning text of its robes sweeping across the factory floor, vaporizing the dust.
Ren stopped right in front of Zhao.
"I did not bring you here to negotiate employment," Ren said.
Ren reached down and picked up the white bone Corporate Seal from the floor. He turned it over in his hand, feeling the cheap, modern enchantments carved into the bone.
"I brought you here to collect the keys."
Ren walked back to his desk. He placed the white bone seal flat on the wood.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the block of freezing black jade. The Tiger Seal.
Zhao lifted his head slightly, his vision blurring. "What... what are you doing? That Seal is tied to the Upper Layer! You can't just take it! The Regional Directorate will glass this entire Sector from orbit!"
"Let them try," Ren whispered.
Ren raised the Tiger Seal high.
The twenty-foot golden avatar mirrored his movement, raising a massive, spectral stamp the size of a transport truck.
Ren slammed the black jade down directly on top of the Alchemist Consortium's white bone seal.
CRUNCH.
The bone shattered into a thousand pieces.
The Tiger Seal struck the desk, stamping the character for [VOID] directly into the splintered bone dust.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[CORPORATE ENTITY REJECTED]
[TERRITORY ACQUIRED: SECTOR 9]
[HOST INTEGRITY: 35% -> 45%]
A shockwave of pure, silent energy blasted out from the desk. It blew the windows out of the factory. It rolled across the mud courtyard, washing over the Iron Legion, and expanded across the entire Sector.
Every ghost in the slums felt a sudden, terrifying shift in their chests. The invisible, crushing weight of Consortium taxes and debt evaporated. It was instantly replaced by the heavy, cold, unyielding iron chain of the Ministry.
Sector 9 no longer belonged to a corporation.
It belonged to a King.
Ren picked up a clean rag from his desk. He wiped the bone dust off the bottom of the Tiger Seal.
He looked at Zhao, who was weeping silently on the floor, stripped of all his authority, his wealth, and his pride.
"Jian," Ren said, his voice returning to its normal, quiet cadence as the twenty-foot golden avatar dissolved into the air.
"Yeah, Boss?" Jian squeaked, dropping from his crate.
"Give Mr. Zhao a broom," Ren commanded, adjusting his suit jacket. "The factory floor is filthy. He works for us now."
[AUTHOR NOTE]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Zhao: "I offer you billions in corporate assets!"
Ren Wu: Crushes the Corporate Seal with a rock. "I offer you a broom."
Sector 9: New Management acquired.
Next Chapter: The New King.
The Sector is secured. The Arc Finale is here. Ren Wu sits on his new iron throne, but the noise he made was too loud. The Upper Layer has finally noticed the anomaly.
The Siege is won! Drop a Power Stone to bow to the Sovereign! 👑🔥
[END OF CHAPTER 74]