Arthur Sterling stood on the cracked marble floor. His left arm hung completely useless at his side, the bones shattered into dust by the gravity gavel. His tailored black suit was ripped to shreds, stained with his own blood and the grey dust of the arena.
He didn’t look like a man who had just taken a brutal beating. He looked like a CEO who had just cornered his rivals in a hostile boardroom takeover.
"Are we ready to negotiate a settlement?" Arthur asked. His voice was a calm, cold rumble that echoed perfectly in the absolute silence of the stadium.
High above, the two remaining Prime Auditors were frozen. The shifting numbers and codes on their featureless robes hitched and glitched with obvious panic. The Lead Auditor was dead. The evidence of their multiversal embezzlement was currently being broadcasted to every single entity in the room. They had zero leverage.
"What are your terms?" the right Prime Auditor buzzed. Its mechanical voice sounded incredibly strained. It sounded like a machine choking on a bad line of code.
"Simple," Arthur said. He casually adjusted his ruined tie with his good right hand. "You clear my ledger. My cosmic debt is wiped to zero. In exchange, I don’t release the decryption keys to this data crystal to the rest of the Apex Council."
The millions of gods in the stands began to aggressively murmur. They wanted blood. They wanted their stolen Merit Points back.
"You also formally recognize the Ebon Empire as a sovereign, untaxable territory," Arthur continued, ignoring the crowd. "My assets are mine. No audits. No collections. You stay out of my business, and I keep your dirty little secret out of the public record."
The two Prime Auditors looked at each other. They didn’t have a choice. If the true extent of their theft was verified by the cosmic laws, the universe itself would erase them.
"Terms accepted," the left Auditor droned.
[Ding!]
The system interface in Arthur’s mind suddenly flared to life. The dull, restricted copper text that had plagued him for days vanished. It was instantly replaced by a brilliant, beautiful blue light that made him want to laugh out loud.
[Trial by Combat Won. Host has successfully defended against the Audit.]
[Legal claim verified. Hostile corruption exposed.]
[Reward Distributed: Absolute Debt Forgiveness.]
Arthur watched as the massive negative number hovering in his vision rapidly ticked down. Nine hundred billion. Five hundred billion. One hundred billion.
Zero.
He felt the heavy, suffocating restrictions on his soul instantly lift. His core warmed up. The deep, agonizing ache in his shattered shoulder didn’t disappear, but the conceptual weight keeping him grounded was entirely gone. His absolute power returned, flooding his meridians like a rushing river.
"Pleasure doing business," Arthur smirked.
He turned around and walked away from the podiums. Cassia and Vane were standing a few yards back. Vane’s jaw was practically on the floor. The scarred frontiersman just stared at Arthur as if the man had sprouted a second head. Cassia, however, was grinning from ear to ear. She holstered her customized stun pistols and fell into step beside him.
"You actually blackmailed the foundational laws of the universe," Cassia laughed, a genuine sound of pure amazement.
"I balanced the books," Arthur corrected. "Let’s go home."
With a flick of his good wrist, Arthur channeled his returned spatial magic. He didn’t need a gateway or a terminal. He simply grabbed the fabric of reality and ripped it open.
"RIIIIIP!"
They stepped through the portal and instantly traded the sterile, blinding light of the High Court for the smog-choked, neon-lit air of the Margin. They landed on the rusted metal roof of the central administrative building. The transition was jarring. It smelled like cheap oil, ozone, and burnt garbage.
To Arthur, it smelled like victory.
Vane walked over to the edge of the roof. He leaned his heavy broadsword against the rusted railing and looked down at the city. The streets were still a mess from the scavenger invasion, but the people were alive. They were moving. They were rebuilding.
Arthur walked up behind him. "You held the line down there, Vane. Good work."
Vane didn’t look back. He just let out a slow, exhausted breath. "I thought we were dead. I really thought you dragged us into an execution. But you had the whole thing mapped out from the start."
"I never take a meeting I can’t win," Arthur said smoothly. "The Margin is secure. But it needs someone to keep the trash out. Someone who actually cares about these people."
Vane finally turned around. His hard, scarred face was serious. "I’m not a corporate lapdog, Sterling."
"I don’t want a lapdog. I want a Head of Security," Arthur replied. "Keep the streets clean. Keep my workers safe. Do that, and you can play the righteous hero all you want."
Vane stared at him for a long moment. Finally, he gave a stiff, jerky nod. He accepted his role.
Arthur turned away and walked toward the rooftop access hatch. Cassia was already waiting for him. She kicked the door open and led the way down the metal stairs into the newly renovated Mayor’s office.
The room was quiet. The heavy mahogany desk sat in the center, surrounded by sleek leather chairs and holographic data terminals. Arthur walked past the desk and heavily dropped onto the leather sofa in the corner. He let out a low groan as his shattered left arm throbbed violently.
"Sit still," Cassia ordered.
She walked over to a cabinet, grabbed a med-kit, and pulled out a glowing blue vial of high-tier healing salve. She knelt in front of the sofa. Without asking, she ripped the ruined fabric of his suit jacket away from his shoulder to expose the bruised, crushed flesh.
"You took a massive risk letting that gavel hit you," Cassia said quietly. Her cold, silver eyes were entirely focused on the wound as she rubbed the soothing gel into his skin.
"It bought me the exact microsecond I needed to plant the EMP," Arthur replied. He didn’t flinch as his bones began to snap and pop back into place.
Cassia looked up. Her face was inches from his. The unspoken tension that had been brewing between them since the bank heist was thick and heavy in the quiet office. She wasn’t an employee looking at a boss. She was a predator looking at an equal.
"You’re a crazy bastard, Arthur," she murmured.
"And you’re a terrible team player," Arthur shot back, a dark smile playing on his lips.