Chapter 120: The Fallout...
The moment Zen absorbed the Void-Lich’s core into his body, the entire Grave of the Forgotten dungeon seemed to let out a collective, agonising breath.
The thick purple fog that had filled the mausoleum instantly dissolved, leaving behind the cold, clear air of a normal winter night. The twisted, jagged Void-ice that coated the walls melted into mundane puddles of water.
The Fracture Zone hadn’t completely closed; it was still a C-Rank dungeon, but the chaotic, highly infectious corruption from the Abyssal Trench had been completely eradicated.
A gentle blue notification chimed in Zen’s HUD.
[System Notice: C-Rank Void Anomaly Cleared. Localized Void degradation in Sector 42 has dropped by 3%. Regional seal stability increased.]
Zen wiped his blade clean on his pant leg, sheathed the weapon, and turned his attention back to the GE Link-Eye Drone hovering faithfully over his shoulder.
The chat was still moving so fast that it was practically vibrating.
[xX_Hunter_Pro_Xx]: I CAN’T BREATHE. DID HE JUST ONE-SHOT THE BOSS?!
[Ares_Fanatic_Alt]: He didn’t one-shot it! The literal Goddess of Healing nuked it from orbit! WHO IS THIS GUY?!
[GuildMaster_Rex]: Ghost Scrapper, I don’t know who you are, but I will offer you a Vanguard Captain position in the Iron Wolves Guild right now. Name your price. Ten million a year? Twenty?
[Golden_Empress]: Twenty million a year? Don’t insult him, you peasant. I spend twenty million on my morning tea. Ghost Scrapper, stick with me, and I will give you a continent.
Zen didn’t say a word. He didn’t acknowledge the massive, divine laser that had just blown a hole through fifty feet of solid rock. He didn’t acknowledge the multi-million-credit bidding war happening in his chat.
He just gave a simple, two-finger salute to the drone’s lens.
"Stream end," Zen commanded.
The GE Link-Eye Drone blinked once, the red recording light fading to black. The holographic interface in his vision vanished, leaving him standing in silence in the empty mausoleum.
He had done what he came to do. He had bled out the local corruption, maintained his D-Rank cover, and sent a clear message to his audience that the Ghost Scrapper was still active.
He checked the final balance on the streaming account...
Total Credits Earned: 28,500,000.
"I really need to figure out a way to return this money to their treasuries before they bankrupt their own domains," Zen muttered, shaking his head.
—
Miles away, in the dark, cramped walk-in closet on the second floor of the townhouse, Nyx was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
The closet had been completely converted into a high-end server room. Racks of glowing Aether-servers, stolen from the academy’s military logistics department, lined the walls.
Nyx sat cross-legged on a pile of stolen velvet pillows, her oversized black hoodie pulled up over her head, the glow of six different monitors illuminating her pale face.
She was currently executing the final scrubbing protocols.
Her fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard in a blur of motion. She deleted the routing tables, scrubbed the IP logs, and bounced the stream’s final signal through a dozen different encrypted proxies located in the Omni Domain, the Crown Domain, and the deep ocean.
[Protocol Complete. Origin IP Masked. Public Trace Probability: 0.00%.]
Nyx leaned back, pulling a lollipop out of her pocket and popping it into her mouth. Her purple eyes gleamed with mischief.
"The public has no idea," Nyx giggled, kicking her feet in the air. "But the girls... oh, this is too good."
She pulled up the internal security cameras for the townhouse.
On screen one, Valeria was pacing back and forth in the master suite, furiously punching the wall in excitement, completely obliterating the drywall.
On screen two, Aurelia was screaming at her private banking terminal, demanding they authorize a fifty-million-credit wire transfer to her new favourite streamer.
On screen three, Lyra was furiously scribbling geometric equations on a massive blackboard she had conjured in the study, dissecting his every movement.
And on screen four, Selene was kneeling on the floor of her room, tears of holy ecstasy streaming down her face as she prayed in gratitude for saving him.
They all knew.
Of course they knew.
Valeria recognised his flawless Vanguard mechanics the second he dodged the first spear. Lyra had isolated his unique logic matrix within three minutes. Aurelia had simply recognised the sheer, arrogant elegance of his stride. And Selene... Selene could feel his core the moment he took a scratch.
"They are going to tear him apart when he walks through that front door," Nyx purred, spinning around in her chair. "The fallout is going to be magnificent."
Zen’s journey back to the residential district was significantly slower than his journey to the dungeon.
The adrenaline was finally starting to wear off, and the physical toll of the D-Rank suppression was hitting him like a sledgehammer.
When you have the mana capacity of an S-Rank powerhouse, your body naturally adapts to that level of internal energy. Compressing it down to a D-Rank trickle was like forcing a raging river through a garden hose.
His muscles burned with lactic acid, and his joints ached with a dull, throbbing pain.
He deactivated the digital blur on the GE Link-Eye Drone and stuffed the sphere into his backpack.
The quiet, brick-lined streets of the high-noble quarter were completely deserted at this hour. The gas lamps flickered softly, casting long shadows against the trimmed hedges.
Zen walked with a slight limp, his mind racing.
His "under the radar" plan was rapidly falling apart. He had wanted to lay low, clear the localised void rifts quietly under the Ghost Scrapper alias, and slowly map out the larger conspiracy surrounding the Abyssal Trench without drawing attention to himself.
But there was a fatal flaw in his plan.
He had forgotten that the five most powerful, unstable women on the continent were currently living in his house, completely obsessed with his every move, and armed with infinite bank accounts.
He reached the iron gates of the townhouse. The heavy military-grade wards recognized his biometric signature and parted with a soft hum.
He walked up the cobblestone path, climbed the front steps, and pushed open the heavy oak door.
"I’m back," Zen called out quietly, too exhausted to deal with whatever domestic drama they had undoubtedly cooked up while he was gone.
He stepped into the foyer.
The air inside the townhouse was so thick with raw, aggressive mana that Zen instantly felt like he was walking into a war zone.
Valeria was standing at the bottom of the curved staircase, wearing her full Vanguard combat armour, her massive black-steel broadsword resting casually on her shoulder. Her crimson eyes were dilated, burning with predatory intensity.
"You left your left flank exposed for a quarter of a second on that aerial disarm," Valeria demanded in a low voice. "I’ve been watching you for the last hour, and I need to spar. Right now. I don’t care about the safety waivers, Scrapper."
Before Zen could answer, Aurelia stepped out of the living room.
She was practically vibrating with manic energy, her amber eyes wide, her golden coronation magic flaring around her fingertips in tiny, crackling sparks.
"I gave you eight million credits tonight, Zen!" Aurelia cried, rushing forward and grabbing his arm. "Do you understand what that means? I am your primary sponsor! You are my personal champion now! The Ghost Scrapper belongs to the Crown Domain!"
"His vector alignment was perfect," Lyra’s voice drifted from the hallway. The Goddess of Aether walked out of the study, looking completely flushed.
Her silver hair was a mess, her glasses were slightly crooked, and she was clutching a stack of papers covered in chaotic math. "You broke the predictive algorithms, Zen. You broke them. I need to dissect your logic core right now."
And then, Selene stumbled out of the guest room.
The Saintess looked completely unhinged. Her white silk nightgown was slightly singed at the edges from the sheer output of holy magic she had channelled. Her silver eyes were blown wide, filled with tears of euphoric devotion.
"I saved you," Selene whispered, falling to her knees on the marble floor of the foyer. She clasped her hands together, staring up at him. "You were bleeding, and I cleansed the dirty monster. I proved my devotion to you on the live feed."
Zen stood perfectly still in the center of the foyer.
He was covered in freezing ash, his muscles were screaming in pain, and his right forearm had a faint, completely healed scar where the holy laser had stitched his skin back together.
He looked at Valeria, who wanted to fight him. He looked at Aurelia, who claimed she bought him. He looked at Lyra, who wanted to dissect him. And he looked at Selene, who was currently worshipping him.
From the darkness of the second-floor landing, Nyx leaned over the railing. She was sucking on her lollipop, her purple eyes glowing in the shadows, and a wicked grin spread across her face.
She caught Zen’s eye and gave him a slow, mocking salute.
Zen let out a long, heavy exhale, closing his eyes as a massive headache began to pulse behind his temples.
He was the Emperor of the World. He had slain Void Leviathans, conquered continents, and rewritten the laws of magic itself.
But looking at the five S-Rank yanderes standing in his living room, completely feral with adrenaline and acting as his unhinged stream moderators, Zen was reminded of a truth he had been avoiding.
Surviving the Abyssal Trench was easy.
Surviving this townhouse was going to be hell.