The grueling duel in the center of the Regional Reserve’s lobby was a brutal agonizing lesson in humility for the Emperor of the Ebon Citadel.

"CLANG! CLANG! WHOOSH!"

Arthur Sterling was losing. He was physically outmatched by the ancient Auditor.

Without the safety net of his million-fold multiplier, and without the reality-warping comfort of Absolute Order, he was forced to rely entirely on his raw unaugmented reflexes.

And against a being who wielded solidified time as a weapon, human reflexes were woefully inadequate.

"Argh!" Arthur grunted. He violently twisted his torso to avoid a lethal thrust aimed at his chest.

The shimmering rapier missed his heart but sliced cleanly through the fabric of his coat near his ribs.

Instantly, a patch of skin on his side withered and sagged. The muscle beneath ached with the phantom pain of advanced age.

His right arm had already aged by a decade. It trembled as he brought the heavy Ebonheart Sword up to block the next strike.

Sol’s face remained a mask of polite chilling indifference. "Your stamina is failing, Mr. Sterling. The human vessel, no matter how heavily modified by illegal cultivation, is bound by the inevitable decay of entropy. I am merely accelerating the process."

Arthur didn’t waste breath on a witty retort.

He was bleeding time. He was sweating profusely. The agonizing ache in his joints screamed at him to drop the sword.

But a corporate liquidator never surrendered. If the direct approach was failing, it was time to pivot the strategy.

Arthur’s pitch-black eyes darted away from Sol’s blade. He analyzed the environment.

The massive towering pillars of solidified crystal that supported the data ocean above weren’t just decorative architecture. In the magical space of the Regional Reserve, they were the physical manifestations of the Omniversal tax codes.

They held the very fabric of the room together.

’If you can’t beat the man,’ Arthur thought. A cold ruthless smile touched his lips. ’Break the building.’

Sol lunged. It was a perfectly executed lunge aimed at Arthur’s throat.

"SHAAAAANK!"

Arthur didn’t block. He threw his entire center of gravity to the left. He dived into a heavy ungraceful roll across the mirrored floor.

He popped up next to one of the massive crystal pillars. His aged arm screamed in protest.

He gripped the Ebonheart Sword with both hands. He used his legs to generate pure kinetic torque and swung the heavy blade directly into the base of the pillar.

"CRACK! BOOM!"

The pitch-black metal bit deep into the crystal. A massive jagged fissure spider-webbed up the length of the column.

The entire lobby violently shuddered. The digital ocean of ledgers above them flickered erratically.

Sol stopped his advance. His perfectly groomed brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

"Vandalism will not balance your ledger, Mr. Sterling. It only adds to your Destruction Tax."

"It’s called corporate restructuring!" Arthur yelled. He ignored the pain and ripped the sword free. He darted toward the next pillar.

Meanwhile, deep within the inner corridors of the Reserve, Cassia and Vane were standing before a colossal glowing vault door forged from condensed starlight.

Cassia’s hands were a blur of motion. She typed frantically on a holographic decryption pad she had hardwired into the door’s locking mechanism.

Sparks of purple Stardusk energy hissed and popped as she violently wrestled with the highest-tier security algorithms in the multiverse.

Vane paced behind her like a caged tiger. The scarred frontiersman gripped his broadsword tightly. His eyes constantly darted back down the hallway they had just cleared.

He could feel the massive rhythmic tremors shaking the very foundation of the bank.

"He’s fighting an Inspector," Vane growled. His voice was thick with anxiety. "Sol is a myth out here, Cassia. He erases entire bloodlines before breakfast. Arthur doesn’t have his system multiplier. He’s going to die."

Vane took a step back toward the corridor.

"I’m going back. I can take the heat off him."

"Stop," Cassia ordered. She didn’t even look away from the decryption pad. Her voice was sharp and laced with absolute authority.

"Cassia, he’s just a man right now, He’s fighting a God of Time" Vane argued. He gestured wildly down the hall.

Cassia finally paused. She looked over her shoulder at the scarred hero.

Her silver eyes didn’t hold a shred of panic. They held a terrifying absolute trust.

"Vane," she said softly. Her lips curled into a knowing smirk. "He isn’t just a man. He is a shark. And sharks don’t stop swimming."

"He knows exactly what he’s doing. Do your job, and let him do his."

She turned back to the pad and slammed her palm onto the final rune.

"KRAA-THOOM!"

The massive vault door groaned. The locking mechanisms violently disengaged. The heavy starlight metal slowly began to slide open, revealing the blinding intoxicating glow of pure concentrated wealth within.

Back in the lobby, Arthur was running out of steam.

He had successfully cracked four of the primary load-bearing pillars. The magical space was groaning. It rained dust and shards of glowing data down upon the mirrored floor.

But the physical toll was devastating.

Sol had caught him twice more during his desperate sprints between the columns.

Arthur’s left thigh was heavily withered, causing him to limp heavily. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

A streak of grey hair now traced the side of his head. His vitality was actively bleeding into the void.

[Warning: Structural integrity failing. Hostile environment destabilizing.]

The system prompt flickered weakly in his vision. It was a mere ghost of its former glory under the suppression of the Injunction Field.

"This is madness, Arthur," Sol stated. His voice lost its polite edge and was replaced by genuine frustration.

He blurred forward and cut off Arthur’s path to the final pillar. "You are destroying the very bank you came to rob. If the roof collapses, the void will crush us both. Surrender."

"I told you," Arthur panted. He leaned heavily on his sword and wiped a streak of blood from his aged wrinkled cheek. "I don’t settle."

He didn’t run for the pillar. He reached into his coat pocket with his trembling withered hand and pulled out the small heavy runic detonator Cassia had given him earlier.

He had planted a localized EMP charge on the base of the final pillar when he first rolled past it.

Sol’s eyes widened. "No."

Arthur pressed the button. "Checkmate."

"BOOM!"

The explosive charge detonated. The final crystal pillar violently shattered into a million pieces.

A deafening apocalyptic groan echoed through the lobby as the entire roof of the Regional Reserve collapsed inward.

Millions of tons of solid marble, data streams, and crushing void pressure rained down directly upon them.

Sol had no choice. To chase Arthur meant being crushed by the collapsing architecture.

The Inspector raised his time-rapier high above his head and thrust it into the falling debris.

"Absolute Stasis!" Sol commanded.

A massive dome of temporal energy expanded outward from the Auditor. It caught the falling chunks of marble and froze them perfectly in mid-air.

Sol was trapped beneath his own shield. He was forced to maintain the spell or be crushed by the weight of the collapsing ceiling.

Arthur didn’t hesitate. He ignored the agonizing pain in his aged limbs and sprinted toward the inner corridors.

He slipped through the falling debris just outside of Sol’s stasis dome. He left the Inspector pinned in the ruins of his own lobby.