2026-06-23 15:50:37Chapter 2
The rain in Valmont City always smelled like exhaust fumes and wet asphalt. Usually, it depressed Arthur. Tonight, it felt like a baptism.
He stood on the sidewalk across the street from The Obsidian Club. It was a massive, brutalist building made of black glass and steel, towering over the financial district like a monolith. The entrance was flanked by velvet ropes, massive security guards in tailored suits, and a line of imported supercars waiting for the valets.
This was where the elite of Valmont came to play. A single cocktail here cost more than Arthur’s monthly grocery budget.
He looked down at his phone. The blue screen of the System hovered faintly over his phone's interface.
[Target Asset: The Obsidian Club]
[Current Owner: Marcus Thorne (Thorne Syndicate)]
[Market Value: $120,000,000]
[Hostile Buyout Price (Instant Transfer): $300,000,000]
[Do you wish to proceed? Y/N]
Arthur didn’t even blink. Three hundred million dollars. Just a few hours ago, he had almost cried because he dropped a five-dollar bill in a puddle. Now, he was about to spend three hundred million on a whim just to ruin his ex-wife's dinner.
He tapped Y.
For a second, nothing happened. The rain kept falling. Arthur held his breath, wondering if this was all an elaborate psychotic break brought on by sleep deprivation.
Then, his phone pinged with a notification.
[Transaction Complete. Funds deducted.]
[Congratulations. You are now the sole proprietor of The Obsidian Club. Transfer of deeds, liquor licenses, and management authority has been digitally expedited and finalized via System proxies.]
[MISSION COMPLETE. Make your first purchase.]
[Reward: Beginner's Physical Enhancement Serum distributed to Host's inventory.]
A sudden wave of heat washed over Arthur. It didn't come from the cold night air; it came from inside his own veins. The exhaustion that had plagued him for three years evaporated. The dull ache in his lower back vanished. He felt his muscles tighten, his posture straighten, and his vision sharpen to a terrifying degree. He could see the individual raindrops hitting the black pavement across the street. He could hear the low hum of the neon signs.
He felt... powerful.
Arthur pocketed his phone and crossed the street. He didn't bother dodging the puddles.
As he approached the velvet ropes, a hulking security guard stepped in his path. The man looked Arthur up and down, taking in the cheap, rain-soaked denim jacket, the scuffed work boots, and the messy hair. The guard’s expression twisted into a sneer of pure disgust.
"Lost, buddy?" the guard grunted, crossing his massive arms. "The soup kitchen is three blocks down on 5th Avenue. Back away from the door."
Arthur didn't flinch. Before the System, he would have lowered his head, apologized, and scurried away. Now, he just looked the guard dead in the eye.
"I'm here for the Sterling-Vance party," Arthur said, his voice completely calm.
The guard let out a harsh laugh. "Yeah, right. And I'm the King of England. This is a private event. Ultra-VIP. You don't have the dress code, you don't have the money, and you sure as hell don't have an invite. Beat it before I break your legs for loitering."
Just as the guard reached out to shove Arthur backward, the heavy glass doors of the club pushed open.
Julian Sterling walked out, a lit cigar clamped between his teeth, holding an umbrella over Eleanor. They were flanked by three other lawyers from their firm, all laughing loudly.
Julian spotted Arthur, and he froze. Then, a massive, cruel smile spread across his face.
"Well, well, well," Julian mocked, stepping forward. "Look who crawled out of the gutter. I sent you that text as a joke, Arthur. I didn't think you'd actually be pathetic enough to show up."
Eleanor rolled her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill. "Arthur, this is pathetic. Are you here to beg for that severance check? I told you to leave the keys at the office."
"I'm not here for you, Eleanor," Arthur said, his tone devoid of the warmth he used to give her. It caught her off guard. She blinked, looking at him closely. He looked... different. Taller, somehow. Less burdened.
"Then why are you here, trash?" Julian spat, blowing a cloud of cigar smoke in Arthur's direction. He turned to the security guard. "Frank, why is this vagrant standing on the VIP carpet? I'm renting the penthouse suite tonight. I don't pay you people to let the local wildlife breathe my air."
Frank, the guard, immediately paled and bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sterling. I was just about to toss him into the alley."
Frank lunged forward, grabbing Arthur by the collar of his jacket. "Alright, punk, you asked for it"
"Frank. Take your hands off him right now."
The voice sliced through the rain like a whip. It was sharp, authoritative, and laced with absolute panic.
Everyone turned. Standing in the doorway of the club was an older man in a pristine three-piece suit. He was completely bald, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and currently looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
It was Elias Vance no relation to Arthur, just a coincidence of a name. Elias was the legendary general manager of The Obsidian Club. A man who regularly rubbed shoulders with senators, cartel bosses, and tech billionaires.
Julian immediately smiled, stepping forward to greet the manager. "Elias! Good to see you. Don't worry about this mess, your guard was just taking out the trash"
Elias ignored Julian entirely. He didn't even look at the billionaire lawyer. He shoved past Julian, nearly knocking Eleanor over, and practically sprinted through the rain until he stopped right in front of Arthur.
To the absolute shock of everyone present, Elias a man who refused to bow to mayors bent perfectly at the waist in a deep, reverent bow.
"Mr. Vance," Elias practically shouted over the rain, his voice trembling. "I am so deeply sorry. We just received the notification from the syndicate. I had no idea you had arrived. Please, forgive this idiot's insolence."
The street went dead silent. The only sound was the patter of the rain.
Frank, the guard, dropped his hands from Arthur's collar as if he had touched a live electrical wire. The color drained completely from his face.
Julian’s cigar fell out of his mouth, splashing into a puddle on the red carpet. "Elias... what the hell are you doing? Why are you bowing to my ex-wife's deadbeat husband?"
Elias straightened up, shooting Julian a look of pure, unadulterated venom.
"Watch your tone, Mr. Sterling," Elias hissed. "You are speaking to the new absolute majority owner of The Obsidian Club."
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Default Notice
Chapter 57The frozen moment in time shattered.The roaring wind returned with a vengeance. The dying Harvester monolith crashed into the Mediterranean Sea ten miles offshore, sending a massive, three-hundred-foot tidal wave racing toward the island of San Marcos.Arthur didn't even look at the incoming tsunami. He tossed the fading, useless shaft of the Spear of Genesis aside. The magnetic casing dissolved into violet dust before it hit the marble balcony."Vera! Hyperion!" Arthur shouted.Before the tidal wave could strike the newly rebuilt capital, Hyperion shot down from the stratosphere. The plasma-wrapped Vanguard positioned himself directly between the city and the ocean. He didn't build a wall; he simply unleashed a localized burst of thermal radiation.The three-hundred-foot wall of seawater slammed into the thermal barrier and instantly flash-boiled into steam. A dense, blinding fog blanketed the coastline, but the city was saved.Arthur turned back into the ruined boardroom
The Void Market
Chapter 56[10,000,000 SP Deducted. Debt Registered.][Deploying 'The Spear of Genesis'.]The air in the boardroom didn't just warp; it fractured.A rift in physical space tore open directly above the shattered smart-glass table. It looked like a jagged wound in reality, bleeding a deep, terrifying violet light. From the rift, the weapon descended.It wasn't a gun. It didn't have a trigger or a stock. It was a six-foot-long javelin composed entirely of condensed, swirling anti-matter encased in a shifting magnetic field. It hummed with a low, bone-rattling frequency that made the hair on everyone’s arms stand on end.Arthur stepped forward and reached out."Master, do not touch it!" Vera warned, taking a rare step backward, her instincts screaming that the weapon was anathema to biological life.Arthur ignored her. He wrapped his bare hand around the magnetic shaft of the Spear.The moment his skin made contact, a violent surge of violet energy raced up his arm, intertwining with the
The Sky Breakers
Chapter 55High above the Harvester monolith, Hyperion answered his Sovereign’s call.The plasma-wrapped Vanguard had been hovering in the stratosphere, waiting for the exact coordinate lock. He folded his silver-armored arms across his chest and plummeted directly toward the pitch-black surface of the alien ship.As he fell, Hyperion channeled the raw thermal energy of the upper atmosphere, turning himself into a localized, artificial sun. The heat radiating off his body spiked to ten thousand degrees.He slammed into the top of the Harvester vessel.The impact should have melted the alien hull instantly. Instead, a shockwave of blinding white steam erupted across the sky. The alien monolith wasn’t just armored; its hull was maintained at absolute zero. Hyperion’s nuclear heat collided with the ship's freezing perimeter, creating a massive, shrieking explosion of conflicting thermodynamics.Hyperion roared, driving his silver gauntlets into the black metal, trying to physically rip t
The Price of Defiance
Chapter 54The abyssal vault groaned, the ancient metallic walls protesting against the shifting tectonic pressure caused by the massive ships entering Earth's atmosphere.Arthur didn't spare another glance at Host 409. The broken man had surrendered to the cosmic food chain thousands of years ago. Arthur didn't know how to surrender. It wasn't programmed into his biology anymore."Vera," Arthur said, his voice slicing through the stale, ozone-heavy air. "Grab my shoulder. We are leaving."The white-haired assassin instantly sheathed her blade and clamped her gloved hand onto Arthur’s charcoal suit jacket.Arthur’s mind locked onto the golden interface burning in his vision. He needed to cross seven miles of crushing ocean water in zero seconds.System. Level 5 Access. I need instantaneous spatial relocation. Target: Presidential Palace, San Marcos.[Accessing Level 5: The Architect Protocol...][Purchase: 'Quantum Tether' (Spatial Folding). Cost: 50,000 SP.][Description: Folds physi
The Harvesters
Chapter 53The sheer impossibility of the ancient man's words hung in the stale air of the deep-sea vault."Explain," Arthur commanded. He didn't raise his voice. He simply let the Aura of the Sovereign bear down on the broken man.Host 409 let out a rattling laugh, completely unaffected by Arthur’s oppressive willpower. "Your aura doesn't work on me, boy. I bought that same skill twenty thousand years ago, on a planet whose name has already turned to dust."Vera’s grip on her blade tightened. Her crimson eyes darted around the cavernous room, scanning the shadows for a trap."The Infinite Wealth System," Host 409 wheezed, pushing himself up into a sitting position, clutching his shattered chest interface. "You thought you were chosen, didn't you? You thought it was a magical gift given to a desperate man who needed revenge."Arthur’s jaw tightened. "It gave me capital. I built the empire.""It's a filtration tool!" the ancient man spat, his dead gray eyes flaring with sudden, agonizi
The Abyssal Anomaly
Chapter 52The crushing pressure of the Mariana Trench was enough to compress a standard nuclear submarine into the size of a soup can. It was a lightless, frozen void where human ambition went to die.Arthur Vance wasn’t human anymore.He stood on the bridge of the Abyssal Leviathan, a deep-sea exploration vessel he had purchased from the Level 5 System Store for an effortless half-million SP. The ship was constructed from self-repairing dark matter and propelled by a frictionless gravity drive. It descended through the pitch-black water at terrifying speeds.Ares stood like a monolith at the back of the bridge, his red optics cutting through the dim cabin lighting. Nemesis hovered near the navigation console, her shadow-wrapped form completely unbothered by the crushing depths outside the viewport. Vera stood directly beside Arthur, her hand resting on her combat blade out of pure habit."Depth: thirty-five thousand feet," the ship’s automated AI reported in a smooth, synthetic voic
You may also like
Cultivation Sign-In System
ShadowKatake55.7K viewsThe septillionaire's superstar system
Liam Michael25.0K viewsThe Invincible Arthur Gardner
Herolich103.9K viewsThe Tycoon System
Addiction23.6K viewsGlitch Overlord: The NPC Who Hijacked the Gods’ Player Syste
DarkWood176 viewsHarem Of Enchantment: A Second Chance Saga
Crimson 429 viewsGlacial Monopoly: My Gifts Return Hundredfold
HeatoN316 viewsRising in the Beast World, Becoming the Apex Predator
Yurriansan272 views