The Sovereign's Zero-Rank Return

Chapter 6: The Liquidation Ledger

The extraction of a Stage 5 Earth-Core Grandmasters essence was not a thing. To the twelve bronze-plated guards standing at the southern edge of the Black-Water crossing it looked like the laws of nature were being changed by the pale nameless youth standing in the mud.

Orin Clays bare palm was still touching Master Sols iron breastplate. The Core Devour Matrix inside his chest was humming fast it could be felt rather than heard. It was like a vacuum that was pulling everything in. The dense brown rock-like spiritual energy that had defined Sols cultivation for forty years was not just disappearing. It was being pulled out violently.

It was being drawn along the silver pathways that went from Orins fingertips up to his collarbone. Sols massive chest was heaving, his fingers clawing at the stone bridge tearing his nails against the rough masonry. The vibrant glowing earth runes on his iron plate armor were fading, turning a chalky white as their energy was completely used up.

[CORE DEVOUR MATRIX: IN INITIALIZATION STAGE]

[HARVESTING ENTITY: STAGE 5 EARTH-CORE GRADUATE]

[PROCESSING TARGET ASSET: VOLATILE EARTH-ATTRIBUTED MANA]

[FILTERING IMPURITIES... STABILIZING VIA MIDNIGHT LICHEN COLD COMPRESSION...]

[WARNING: HOST PHYSICAL FRAILTY IS LIMITING THE INTEGRATION RATE. CONVERTING EXCESS FRICKTION INTO CORE DENSITY.]

Inside Orins body the Level 2 Void Seed was like a bottomless eye in the middle of a storm. As the massive torrent of Sols earth energy rushed into the void it collided with the freezing, barrier of the Midnight Lichen matrix. The extreme heat generated by the friction of the theft was instantly absorbed, dropping the temperature of the energy to absolute zero before it could harm Orins fragile uncultivated meridians.

The shattered crystalline shards of his Azure Soul Core. Now serving as an orbital compression ring around the vacuum. Vibrated with a clean metallic sound. They were packing together their boundaries fusing under the immense gravitational pressure of the void.

[VOID SEED EVOLUTION STATUS: 45%... 72%... 98%...]

[NOTIFICATION: VOID SEED HAS COMPRESSED TO LEVEL 3.]

[HOST CAPACITY MARGIN UNLOCKED: 200/200 VOID ENERGY.]

[PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION UPGRADE: DENSITY INCREASING BY 14%. NERVOUS SYSTEM RECOVERY: ACTIVE.]

Orin let out a frosty breath that condensed into a white cloud in the warm sulfurous mist of the river. He pulled his hand back from Sols chest. The grandmaster did not move. He lay flat in the mud his skin a brittle grey, his eyes wide and hollow fixed on the dark sky above. He was not dead. Orins analytical brain knew that a dead person was not useful.. His cultivation was entirely gone his soul core reduced to a harmless calcified pebble of spent crystal.

Orin turned his head slightly his silver eyes catching the twelve bronze-armored guards who were still clutching their great-axes. They were trembling, their boots shuffling backward against the stones of the bridge.

"The Sol Syndicates primary asset has been liquidated " Orin said, his voice entirely flat carrying a resonance that cut through the roar of the boiling river beneath them. "The current liabilities of your organization now exceed its assets. If you choose to engage in hostilities your lives will be written off as an immediate loss. If you surrender your weapons and your oaths of service you will be integrated into the Vanguard at an entry-tier valuation."

The guards looked from the youth to their shattered master then to Silas, whose silver greatsword was still raised in a low flawless guard and finally to the bluffs where Kian Frosts zero-resistance arrow was already notched for a secondary launch.

The lead guard, a veteran with broad shoulders let his great-axe fall to the stone bridge with a loud clattering bang. Within three seconds the remaining eleven weapons hit the deck in a display of absolute surrender.

"Smart allocation of capital " Orin murmured, turning his back to them and walking back toward the transport wagon where Maren Vance was watching him with a face that had gone completely pale under her war-dirt. "Captain Vance, secure the prisoners and the Sol Syndicates remaining outposts. We have four hours before the imperial trade envoys arrive. I want the districts inventory reorganized under the Clay name."

Maren swallowed hard her hand dropping from her sword hilt as she looked at the 19-year- youth who had just dismantled a Stage 5 powerhouse without a single drop of sweat on his brow. "Consider it done... Strategist."

The restructuring of Black-Water Ridge took less than twenty-four hours. To the merchants and inhabitants of the frontier trading post it felt like an overnight shift in the world.

By noon of the day the bright bronze flags of the Sol Syndicate had been completely torn down from the stone towers overlooking the central plaza replaced by the dark unadorned ironwood standards of the Vanguard. The open-air slave markets were shuttered by Orins decree. Not out of a sense of moral altruism but because his data analysts had proven that forced labor possessed a higher error margin and lower long-term productivity index than a system of tightly controlled performance-incentivized contract employment.

Orin sat in his administrative headquarters. The top floor of Master Sols former golden-trimmed stone villa. The opulent silks and plush cushions had been entirely dragged out into the courtyard. Burned, replaced by rows of long clean wooden tables piled high with leather-bound record books, maps and mineral surveys.

Through the Archivists Eye Orin was currently auditing the regions economic ecosystem.

[REGIONAL LEDGER: BLACK-WATER RIDGE SECTOR]

[TOTAL REFINED ASSETS: 4,200 SPIRIT STONES.]

[MINERAL RESERVES: 3 ACTIVE IRON VEINS (OUTPUT RESISTANCE: HIGH DUE TO COPPER POLLUTION).]

[LOGISTICAL FOOTPRINT: 84% MONOPOLY OVER TRADE CHANNELS SECURED.]

"The primary bottleneck isn't the production of the zero-resistance steel, Kian " Orin said, his fingers tapping against a map of the surrounding bluffs.

Kian Frost stood by the stone window looking out over the crowded plaza below where mercenary smiths were currently setting up secondary forge lines under his direct instruction. "Then what is it? The volcanic vent below the cave is running steady at fourteen hundred degrees. We can turn out fifty bars of silver- deep-iron every three days if my apprentices keep their rhythm."

"The bottleneck is the catalyst " Orin replied, his silver eyes flashing as a sub-routine of the Archive broke down the lifespan of their current inventory. "The Midnight Lichen we harvested from the capital drainage systems was a resource. At our production velocity our stock of cold-attributed concentrate will be entirely depleted within fourteen days. If we cannot secure a local source of zero-temperature elementals the zero-resistance matrix will degrade back to standard tier-three steel."

Kians face darkened, his hand tightening around his short-spear shaft. "There is no midnight lichen on the frontier Orin. The soil here is too rich in sulfur and iron-rich volcanic salt. The plants can't seed."

"They can't seed under conditions " Orin corrected, standing up and walking toward a large crystal vat that sat in the center of the room. Inside the vat a single tiny clump of the lichen was suspended within a dark thick liquid that bubbled softly. "But the sulfur salt isn't a poison; it's a high-density alkaline compound. If we neutralize the acidity using the mineral- runoff from the black-water rifts we can create an artificial sink that accelerates the lichens growth exponent by three hundred percent."

He looked at Silas, who had just entered the room carrying a sealed red-wax parchment bearer from the scouting posts. "What is the status of the checkpoints Silas?"

Silas walked up to the table his face uncommonly grim as he broke the seal and spread the document before Orin. "The imperial trade envoys have accepted our shipment of forty steel bars, Young Master. They paid in high-grade spirit stones without a line of negotiation.. The news of Master Sols fall has already crossed the secondary wall. My contacts within the battalion say that a high-tier courier left the southern garrison six hours ago heading directly for the Capital."

Orin didn't blink. He took the document his system scanning the ink signatures within a millisecond.

[DOCUMENT SCAN: OFFICIAL MILITARY REPORT SIGNATURE]

[ISSUED BY: COMMANDER VALERIUS THORNE (THIRD REGIMENTAL GARRISON).]

[RECIPIENT: IRIS THORNE (THE THORN CLAN COURT).]

**[SUMMARY OF TRANSMISSION: THE TRASH RANK-ZERO ENTITY ORIN CLAY IS CONFIRMED ALIVE. ESTIMATED LOGISTICAL RECOVERY RATE: CRITICAL ERROR DETECTED, in execution reports.]**

My sister Iris is a careful person who thinks about risks Orin said. He was smiling a little. It was not a happy smile. He threw a piece of paper into the fire. Watched it burn. When Iris finds out that the people she paid to kill someone did not do their job she will not send people to try again. Instead she will try to use the rules about taxes to stop us from selling our products.

Maren Vance walked into the room. Asked can Iris do that here? We are on the frontier. The government does not have direct control over us. They cannot just tax us because they want to.

Orin explained they may not be able to tax us but they control the gates of the capital city where we sell most of our products. If Iris increases the tax on the products we sell it will be very hard for us to make a profit. She does not need to fight us with weapons she can just make it so expensive for us to sell our products that we cannot do it anymore.

Then we should change the way we sell our products Kian Frost said. We can sell them to people not just the ones in the capital city.

No Orin said. Selling to people is a big risk and we may not get much money from it. We should keep selling to the people in the capital city. We should do it in a way that Iris cannot stop us. We can create a company that looks like it belongs to a noble family so Iris will not be able to tax us.

Maren asked, which noble family would help us? We are not friends with any of them.

Orin said, the Cross family might help us. My old friend Rhea Crosss father is a businessman. He will help us if he thinks he can make money from it. When he sees how money we can make he will agree to help us no matter what Iris or her brother Felix say.

The day Orin and his friend Silas went to the southern border outpost. It was a fortress that controlled who could enter the capital city. Orin wanted to talk to Rhea Cross, who was the daughter of a family. She was sitting in a carriage looking at herself in a mirror. She was a powerful person and she was going to marry Felix, Iriss brother.

When Rhea saw Orin she was very surprised. She thought he was dead. He was standing in front of her looking very confident. He threw a piece of metal onto a table. It made a loud noise. The metal was very special. It was worth a lot of money. Orin said, I am here to deliver this metal to your father and I want to make a deal with him.

Rhea was very interested in the metal and she got out of her carriage to take a look. She asked Orin how did you make this metal? You should be dead by now.

Orin said, the people who thought I was going to die were wrong. I have found a way to make things work and I can make very good products now. I want to make a deal with your father so we can both make money.

Rhea was not sure what to do. She was very interested, in the metal and the deal Orin was offering. She said, I will take your proposal to my father but I do not know if he will agree. Felix will not be happy if he finds out about this.

Orin just. Said, I am not afraid of Felix. I have a plan and I know it will work.

Orin leaned forward a little his eyes flashing with a deep blue light. This light was so strong that it made the frost on her skin disappear away. The Level 3 Void Seed in his chest started to glow. It sent out a wave of empty space that went through the courtyard. This wave was so scary that all the horses in the barracks fell to their knees.

Orin whispered to Rhea "Tell Felix to bring anyone he wants." His voice was very low. It felt like a knife against her throat. ". Tell him to make sure he has a good life insurance policy before he comes to the black sand area. Because I am the one in charge, on the frontier.. Felix already owes a lot."

Then Orin turned to Silas. He did not wait for Rhea to answer. "Silas turn the cart around. We have given them the bill. The market will take care of the rest."