INFINITY MONEY SYSTEM: Buying My Way to the Watchers' Legion

CHAPTER 6

 

The Magma Giant's body fractured like breaking glass under the relentless assault. Cracks spider-webbed across its molten surface, lava blood pouring from widening fissures. Its roars of pain shook nearby buildings, but the creature was clearly weakening.

Marco watched with clinical interest, his expression unchanged. "Interesting. An Adept Rank entity has approximately forty percent more durability than I calculated." He reached into his storage ring again. "Good thing I brought excess inventory."

Another thousand scrolls materialized in the air above him, their red runes glowing like a constellation of destruction.

Isabella stared at the floating arsenal, then at Marco. "You're enjoying this," she said flatly, her ice-blue eyes narrowing. "You're using a Tier-3 summon as target practice."

"Why waste the opportunity?" Marco replied calmly. "These scrolls have an expiration date. Better to test their effectiveness against high-rank threats now."

"You're completely insane," she muttered, but her hands were already moving, drawing out more of her own combat scrolls. Despite herself, a tiny spark of excitement flickered in her usually cold eyes. "Fine. Let's see how much punishment this creature can actually take."

They attacked in perfect synchronization.

Marco activated three hundred scrolls simultaneously. Isabella unleashed a barrage of B-rank lightning strikes. The combined assault crashed into the Magma Giant like divine judgment. Thunder merged into a continuous roar that drowned out all other sounds. Lightning bolts as thick as tree trunks hammered the creature from every direction, each impact sending chunks of volcanic rock exploding outward.

The Giant staggered, its massive form beginning to collapse inward. Molten material sprayed in all directions, igniting everything it touched. Its roars became desperate, pained.

"Again!" Isabella commanded, her usual indifference replaced by cold focus.

Marco smiled slightly and activated five hundred scrolls.

The world became pure white light and thunder. The explosion was so massive it created a shockwave visible from miles away. Windows shattered across three city blocks. The ground itself trembled like an earthquake. People throughout Manhattan stumbled, looking toward the alley in terror, certain a catastrophe was unfolding.

When the smoke cleared, the Magma Giant was missing its left arm and half its torso. Lava poured from the wounds like arterial blood. The creature swayed, barely maintaining form.

Dominic stood pressed against the alley wall, his face ashen. "No... no, this can't... a Tier-3 summon should be invincible against—"

"Nothing is invincible against sufficient resources," Marco interrupted calmly. He pulled out another two thousand scrolls. "Shall we finish this, Lady Isabella?"

Her response was immediate. Ice gathered around her hands as she prepared her most powerful technique. "With pleasure."

They unleashed everything at once.

The sky turned into a storm of apocalyptic proportions. Lightning merged into continuous streams of destruction. Explosions bloomed so rapidly they became a solid wall of fire and force. The very air ignited, turning the alley into the interior of a furnace. The sound was beyond thunder—it was the roar of creation itself being torn apart.

The Magma Giant didn't even have time to scream. Its body simply disintegrated under the overwhelming assault, vaporizing into steam and ash. The summoning circle above shattered like glass, the connection severed, the creature destroyed utterly.

Silence crashed over the battlefield like a physical weight.

Dominic collapsed to his knees, staring at the empty space where his ultimate trump card had stood moments before. "Impossible... five million gold coins... the scroll cost five million... and you just... you just..."

A new presence arrived with the crackle of displaced air.

Envoy Marcus materialized from the shadows, his combat robes singed and torn from dealing with the peripheral scouts. His eyes swept across the devastation—the shattered buildings, the melted cobblestones, the unconscious bodies, the lingering smoke—and his face went pale.

"Lady Isabella! What in the name of—" He stopped, noticing Marco surrounded by thousands of still-active scrolls. "Sweet merciful heavens, is that... how many scrolls does he have?!"

"Approximately three thousand remaining," Marco said casually, as if discussing the weather.

Marcus's legs nearly gave out. "Three THOUSAND?! Do you have any idea how wasteful—the cost alone—you can't just—" He sputtered, unable to form coherent sentences.

Marco reached into his coat and withdrew a storage pouch. He tossed it to the envoy, who caught it reflexively. "One hundred thousand gold coins. Consider it compensation for the property damage and your inconvenience."

Marcus opened the pouch. His eyes bulged. His mouth worked soundlessly. Then, without another word of protest, he turned to the remaining scrolls with sudden enthusiasm. "Well! If you insist on using them anyway, it would be irresponsible to leave such powerful items unsupervised! I'll assist with the controlled detonation!"

Isabella's eyebrow arched. "You were just complaining about waste."

"That was before adequate compensation was provided," Marcus replied with absolute shamelessness, already grabbing handfuls of scrolls. "Now it's prudent resource management!"

For the next ten minutes, the alley became ground zero for the most absurdly expensive fireworks display in history. Marco, Isabella, and Marcus unleashed scroll after scroll, obliterating imaginary targets and reducing the entire area to smoking rubble. The destruction was so excessive that city guard patrols stopped trying to intervene and simply evacuated civilians from a three-block radius.

When the final scroll detonated, Marco felt a familiar chime in his mind.

[Luxury Expense Detected: 5,000 High-Explosion Scrolls Used]

[Total Value: 750,000 Gold Coins]

[Reward: 50,000 Luxury Points]

[Total Luxury Points: 56,000]

[Special Milestone Reached: You may now purchase Rank Advancement]

Marco's eyes gleamed. Finally. He mentally accessed the system shop, scrolling through options until he found what he needed.

[Novice Rank Awakening Package: 50,000 Luxury Points]

[Includes: Mana Core Ignition, Rank 1 Foundation, Basic Mana Circulation]

[Purchase? Y/N]

He selected yes without hesitation.

Immediately, power flooded his body. But something was wrong—or rather, different.

Instead of releasing mana outward like a normal awakening, Marco's body began pulling it inward. Mana from the surrounding air, from the residual energy of the explosions, from the very earth beneath his feet—all of it rushed toward him like water spiraling down a drain.

"What the—" Marcus stumbled backward as he felt his own mana being tugged toward Marco.

Isabella's eyes widened, genuine shock breaking through her icy mask. "He's... absorbing mana? That's not how awakening works!"

The phenomenon intensified. Wind whipped through the alley as energy condensed around Marco's body. A visible vortex formed, golden light spiraling inward with increasing speed. The temperature dropped as ambient mana was stripped from the environment.

Marcus tried to approach but was pushed back by the sheer force of the absorption. "Lady Isabella, this is unprecedented! I've never seen—"

"Neither have I," she admitted, her voice tight. She extended her senses, trying to understand what was happening inside Marco's body. What she felt made her breath catch.

No mana core.

Where every awakener possessed a crystallized core of condensed mana in their chest, Marco had... nothing. Or rather, something else. Something that defied classification. It wasn't a core—it was more like a void, an endless hunger that consumed mana and transformed it into something completely different.

The vortex expanded, now visible to normal eyes as a swirling storm of golden energy. Cobblestones lifted off the ground. Loose debris began orbiting Marco like satellites around a planet. The pressure was so intense that even Isabella had to brace herself.

"What kind of awakening is this?!" Marcus shouted over the roar of wind.