Arthur Sterling stood his ground. His chest heaved slightly as his dark eyes locked onto the new arrivals.

Gildas was the Regional Manager of Sector 4. He was a grotesquely obese and four armed entity draped in gaudy purple silks that strained against his bloated physique.

His four eyes gleamed with pure and unfiltered avarice. He looked past the battered trio and stared hungrily at the mountains of glowing silver Merit Energy behind them.

Flanking the Manager were twelve elite Spire Guards. They were clad in polished and high density energy armor. Their stun batons crackled with a lethal and humming voltage.

"Thank you for opening the vault, anomalies." Gildas sneered. His voice was a wet and bubbling sound that grated against the ears.

"I will be taking that Merit Energy to balance my own books now. Guards. Kill them all.

Leave no trace of these glitches."

"We just busted our asses cracking a Debt Golem, just to hand it over to you?" Cassia scoffed. Her silver eyes narrowed in contempt.

"Charge!" the lead Spire Guard barked loudly.

The twelve heavily armored enforcers lunged forward in perfect and synchronized formation.

Arthur blurred into motion. He did not have his million fold multiplier. He also did not have the reality bending comfort of Absolute Order.

He ducked under a sweeping strike from the first guard and stepped cleanly inside the man’s reach.

He did not throw a punch. He extended his hand with his fingers curling into a rigid spear. Then he drove his palm directly up into the soft joint beneath the guard’s armpit.

"CRACK!"

The guard shrieked in pain. His weapon clattered to the mirrored floor as the nerve cluster in his shoulder was violently ruptured.

Arthur did not stop at all. He pivoted on his heel and grabbed the stumbling man by the collar. He hurled him directly into the path of two advancing guards, sending all three crashing to the ground in a tangled heap of polished armor.

"BOOM!"

Cassia moved across the battlefield like a lethal shadow. Her stun pistols barked in rapid succession. She did not aim for the chest plates. She aimed for the joints.

High density plasma rounds slammed into the knees and elbows of the Spire Guards. The heat melted the armor and fused the joints together completely. The guards toppled over and became entirely immobilized by their own melted suits.

Vane fought with pure hero fury. He did not use the edge of his blade. He used the flat side like a massive steel baseball bat.

"CLANG!"

The broadsword slammed into the side of a guard’s helmet. The sheer kinetic force rattled the man’s skull and instantly knocked him unconscious.

Vane spun around. He used the momentum of the heavy weapon to sweep the legs out from under another enforcer. He sent the guard crashing down onto the hard floor.

They were a perfectly balanced unit. Arthur acted as the surgical tactician. Cassia acted as the ranged disruptor. Vane acted as the unbreakable vanguard.

Gildas watched his elite guard get systematically dismantled without a single fatality. His four eyes widened in genuine panic.

"Useless trash!" the Manager squealed. "I will handle this myself!"

The bloated entity raised all four of his arms.

The ambient Merit Energy in the vault violently reacted to his administrative authority.

The silver mist swirling around the room was forcefully sucked toward him. It condensed into a massive and blindingly bright sphere of reality warping magic hovering just above his hands.

"He is overriding everything!" Cassia yelled as she ducked behind a pillar of solidified silver. "That is an Area of Effect erasure spell! It is going to wipe the whole room!"

"Get down!" Arthur commanded.

The gravity in the vault instantly intensified. The polished floor groaned under the sheer conceptual weight of the spell Gildas was weaving. It was a massive and desperate attack designed to completely obliterate their physical forms.

Arthur did not run for cover. He planted his boots firmly on the ground. His legs strained against the crushing pressure. He reached down into the mountain of wealth beside him.

His calloused fingers closed around a massive and heavy ingot of pure solidified Merit Energy. It was raw and highly volatile cosmic capital.

"You want the assets so badly, Gildas?"

Arthur sneered with his arm pulling back. "Take them!"

Arthur threw the heavy silver ingot like a major league fastball.

"WHOOSH!"

The block of pure energy sailed through the air. It completely bypassed the charging guards and slammed directly into the dead center of the glowing sphere hovering above the hands of Gildas.

The reaction was instantaneous. The reality warping spell was designed to consume ambient mana. But injecting a highly concentrated solid block of pure Merit Energy directly into its core was the equivalent of throwing a brick into a jet engine.

"No! Wait!" Gildas shrieked loudly. His four arms frantically tried to contain the destabilizing magic.

"KRAA-THOOM!"

The spell catastrophically overloaded. The sphere imploded and sent a violent shockwave of kinetic force ripping through the vault. The explosion did not erase anything. It just released pure concussive pressure.

Gildas was caught at ground zero. The bloated Manager was launched backward.

His gaudy purple silks shredded as he slammed brutally against the heavy starlight doors.

He collapsed to the floor in a miserable and groaning heap. His four arms were twisted at unnatural angles.

The remaining conscious Spire Guards dropped their weapons and scrambled back. They were terrified of the sheer destructive output.

Arthur slowly walked forward. He wiped a thin streak of blood from his nose. His muscles ached and his lungs burned, but his eyes were cold and dead. He stopped right in front of the whimpering Manager.

"Please!" Gildas begged while coughing up a mouthful of silver blood. He looked up at the towering man in the dark ruined coat.

"I can pay you! I can transfer billions to your account! Just let me live!"

Authur could have released him but someone else still has personal issues.

Vane stepped up beside Arthur with his broadsword raised high. The scarred hero had eyes that burned with righteous disgust.

"You sold out your own people. You starved the Margin to line your own pockets. You do not get to buy your way out of this."

Vane swung the heavy blade downward. He aimed directly for the neck of Gildas.

"SMACK!"

Arthur shot his hand out. His fingers clamped like a vice around the thick wrist of Vane. He halted the massive sword mere inches from the Manager’s throat.

"What the hell are you doing, Arthur?!" Vane roared while fighting against the grip. "He is a parasite, He needs to die"

"If you kill him, you inherit his cosmic debt,"

Arthur stated coldly. His gaze never left Gildas.

"The system tracks the flow of assets and liabilities. You sever his soul, the Omniverse transfers his negative balance directly onto you. You will be erased before you can even blink."

Vane froze on the spot. His jaw clenched in absolute frustration. He slowly lowered the sword. "Then what do we do? Let him walk?"

"Not sure if he is going to walk freely after this," Arthur said smoothly.

[Ding!]

[System Interface Accessed.]

"System," Arthur commanded. "Initiate the Foreclosure protocol. Transfer all stolen assets located on Gildas directly back to the central Omniverse treasury. Flag the transaction for immediate audit."

[Processing Request...]

[Foreclosure Protocol Initiated.]

↳ Assets transferring.

A blinding beam of blue light erupted from the chest of Gildas. The countless spatial rings hidden within his robes shattered to pieces.

A literal river of stolen Merit Energy forcefully ripped itself from his possession. It shot straight up through the ceiling and vanished into the cosmic ether.

Gildas screamed loudly. It was not in physical pain. It was in the absolute and soul crushing agony of total bankruptcy.

"You just drained him dry," Cassia said as she stepped up to the side of Arthur. She had a wide and deeply impressed smile on her face.

"I returned the capital to the bank," Arthur corrected while adjusting his collar. "And when a bank suddenly receives a massive undocumented deposit, they send someone to balance the books."

As if on cue, the air in the center of the vault folded inward. A perfectly smooth geometric portal tore open.

Stepping out of the void was Inspector Sol.

The tall Auditor held his time rapier casually at his side. He surveyed the groaning guards and the weeping and completely destitute Regional Manager. Finally, he looked at Arthur.

He had a different purpose this time,

The Inspector did not attack. He raised his hand and the time rapier dissolved into glowing dust.

"You have balanced the books, Mr. Sterling," Sol said. His voice was a calm and measured drone.

"The corruption of Manager Gildas has been verified. The stolen assets have been recovered. The audit on your person is formally concluded."

Authur knew Sol couldn’t attack cos he was a man of rules but his heart was beating as fast as possible.

Arthur offered a slow and predatory smirk. "Glad we could do business."