[The Underworld - Banks of the River Styx]
The air in the Underworld was suffocating, thick with the scent of ozone, decayed memory, and freezing mist. Millions of pale, translucent souls stood in endless, shivering lines along the muddy banks of the River Styx, waiting to pay the Ferryman to cross into the eternal beyond.
Thanatos, the ancient God of Death, stood at the bow of his massive wooden skiff. He wore a tattered black cloak and held a scythe forged from the first shadow.
"Step forward, mortals," Thanatos's voice was the sound of a closing tomb. "Pay your toll of two copper coins, and leave the world of the living behind."
Suddenly, the freezing mist was pierced by the sharp, rhythmic click of a gold pocket watch.
Victor Thorne walked through the rotting mud, his midnight-blue suit miraculously pristine. He was flanked by Seraphina, her dark business attire cutting through the gloom as she rapidly calculated data on her silver clipboard.
"Two copper coins?" Victor asked smoothly, coming to a halt at the edge of the dark water. "That is an abysmal conversion rate for an eternal transit service. You are leaving capital on the table, Thanatos."
The God of Death slowly turned his skull-like visage toward the human. "A living mortal? Here? Your time has not yet come, Tycoon. Begone, before I harvest your soul."
Victor didn't flinch. He tapped his gold-nibbed pen against the Tycoon's Ledger.
"I am not here to die. I am here to conduct a supply-chain audit," Victor explained, looking out at the millions of souls. "Since I legally acquired the Demon Realm, the Titan Realm, and the Northern Wastes in Chapter 78, the populations of those dimensions are now officially classified as users within the Pantheon Group's ecosystem."
Victor's Tycoon Aura flared, pushing back the primordial fog.
"When my users die and cross your river, they leave my ecosystem," Victor stated coldly. "In the corporate sector, we call that 'Customer Churn'. You are facilitating an unauthorized cross-border asset transfer. You are stealing my user base."
Thanatos threw back his head and laughed, a sound like grinding tectonic plates. "Death is the great equalizer! I am the end of all commerce! You cannot tax the grave!"
"I don't tax the grave. I toll the infrastructure," Victor smiled a ruthless, calculating smile.
Victor slashed his fountain pen across the Tycoon's Ledger.
"Did you know the River Styx is legally classified as an un-zoned astral waterway?" Victor adjusted his cuffs. "Because the Astral Tribunal recently recognized Pantheon Tokens as the universal reserve currency, I was able to purchase the exclusive privatization rights to this river from the cosmic registry."
The dark, flowing waters of the Styx suddenly froze solid. A massive, glowing obsidian toll booth erupted from the riverbed, entirely blocking the Ferryman's path.
"This river is now a privately owned Pantheon Group toll road," Victor checked his Rolex. "And the new transit fee is fifty thousand Pantheon Tokens per soul. I am officially monetizing mortality. Seraphina, set up the turnstiles."