The air surrounding the Tower of the Eternal Auditor did not just vibrate; it shrieked.
Garrick, the Sovereign of Iron, stood atop the head of his mechanical dragon, Vulcan-X. The beast was a marvel of forbidden engineering—three hundred feet of articulated obsidian-steel, powered by a core of compressed sun-fire. Every time the dragon breathed, the salt spray of the Pacific turned instantly to steam, creating a localized white-out that obscured the stars.
Han Jue stood on the balcony of his penthouse, his liquid-obsidian armor rippling like a black flame. To any normal observer, this was a suicide match. Garrick was Level 88, a veteran of a hundred S-Rank rifts. Han Jue was Level 35, a "new money" upstart with a system no one understood.
"You speak of environmental debt, boy?" Garrick's voice was a rhythmic grinding of gears, amplified by his power armor. "My factories built the walls that keep the monsters out of the cities. My iron is the skeleton of civilization! You're just a parasite sitting on a pile of stolen pearls!"
"Civilization's skeleton is overdue for a bone-density check, Garrick," Han Jue replied. He raised the Sovereign's Quill, the blade now dripping with the dark, viscous ink of the Ledger of the Lost. "You've siphoned the mana-veins of the Atlantic to power your assembly lines. You've left three coastal nations in 'Mana-Poverty' just to upgrade your dragon. In my book, that's not building; that's embezzlement."
[Target: Garrick (Sovereign of Iron)] [Total Debt: 45,000,000 Soul Points (Resource Monopolization & Environmental Theft)] [Audit Status: PENDING.]
"Talk is cheap!" Garrick roared. "Vulcan-X, INCINERATE!"
The mechanical dragon opened its maw. A beam of white-hot plasma, focused by a series of rotating lenses, shot toward the tower. The heat was so intense that the balcony began to melt into slag before the beam even arrived.
"Brother, let me!" Han Ling stepped forward, her violet-gold eyes flashing.
"No," Han Jue said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "He's a Sovereign. He'll take it as an insult if his primary debtor doesn't answer the door. Use your 'Secretary' skills to stabilize the Tower's foundation. I'm going to go over his receipts."
The Sovereign Collision
Han Jue didn't dodge. He stepped off the balcony, walking directly into the path of the plasma beam.
[Skill Activated: Sovereign Immunity (Rank SS).] [Effect: 40% Damage Reduction applied to High-Rank attacks.] [Skill Activated: Audit of the Divine.] [Effect: 95% Hard-Capped Damage Reduction from Level-Gap.]
The plasma beam hit Han Jue. The world turned a blinding, crystalline white. Elena Sol, watching from the bridge of the Aegis-7, shielded her eyes. "He's gone," she whispered. "No one survives a Vulcan-Class beam point-blank."
But as the light faded, a black silhouette remained suspended in the air.
Han Jue's Void-Breaker Suit was glowing with a faint, violet luminescence. The plasma hadn't burned him; it had been "Taxed." The energy was flowing into his boots, providing him with enough thrust to hover effortlessly in the steam-filled air.
"My turn," Han Jue whispered.
He vanished.
[Shadow Step - Vertical Dash!]
Garrick barely had time to adjust his sensors before Han Jue appeared directly in front of the dragon's snout. The Sovereign's Quill came down, not in a slash, but in a heavy, overhead strike.
"LIQUIDATE!"
The blade struck the dragon's forehead. There was no explosion. Instead, a ripple of black ink spread across the metal, turning the glowing blue runes of the dragon into dull, grey lead.
[Asset Seized: Vulcan-X Left Eye (Optics).] [Asset Seized: Vulcan-X Plasma Regulator.]
The mechanical dragon shrieked, its plasma beam sputtering out like a dying candle. It began to tilt in the air, its left side completely unresponsive to Garrick's commands.
"What?! You... you're deleting my systems?!" Garrick screamed, his wrench glowing with blue electricity. He leaped from the dragon, swinging the massive tool at Han Jue's head. "That dragon cost six billion credits and twenty S-Rank cores!"
"Then you should have insured it," Han Jue said, parrying the wrench with his Quill.
The impact sent a shockwave that cleared the steam for miles. Han Jue felt the weight of Garrick's Level 88 strength. Even with his reductions, the force was like being hit by a falling building. His internal organs groaned, and a notification flickered: [Vitality: 82%].
But Garrick felt something worse. Every time their weapons clashed, he felt a part of his mana vanish. It wasn't being spent; it was being confiscated.
[Passive: Usury - Active.] [Mana Taxed from Garrick: 4,000...] [Mana Taxed from Garrick: 8,000...]
"You're a leech!" Garrick swung again, his movements becoming frantic. "I'll crush you and your tower into scrap!"
The Secretary's Intervention
While the two Sovereigns traded blows that reshaped the clouds, Vulcan-X was not idle. Despite being partially blinded, the dragon's automated repair nanites were working overtime. It prepared to launch a swarm of 'Micro-Missiles'—hundreds of self-guided, mana-explosives designed to level the Tower.
"Audit Policy: No unauthorized projectiles in the workspace," Han Ling said, standing on the edge of the roof.
She raised her hands, and the gold-and-violet aura around her expanded into a massive, translucent screen—a literal holographic ledger.
[Han Ling Skill: Abyssal Secretary - 'Document Redaction'.] [Target: Vulcan-X Missile Array.]
As the missiles launched, they didn't explode. Instead, as they passed through Han Ling's aura, they simply... vanished. It was as if they had been erased from a page of text. They didn't hit a barrier; they ceased to exist as 'Assets' in the world.
"Document rejected," Ling-er said, a small, cold smile on her lips. "Reason: Lack of proper filing fees."
The mechanical dragon roared in confusion, its sensors unable to track where its own weapons had gone.
The Storm's Backstab
The battle reached its crescendo. Han Jue and Garrick were a blur of black ink and blue sparks. Han Jue's Public Trust buff was keeping him in the fight, his power growing with every second the world watched the "Underdog" stand up to the "Iron Tyrant."
[Public Trust: +145%.] [Current Strength: Level 35 → Effective Level 78.]
"It's over, Garrick," Han Jue said, his Quill glowing with a deep, hungry purple. "Your dragon is blind, your mana is at 30%, and your credit score is in the gutter. Surrender, and I might leave you with enough iron to build a toaster."
"Never!" Garrick raised his wrench for a final, desperate strike. "I am the Sovereign of—"
Suddenly, the sky turned black.
This wasn't the steam from the dragon or the shadows of the tower. This was a sudden, unnatural hurricane. Lightning—bright, jagged, and smelling of ancient ozone—descended from the zenith, striking both Han Jue and Garrick simultaneously.
BOOM!
The explosion threw both Sovereigns apart. Han Jue felt his Sovereign Immunity trigger, but the lightning was so concentrated that his health dropped to [65%] in a single strike.
A high, melodic laughter echoed from the storm clouds.
"Oh, look at you two," a woman's voice whispered, sounding like the wind through a graveyard. "Fighting over the sea like children in a bathtub. It's almost adorable."
A woman descended from the eye of the hurricane. She wore robes made of living lightning, and her hair was a cloud of silver mist. She held a staff carved from a lightning-struck World Tree.
[Target: Selas (Sovereign of Storms)] [Level: 92] [Status: Third-Party Intervener.]
"Selas!" Garrick growled, his armor sparking. "This is a private audit! Get your clouds out of my airspace!"
"Your airspace?" Selas smiled, and another bolt of lightning struck the ocean, vaporizing a thousand fish. "Garrick, dear, you're losing. And I can't have a D-Rank scavenger owning the Pacific. It's bad for the 'Atmosphere'."
She turned her glowing blue eyes toward Han Jue. "And you... little Auditor. You've caused quite a mess. The WAO was useful to me. Their 'protection fees' funded my storms. Now that you've bankrupted them, I think I'll just take your Heart... and your Tower."
[WARNING: MULTIPLE SOVEREIGN ENGAGEMENT.] [The Audit has become a 'Global Conflict'.] [System Suggestion: Use 'Market Crash' immediately.]
Han Jue stood up, wiping a trail of blood from his chin. He looked at Garrick, then at Selas. He was trapped between the Hammer and the Storm.
"You two really don't get it, do you?" Han Jue said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm whisper. He reached into his interface and pulled out the Class Evolution Shard. "You think this is a fight about levels or mana. But you're both missing the most important part of any business."
"And what's that?" Selas asked, raising her staff.
"Liquidity," Han Jue said.
He crushed the Class Evolution Shard in his hand.
[Requirement Met: Defeat one other Sovereign (Assumed via Market Dominance).] [Class Evolution Initiated: Abyssal Governor → SOVEREIGN OF THE LEDGER.]
A pillar of absolute darkness erupted from Han Jue, devouring the lightning, the steam, and even the mechanical dragon's light. The Pacific Ocean itself began to drain into the black hole he had become.
[New Skill: 'Global Recession'.] [Effect: For the next 60 seconds, every enemy within 5 miles has their Level reduced to 1. All 'stolen' levels are added to the Auditor.]
"What... what is this?!" Selas screamed as her lightning turned into mere static. Her robes of light faded into grey wool.
Garrick's iron armor began to rust and fall apart, his mechanical dragon crumbling into a heap of useless junk.
Han Jue stepped out of the darkness. He was taller, his eyes now pure white, glowing with the data of the world. He reached out and grabbed the air itself, and the entire storm system—the hurricane Selas had spent years cultivating—was sucked into his palm.
"Class is in session," Han Jue said, looking at the two 'Sovereigns' who were now shivering, Level 1 humans on a sinking deck. "And today, we're talking about Bankruptcy."