Chapter 138: Free
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SystemAlert:User
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hasdonated10,000,000ManaCredits!UserhasachievedVIPTier1Status!
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orever: You are cleansed, my Ghost Scrapper. You are pure. Please do not let the dirty monsters touch you again. If they do, I will burn the entire sector to ash.
will burn the entire sector to ash.
Zen let out a long, tired sigh. He walked over to the paralyzed, smoking Void-Lich, raised his trench knife, and calmly drove it through the monster’s exposed core, ending its miserable existence.
120
The moment the Void-Lich’s core shattered beneath the steel of Zen’s trench knife, the entire Grave of the Forgotten dungeon seemed to exhale a collective, agonizing breath.
The heavy, suffocating purple fog that had blanketed the mausoleum instantly dissolved, leaving behind the cold, crisp 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.
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SystemNotice:C−RankVoidAnomalyCleared.LocalizedVoiddegradationinSector42hasdroppedby3
Zen pulled his knife out of the crumbling ash and wiped the blade clean on his pant leg. He sheathed the weapon, turning 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.
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x: I CAN’T BREATHE. DID HE JUST ONE-SHOT THE BOSS?!
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lt: He didn’t one-shot it! The literal Goddess of Healing nuked it from orbit! WHO IS THIS GUY?!
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ex: 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?
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mpress: Twenty million a year? Don’t insult him, you peasant. I spend twenty million on my morning tea. Ghost Scrapper, if you join my private guard, 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 the local syndicates that the Ghost Scrapper was still active.
He checked the final balance on the streaming account Nyx had set up for him.
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.
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ProtocolComplete.OriginIPMasked.PublicTraceProbability:0.00
Nyx leaned back, pulling a lollipop out of her pocket and popping it into her mouth. Her purple eyes gleamed with absolute, unadulterated 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 favorite 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 recognized his flawless Vanguard mechanics the second he dodged the first spear. Lyra had isolated his unique logic matrix within three minutes. Aurelia had simply recognized 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 battered sphere into his jacket pocket.
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 manicured 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 localized 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. She had changed out of her sweatpants and was now wearing her full Vanguard combat armor, her massive black-steel broadsword resting casually on her shoulder. Her crimson eyes were dilated, burning with intense, predatory adrenaline.