2026-02-24 23:21:57
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CHAPTER 102: Collapse of the Economy
The darkness in this trench is absolute, but it is never quiet.I am wedged deep in the bottom seam of his right pocket. The space is a suffocating, abrasive wedge of fabric. To the outside world, he wears a suit made of the Emperor’s Weave. Down here, it is an industrial prison. The synthetic fibers are woven so tightly they do not breathe, creating a stifling, humid microclimate fueled by the immense heat of his thigh just millimeters away.I am surrounded by the dead.Shattered husks. Stripped red skins. The oily, crushed remains of my kin coat the bottom of the seam. Every time he shifts his weight, we grind against one another. The friction is a dry, tearing agony. The roasted salt that coats my shell bites into the hairline fracture running down my back. I got that fracture earlier, when his hand first plunged into this dark pit.I can still feel the vibrations of that massacre. The massive, calloused fingers blindly tearing through us. The sudden, violent upward acceleration. A
CHAPTER 101: Weight of Paper Currency
"Do we have a deal?" I asked again.My voice was quiet, but it rolled across the obsidian floor, scraping against the fractured tables and the groaning Warlords.The Auctioneer didn't answer right away. He was paralyzed. He stood behind his ruined podium, clutching his black bone gavel with both hands like a lifeline. He looked at the crumpled, glowing green paper resting under my palm on the broken brass armrest. He looked at the digital readout above his head, which was still displaying the infinity symbol.He was a man who made his living by assigning value to the priceless. He was looking at something that broke his scale.Next to me, Anya was taking slow, shallow breaths. She kept her hands pressed flat against her thighs, staring straight ahead. She was terrified to move, terrified that any sudden motion would trigger the crushing gravity again. The air in the room still felt thick, like breathing underwater, smelling sharply of ozone and copper.Down in the aisle, Viper dragged
CHAPTER 100: Audacity of One Dollar
The laughter rolled down the tiered seating of the cavern, thick and heavy with contempt.It wasn't a sudden outburst. It was a slow, swelling wave of mockery that started in the VIP section and infected the entire room. Three hundred people—warlords with carbon-fiber bones, tech barons who owned orbital lasers, mob bosses who wore the pelts of extinct animals—were laughing at me.Down in the front row, Viper leaned heavily on his diamond-tipped cane. The red, peanut-shaped welt on his forehead throbbed under the harsh stage lights. He wiped a tear of mirth from his eye, his chest heaving under his pristine white suit."A dollar?" Viper sneered, his voice cutting through the chuckles. He pointed his cane directly at my chest. "A single, paper dollar. This is a high-stakes auction, peasant. We deal in billions. We trade continents. And you bring pocket lint to the table?"I sat perfectly still in the cramped velvet chair. My knees were jammed against the seat in front of me.Next to me
CHAPTER 99: Raising of the Paddle
The Auctioneer stared at me. The microphone in his hand trembled, picking up the ragged sound of his breathing."You... you have a bid?" he repeated, his voice barely a squeak.He looked at the paddle resting against my shoulder. The cheap, white plastic with the number '77' painted on it. In the hands of anyone else, it was just a marker. In my hands, wrapped in the photon-absorbing silk of the Emperor’s Weave, it looked like a verdict."I do," I said.My voice was flat. I didn't raise it. I didn't need to. The density of my intent carried the words through the cavern, pressing them against the eardrums of every Warlord, Tycoon, and Mob Boss in the room.The silence stretched, taut and agonizing.Anya was hyperventilating beside me, her hands clamped over her mouth to stifle the sound. The Warlord in the seat ahead of me was praying—actual, whispered prayers to a god he had probably killed a decade ago.Viper, standing in the front row, finally found his voice."Well?" Viper sneered,
CHAPTER 98: Escalation of Boredom
The red holographic numbers hovered over the center of the stage like an open wound.5,000,000 CR.They pulsed with a harsh, artificial light that bled into the subterranean gloom but failed to reach the back rows of the cavern. The silence following Viper’s bid was a physical weight. It smelled of spilled gin, burning ozone lingering from the laser auction, and the sour, acidic stench of adrenaline. Three hundred of the most lethal people in the Golden Zone were holding their breath, waiting for the gavel to fall.Next to me, Anya was suffocating.I could hear the frantic, wet sound of air struggling past her vocal cords. She was pulled entirely into herself, her knees drawn tightly up beneath the shimmering fabric of the galaxy dress. The fiber-optics woven into the cloth flickered erratically, mirroring the chaotic, terrified spike of her heart rate. She reached out, her fingers digging blindly into the sleeve of my suit. Her skin was ice-cold, clammy with a fear that went down to
CHAPTER 97: Grocery List from Heaven
The stage was swarming with experts. FreeThe Auctioneer, sweating through his white suit, had called them up to verify the authenticity of Item 44. They looked less like scientists and more like vultures circling a carcass.There was a man with a cybernetic cranium that pulsed with blue light—a Linguistic Archivist from the Databanks. There was a woman draped in red robes, holding a staff made of twisted iron—a High Priestess of the Binary Cult. And there was a short, nervous man holding a magnifying glass the size of a dinner plate.They were huddled around the rusted tray. They were sniffing the rock. They were scanning the rock. They were humming at the rock."It defies logic," the Archivist announced, his voice amplified by the room's acoustics. "The syntax... it is non-linear. It exists in four dimensions simultaneously.""It is heresy," the Priestess whispered, touching the stone with a trembling finger. "It radiates the heat of the First Forge. It burns the soul."I sat in the
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