First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 446: Hauling

The voice came back again, lower this time, stripped of mockery. "If Iron Mandate secures the outer ring, they’ll breach the vault within minutes. You walk away, you lose nothing. I lose everything."

Xavier didn’t turn around. He was still watching the feeds, the flashes of fire and energy tearing through the access tunnels.

"That’s the difference between us," he said. "You’re protecting something. I’m already done with it."

Silence followed.

Then the voice spoke again. "What do you want?"

Xavier finally looked up at the ceiling speaker. "Control long enough to walk out clean. No tricks. No locks closing behind us. Your people don’t point weapons at mine, and mine don’t touch your stash. Of course, I am talking about your 10%."

Rin glanced at him. "That’s it?"

"That’s it," Xavier replied.

"You swear you won’t interfere?" the voice asked.

Xavier’s mouth twitched. "If I wanted this place, you’d already be dead."

Orders snapped across the vault, Graveward units pulling back from the inner chamber, weapons lowering just enough to signal intent without trust. Klatos felt it immediately, the pressure easing as targeting systems disengaged. Arlen confirmed it with a quick glance at her feed. "They’re unlocking internal safeties."

"Good," Xavier said. "Then do what you do best."

The voice exhaled hard. "Graveward, defensive priority. Hold Iron Mandate at the outer corridors. No pursuit inside the vault. No crossfire near the inner chamber."

The response was instant. Units redeployed, barriers flared, heavy weapons spun up. The vault shifted from hostage situation to war room in seconds.

Xavier stepped back from the display. "You fight. We leave when the path clears."

"And if you’re lying?" the voice asked.

Xavier smiled, slow and tired. "Then enjoy explaining to Iron Mandate why this place was empty when they arrived."

The line went quiet.

Graveward squads peeled off in tight formations, locking down corridors, hauling crates deeper into the chamber, dragging portable barricades and shield emitters into place. Bull’s treasure stopped being gold and artifacts and started becoming leverage, every second that passed tightening the knot around everyone involved. Xavier watched it happen without stepping in, leaning back against a crate while Arlen kept pulling feeds and Rin stood near the entrance with his weapons ready.

Then the voice came back.

"They breached the outer perimeter," it announced. "Iron Mandate just punched through the access ring. Heavy units. Fast."

Xavier didn’t even look up. "Then tell your people to hold them. You must have paid a handsome amount to hire them, right? Why not use them properly?"

Static flared as the voice cursed, then barked orders across multiple channels at once. The Graveward Corps shifted immediately, squads rerouting, weapon systems powering up, defensive lines snapping into a new formation like they’d been waiting for the excuse. The sound of distant detonations rolled through the structure, not muffled, but violent and close enough to feel in the floor.

Xavier finally straightened and walked toward a viewing platform built into the vault wall, one of Bull’s old monitoring decks. A wide holo-panel flickered to life, feeding him a fractured view of the outer sector. What he saw made Earth wars look like staged riots.

Iron Mandate units moved like machines, armor layered with adaptive plating, weapons spitting controlled bursts of energy that punched through cover instead of chewing it up. Graveward answered with heavier fire, gravity-based suppression fields, smart munitions that curved mid-flight, drones tearing into each other in midair like swarms of metal insects. Whole corridors collapsed under the exchange, barriers flaring and failing, bodies flying in ways physics would’ve called bullshit back home.

Rin stared at the display, jaw tight. "This is insane."

Arlen didn’t answer. She was watching casualty counters spike and drop, already understanding what this kind of fight cost.

Xavier, on the other hand, looked almost relaxed.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the railing as another explosion washed the feed in white static. "This is what Bull lived in," he said casually. "You don’t hide treasure like this unless you expect armies to come for it."

Outside the vault, the fight escalated, weapons screaming, systems failing, entire sections of the old mine tearing themselves apart under forces that had no business being used underground. And while two private armies tore into each other over wealth and pride, Xavier watched, entertained, already mentally stepping away from the mess as if it no longer belonged to him at all.

The fighting dragged on longer than anyone expected, not because either side was winning cleanly, but because neither of them wanted to be the one who gave up ground first. While Iron Mandate and Graveward chewed through corridors and burned through ammunition outside, the inside of the vault turned into a controlled rush.

Crates were sealed, loose artifacts locked down, raw metals packed into reinforced containers. Xavier didn’t micromanage any of it. He stood near the panel, watching the feeds, letting Arlen flag what mattered, letting Rin and Klatos move people where they needed to be. Every now and then, a distant shock rattled dust from the ceiling, and no one commented on it because commenting wouldn’t change anything.

Once the last container slid into place, Xavier looked up toward the speaker. "So how do you plan to move all this out," he asked, tone flat. "Because if your answer is ’fight our way back,’ I’m leaving without you."

The voice didn’t answer immediately. When it did, it came with irritation layered over reluctance, followed by a string of curses that Klatos didn’t bother translating. "I planned this just in case," it said finally. "Never hoped I’d ever need it."

A section of the far wall vibrated, then peeled open along seams that hadn’t shown up on any scan. Behind it was a rail tunnel, narrow but long, the metal darker, newer than the surrounding structure, unfinished in places like it had been built in a hurry and then abandoned. Faint steam hissed along the track, heat rippling the air.

"Emergency extraction line," the voice went on. "Hardwired. Manual. No network tie-ins. Even Iron Mandate won’t see it unless they’re already inside the vault."

Xavier nodded once. "Figures."

Graveward crews split without argument, some staying behind to hold the line, others helping load the containers onto flatbed rail carts that waited in the tunnel. There were no orders or anything. Just movement, urgency, and the unspoken understanding that anyone staying behind wasn’t guaranteed to walk away. When the last crate was secured, an old engine rumbled to life, steam venting hard enough to fog the tunnel.

They boarded fast.

The train lurched forward, metal screaming against metal as it pulled away from the vault, the sounds of battle fading into a distant roar. No one spoke during the ride. The tunnel twisted and dipped, passing through sections so old they looked carved rather than built, reinforced, intentional, paranoid. After what felt like far too long, the train slowed on its own, brakes shrieking, steam venting in thick clouds.

It rolled to a stop inside a vast underground hub.

Platforms stretched out into the dark, cranes and loaders hanging silent overhead, lights flickering back to life one by one as if the place was waking up after a long sleep. Tracks branched off in multiple directions, disappearing into the depths of Jupiter’s underbelly.

"Yeah," he muttered. "This is definitely the actual ’underworld’ of Jupiter."