The Broke Billionaire's System: Spend to Survive

Bloody Board Meeting

Johann and Freya plummeted into a darkness that felt cold and sharp as a razor. The wind roared in their ears. They fell in an embrace, with Freya wrapping her arms around Johann's neck to ensure they weren't separated. Johann closed his eyes tight. He felt as if he were being sucked into an endless drain of reality.

Suddenly, a violent jolt sent them slamming onto a hard marble floor. Johann groaned as his back felt like it was about to break. He rolled to the side and found himself in the middle of a vast room. Pale blue neon lights glowed on the walls. This was the board of directors' meeting room in the Reinhardt Corp building. Johann recognized this luxury carpet. The faint scent of the floor cleaner he used to use still lingered in the corners of the room.

"Get up, Johann!" Freya was already standing in a defensive position. She checked her weapon, but her face soured. "My gun is dead. The magic in this place is completely suppressed."

Johann stood up unsteadily. He straightened the expensive suit he had bought using the system balance a few days ago. The suit stood in stark contrast to their situation of having just plummeted from the hotel sky. He stared at the gold interface on his retina. The screen flickered with an unstable red warning message.

[LOCATION: REINHARDT FORBIDDEN ZONE. SYSTEM DISRUPTED. BALANCE INACCESSIBLE.]

"Dammit," Johann cursed softly. He looked around. Before them sat an incredibly long mahogany table with twelve executive chairs. The room was empty, yet the oppressive aura of power was palpable in every corner.

Freya stepped toward the table. She pointed at a stack of scattered documents. "Look at this. Viktor is planning something far bigger than just a corporation. He wants to manipulate the city's magic capital market. If he succeeds, everyone with power in this city will become a slave to his balance."

Johann approached and read the documents. The words swirled, but the gist was clear. Viktor was building a magic control center that would absorb the remaining energy from every citizen through digital transactions. Johann laughed cynically. "So, he wants to be the world's only banker. How cliché for a man who thinks he's God."

"Wait," Freya caught Johann's arm. Her eyes narrowed toward the large wooden doors at the end of the room. "Someone's coming."

Johann immediately pulled Freya to hide behind the thick velvet curtains covering the walls. They held their breath. The door opened slowly, and the sound of heavy footsteps entered the room. It was Viktor Reinhardt. He walked in alone, his appearance looking younger, but his eyes looked like black holes that absorbed the light.

Viktor sat in the main chair. He placed an ancient device on the table that began to vibrate. The device emitted a thick purple aura.

"As soon as this virtual board meeting begins, all magic assets from competing companies will be sucked into the central system," Viktor muttered to himself. He chuckled, a sound like a knife scraping against glass.

Johann looked at Freya. He signaled for her to stay quiet. Johann slowly felt around his suit pocket. He still had one last unused credit card, the card given to him by that female Auditor earlier. If he used that card in this room, he might be able to hack Viktor's system from the central point.

However, Johann's slight movement caused the fabric of his suit to rustle in the silence of the room. Viktor stopped instantly. He slowly swiveled his mahogany chair with a sharp gaze that pierced through the curtains where they were hiding.

"I can smell the stain of cheap floor cleaner in this sacred room," Viktor said in a calm tone. He did not rise from his chair. "Johann Keller, you always find a way to show up in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Freya didn't wait any longer. She lunged from behind the curtain with a small knife she had snatched from the meeting table. However, Viktor simply raised his hand, and Freya was slammed against the wall as if an invisible hand were choking her.

"Freya!" Johann shouted. He jumped out from hiding, his hand holding the energy card pointed toward Viktor.

Viktor stood up, watching Johann with great interest. "Oh, look who arrived with the courage of a janitor. What do you intend to do, Johann? Mop this floor with your own blood?"

"I've come to collect your debt, Viktor," Johann replied with heavy breath. He pressed the energy card in his hand. Blue energy began to overflow, but the ancient device on Viktor's table reacted wildly. The room began to shake violently.

Viktor smiled broadly, a smile that revealed an unnatural set of teeth. He walked toward Johann without a hint of fear. "Debt? You have no right to speak of debt after what you did to my corporate balance system. You know, Johann, I almost recognized you from day one. You were always there, in the shadows, erasing the footprints of the wealthy. But you never realized that you yourself were the stain that was hardest to remove."

Viktor stopped right in front of Johann. He touched Johann's chest with his index finger. "That system of yours is nothing more than a toy I gave you to see how far you could develop before I finally harvest your soul."

Johann felt his entire body go numb. He couldn't move.

He stared into Viktor's eyes and saw his own reflection holding a mop in a dark room. Viktor had nearly uncovered his greatest secret.

"You are nobody," Viktor whispered into Johann's ear. "You are merely a tool that happens to harbor petty ambitions."

Freya, still pinned against the wall, tried to reach for her weapon. She saw Johann in grave danger. With what little strength she had left, she threw a small metal object she had swiped from Viktor's pocket earlier. The object struck an ancient device on the table. A massive explosion of energy erupted instantly, plunging the room into total darkness as all the lights went out.

"Johann, run!" Freya screamed through the dark.

Johann tried to move, but his feet were held fast by something sticky on the floor. He looked down and saw that the marble floor had turned into a black liquid that was beginning to swallow his legs. It was a magic trap. Viktor hadn't turned off the lights; he was warping the reality of the room into a prison.

Johann fumbled in the darkness, reaching for Freya's hand. He finally found her cold fingers. They were both gasping for breath. Viktor was nowhere to be seen, yet his laughter echoed as if it were inside their heads.

"The exit has been locked from the outside, Johann," Viktor's voice boomed throughout the room. "And this room will soon be erased from the map. Let us see if you can clean up the stain of your own destruction."

Johann felt the walls around him start to close in. He could hear the sound of concrete cracking and crumbling. He pulled Freya into a tight embrace, shielding her with his own body. He knew the only way out was to sacrifice the remaining energy in his last credit card, but he doubted it would be enough to pierce Viktor's high-level magic.

Suddenly, a golden notification appeared in Johann's vision, but this time it wasn't a balance alert. It was a message sent by an unknown sender.

[INSTRUCTION: PRESS THE CARD TOWARD VIKTOR'S HEART. DO NOT HESITATE.]

Johann stared into the darkness ahead of him. He had no idea who sent the message, but he had no other choice. He pulled Freya's hand and whispered, "We are getting out of here."

"What is your plan?" Freya asked, her voice laced with anxiety, yet still holding complete faith in the man she was holding onto.

Johann pressed his lips to Freya's ear, giving her a brief, emotional kiss in the midst of this life-or-death situation. "Just trust me."

Johann began to feel his way toward the center of the room, toward where he had last seen Viktor. He could feel the heavy air pressure, a sign that Viktor was still there, waiting for him with his demonic smile. Johann gripped the card tightly, bracing for the final strike that would determine both their fates.

As he reached the middle of the room, he felt a presence in front of him. He didn't hesitate. Johann thrust the energy card forward with all his might. Something solid resisted his push, but then a gut-wrenching groan of pain rang out.

The room's lights suddenly flared to life. Johann's eyes widened at what he had stabbed. It wasn't Viktor. It was a woman in familiar corporate attire—the Auditor they had encountered earlier at the apartment. The woman stared at Johann with bulging eyes, fresh blood beginning to flow from her chest where the card was embedded.

On the other side of the room, Viktor Reinhardt stood with his arms folded, watching them both with a look of immense satisfaction. He wasn't wounded in the slightest. Instead, he looked like he had just witnessed a very entertaining circus performance.

"Oh, Johann," Viktor said in a freezing tone. "You just killed the only person with access to leave this room. Now, we are all truly locked in here forever."

The door to the room vanished, sealed off by a solid concrete wall. The sound of a massive engine began to hum beneath the floor, signaling that the entire room was about to be destroyed. Johann watched the Auditor slowly collapse to the floor, then looked at Viktor, who was gradually fading into a shadow.

Johann turned toward Freya, but he found that the room was now splitting in two. Freya was thrown to the other side of the room as it began to be separated by a dark abyss, while Johann was trapped on the side filled with crumbling ruins.

"Freya!" Johann screamed as he tried to leap across.

Freya reached for Johann's hand, but their fingers only brushed against each other before the chasm widened rapidly. The remaining balance in Johann's vision vanished at a terrifying speed, leaving behind a shattered and non-functional screen.

"Johann, don't let go of me!" Freya cried out, her voice hoarse, her eyes looking at Johann with pure terror as the floor she stood on began to tilt steeply.

Johann tried to grab the crumbling wall to pull himself closer, but he felt his hands bound by chains of energy rising from the floor. He couldn't move. He could only watch as Freya was slowly dragged into the hole opening on the opposite floor.

Viktor stood atop the wreckage on Freya's side, looking at Johann with a mocking gaze. He grabbed Freya's hand roughly, dragging her away from Johann's sight. "Thank you for the service, Johann. This lady will be a very valuable asset for my private collection."

"No! Let her go, you bastard!" Johann screamed, wrenching his hands so hard his skin tore.

Johann looked at Freya one last time before a giant concrete wall closed the gap between them. Freya looked at him with a gaze full of promise and sorrow.

"Find me, Johann!" Freya screamed before she disappeared completely from view.

The room was now completely sealed. Johann was trapped in a pitch-black concrete box, without a system, without money, and without the woman he loved. He fell to his knees on the rubble, staring into the darkness that was beginning to feel suffocating. There was no more sound, no more light, only the sound of his own heartbeat, thumping very slowly.

Suddenly, a very faint voice echoed in his head—a voice that didn't come from the system, but from the depths of his own soul. "Are you ready to clean the real stain, Johann Keller?"

Johann looked toward the sealed wall, his hands—bloody from his struggle—beginning to emit a very dim purple glow. He was no longer looking for a balance. He was looking for a way to destroy every wall, every corporation, and every person who had separated him from Freya.

He stood up, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and began to walk toward the thickest wall with a fist ready to punch through the concrete. He no longer needed money to be strong. He only needed a reason to kill Viktor, and now, he had one.

However, as he was about to strike the wall, he realized that what lay behind the concrete was no longer an office building, but something far more vast and dangerous. The thundering sound of massive machinery began to shake his entire body. He wasn't in the building anymore. He had just been transported to a place where every transaction was a death sentence.

Johann watched as the exit slowly opened, revealing a long corridor filled with killer robots waiting for the command to destroy anything that moved.

And at the end of that hallway, he could see Freya's figure chained to a massive iron chair, staring toward him with a hollow gaze. 

Johann took a deep breath, pulled out the rusty pocket knife he once used to clean the gaps in the office floor, and stepped forward into the corridor. This wasn't about money anymore. This was about a total purge. And he was the only one who knew how to wipe all this filth back down to zero. 

As his feet touched the corridor, the door behind him slammed shut with a thunderous boom, sealing his fate inside that never-ending labyrinth. He didn't know what lay ahead, but he knew one thing for sure: he wouldn't leave this place without bringing Freya back to his side. 

Johann stepped inside, ready to destroy everything, and at that moment, the entire floor of the corridor suddenly vanished, sending Johann into a free fall toward a massive industrial grinder spinning at high speed directly beneath his feet.