Ten minutes. For Dr. Han, those ten minutes felt like waiting for a blade to drop.He was sweating right through his white lab coat, his thick fingers slipping over his phone screen as he frantically dialed the hospital’s internal directory. Next to him, the head receptionist looked like she was about to throw up. Her eyes kept darting from the printed, fifty-thousand-dollar receipt back to Ethan Vance.Ethan hadn't moved. He just leaned against the cold corridor wall, arms crossed, his face an unreadable mask."He... he actually had the money?" Chloe’s voice cracked. The arrogance was completely gone, replaced by a panicked, messy confusion. She took a tentative step toward Ethan, her fingers clutching her new Chanel bag so tight the leather groaned. "Ethan... answer me. Where did you get fifty grand? Did you take out a predatory loan? Did you steal it?"Ethan didn’t give her the satisfaction of a glance. To the Sovereign, she was just background noise. A minor insect from a past lif

The general manager, a graying, sharp-eyed man named Mr. Harris, didn't touch the scratched plastic card immediately. He stared at it where it lay on his sleek mahogany desk. He’d seen all kinds of wealthy eccentrics in his twenty years of retail, but the kid standing in front of him smelled like cheap laundromat soap and a long winter. Yet, the boy’s posture—spine straight as a rod, shoulders loose, gaze cutting like a surgical scalpel—didn’t fit the cheap wardrobe."Mr. Vance, is it?" Harris said carefully, his voice dropping into a professional, cautious register as he slid the card into his high-tier terminal. "Full cash clearance on a three-point-eight-million-dollar vehicle isn't a standard swipe. The offshore banking protocols alone usually take hours—""Just enter the manual digits, Harris," Ethan interrupted. His tone wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It carried a strange, heavy vibration that made the older man's fingers instinctively twitch over the keypad. "You have exact

Leo didn't back down. The humiliation was a physical rot in his gut, eating through whatever survival instincts he had left. He pulled out his phone, his thumb shaking violently as he dialed a direct, private line."Dean Thomas? Yes, it's Leo Brooks. I’m standing outside the main plaza. We have a severe security breach. That scholarship student, Ethan Vance, is on campus with a stolen luxury vehicle and a fraudulent high-tier bank line. He’s inciting a riot among the students. I need campus security and the academic board down here immediately before he destroys university property."He slammed the phone shut, a vicious, jagged grin splitting his face. He looked at Ethan, his chest heaving. "You think a fancy car changes what you are, Vance? This isn't a dealership. My family funds the entire business department endowment. One word from me, and you’re expelled, your credits are wiped, and your name is completely blacklisted from every graduate program in the country."Chloe stepped up

Ethan didn't watch them leave. He didn't need to see Leo Brooks stumble blindly toward his Porsche, dragging a hysterical, sobbing Chloe by the wrist while a hundred students recorded their utter ruin on their phones. Their chapter in his life was closed. They were no longer obstacles; they were merely dust blown off the steps of his new empire.He turned his back on the administrative building and walked smoothly toward the matte-black Bugatti Chiron. As his hand brushed the carbon-fiber door handle, the sharp, crystalline chime of the system echoed directly into the center of his consciousness.[System Notification: Host has successfully crushed the local institutional threat. Authority Tier upgraded to Level 2.][New Main Mandate Triggered: Eliminate the Root.][Target Profile: The Iron-Tooth Syndicate. Local underground loan network responsible for the fraudulent medical debt and physical intimidation of the Host's family.][Location Identified: The Black Hound Billiards Club, Dis

The penthouse suite of the Grand Horizon Hotel overlooked the glowing, neon-veined grid of the city's financial district. Inside, the air was chilled, smelling faintly of expensive scotch and imported tobacco.Arthur Vance sat behind a massive glass desk, swiveling his leather chair as he looked down at a tablet displaying the pre-market corporate tickers. He was a sharp-featured man in his late forties, his hair meticulously silvered at the temples, his tailored suit completely wrinkle-free.His phone buzzed. It was an encrypted text from a burner number in District 4: The Black Hound is gone. Iron-Tooth fled the city before midnight. The Vance kid knows everything.Arthur's hand clenched around his crystal tumbler, the ice rattling against the glass. "Incompetent street trash," he hissed, throwing the phone onto the desk. He didn't understand how a malnourished scholarship student had broken a multi-district loan syndicate in a single afternoon, but it didn't matter. The kid was a l