Chapter 580: Cyber Bazaar

Xavier walked over and knelt beside the wounded man, his expression hardening. “Did you track the Demonic Society fleet? Do you have the coordinates to their mothership?”

Luper shook his head weakly, his breath rattling in his chest. “No… they jumped too far into the Abyss. The trail is completely dead.”

Kylus looked down, the crushing weight of disappointment settling over his shoulders again.

“But…” Luper wheezed, his grip tightening. “I intercepted their short-range comms before they vanished. The fleet is funneling resources. They have a high-ranking broker managing their supply lines… and he is stationed right here.”

Xalvoria stepped off the Strider’s ramp, her interest suddenly piqued. “A rat hiding in the walls. Where exactly on this miserable rock?”

“The Neon Wastes,” Luper choked out, his eyes losing focus. “Sector Four. An Abyssal Weaver operating under a corporate front. Find him… he knows where the fleet is heading.”

Luper’s hand went limp, his eyes fluttering shut as he lost consciousness from the severe blood loss.

“Reva, get him into the medical bay and hook him up to the auto-docs immediately,” Xavier instructed, standing up and brushing the dust off his trousers.

Kylus watched Reva carefully carry his crewmate up the ramp. A dangerous, cold fury radiated from the Aurelian. He turned to look at Xavier, his hand resting on the hilt of his thermal cutter.

Xavier simply smirked and cracked his knuckles. ‘Looks like we aren’t leaving Vandermis Aventine just yet.’

“Rin, lock the ship down,” Xavier ordered, turning his gaze toward the hangar exit leading into the sprawling lower city. “We have an appointment in the Neon Wastes.”

Viola seemed to have some knowledge about Vandermis Aventine as though she had been there before.

“Neon Wastes is a small city outside this one. But I don’t have high hopes. I call it a city because it meets all requirements to be acknowledged as a city, but it’s not a city.”

Kylus nodded to himself. “I have been there once back in my early days as a mercenary. I was on a bounty hunt and didn’t know what kind of place it was. Needless to say, I had made up my mind to never go there.”

“Well then,” Xavier gave him a farewell wave and said, “Make sure to guard the ship then. I will take Lyra and Viola with me. The rest of you can leave with the ship before Lorde discovers what we have done, and he sends his army. I don’t want the Helior Prime situation again.”

“When will you be back?” Xalvoria asked. “It feels like a waste of time.”

“It is important to me. If I can find even the slightest clue about the mother ship, then our travel time and ship’s offence and defense will increase 100x more. And it belongs to Bull.”

Kylus once again nodded to himself in the back.

Xavier, Viola, and Lyra left on foot and later hopped into a taxi, but that only took them to the border, and they had to go on foot the rest of the way.

The Neon Wastes lived up to their name, flooding the lower levels of Sector Four with a suffocating haze of green and purple light. Rain mixed with industrial runoff dripped from the overhead transit tracks, splashing onto the crowded streets below.

Viola led them through the bustling alleyways, his dark jacket shielding him from the damp air while his crew blended into the sea of cybernetically altered scavengers.

They stopped outside a sprawling, open-air pavilion known as the Omurada Market. This was the Abyssal Weaver’s front, a high-stakes cyber-bazaar where desperate locals didn’t just gamble credits, but also their remaining lifespans, cybernetic limbs, and biological organs.

‘What a thoroughly charming establishment,’ Xavier thought as he watched a sobbing alien get dragged away from a table after losing a decade of his life to a card dealer.

Viola adjusted the hood of her cloak, her eyes tracking the heavily armed guards patrolling the perimeter. “The Weaver stays locked in his private balcony. He only grants audiences to high-rollers who manage to bankrupt his primary tables. But the games are completely rigged through neural dampeners.”

“Then we will just have to break the house,” Xavier said, flashing a confident grin.

He walked directly toward the center table, where a massive holographic roulette wheel spun with erratic, unnatural movements. Sitting behind the dealer’s terminal was a pale, sharply dressed broker with faint violet veins tracing up his neck, was the Abyssal Weaver’s primary lieutenant.

“The buy-in for the executive circle is ten thousand Universal Space Chips,” the broker stated, his voice dripping with condescension as he glanced at Xavier’s unaugmented human frame. “Or you can wager twenty years of your biological existence.”

Xavier didn’t hesitate. He accessed the Unlimited Money System and authorized a massive conversion.

[ Currency Converted. 1,000,000 USC Deposited into Table Interface. ]

The broker’s terminal chimed loudly, drawing the attention of dozens of nearby gamblers. The smug grin faded from the dealer’s face as he stared at the massive credit balance.

“I’ll bet the entire amount on single zero,” Xavier announced casually, leaning against the edge of the table.

Lyra leaned over the railing, a dangerous spark of amusement dancing in her eyes. “Why go big on the first spin? We could have eaten something first.”

The broker sneered, secretly activating the table’s hidden electromagnetic pulse to force the digital ball away from Xavier’s chosen number. ‘Stupid human. Your wealth belongs to the Weaver now.’

Xavier noticed the subtle ripple of energy under the table. He quietly extended his hand and tapped the rim of the console, channeling a microscopic pulse of his Golden Authority straight into the terminal’s software.

The golden energy completely rewrote the table’s rigged parameters, hijacking the hidden magnets.

The holographic wheel spun to a violent halt. The digital ball snapped directly into the single zero slot.

[ Transaction Successful. Total Winnings: 35,000,000 USC. ]

The broker gasped, his cybernetic eye whirring frantically as he tried to figure out how his cheat codes had failed. “Anomalous result. The table must be malfunctioning.”

“Let’s do it again,” Xavier smiled, pushing the entire thirty-five million back onto the board. “Every chip on number seven this time.”