Chapter 120: Paid in Full

Chapter 120: Chapter 120: Paid in Full

Donald got up off the floor of the oath room slowly, with one hand pressed against his broken ribs, while Park Jae-won stood in the middle of the room and waited for him.

[HP: 61%.]

[Mana: 83 / 123.]

[Speed: 146 (Temporary). Siphon effect ends in 4:10.]

"Sit down, Investor," Park said. "You can’t hurt me, and every time you try, you’ll only hurt yourself. Sell me the Aldmere locks, and I’ll let the anchor go back to sleep. That offer is still on the table."

"Seo-yeon," Donald said, without looking away from Park. "When I hit him, did you see anything?"

"A line," she said at once. She was standing by the lock column with her hands raised, and her voice was steady. "Gold, very thin. It ran from his back to your gauntlet the moment you touched him, and it was gone a second later."

"That’s the bill," Donald said. "Could you cut it?"

"If I’m fast enough."

Park’s smile didn’t change, but he moved.

He came across the oath room so fast that the air cracked behind him. Even with Nyx’s stolen speed, Donald barely got the gauntlet up in time, and the old man’s open palm struck it flat and hard. It wasn’t a punch. It was a touch, and Donald felt something go out of him through the steel.

[Collector’s Mark applied (Sovereign Grade).]

[Strength: -20%. Transferred to holder.]

"Kang took a tenth," Park said pleasantly. "I take a fifth. Shall we see how many times you can let me touch you?"

Donald stepped into his own shadow and came out of the shadow of an unconscious ring-bearer on the far side of the room.

[Mana: 83 → 43.]

Sylvia came up out of the floor behind Park with both daggers reaching for his throat.

"Wait—" Seo-yeon cried.

It was too late. Both blades struck the side of his neck and stopped dead, and a gold line flashed from Park’s skin back up the steel into Sylvia’s hands. She was thrown across the room as if she had hit herself with her own strike, and she landed hard against the wall with blood running from two shallow cuts across her own throat.

"I saw it," Seo-yeon said, white-faced. "I saw it, but I was a half second late."

Sylvia pressed her hand to her neck and got back up on one knee. The cuts weren’t deep. She had pulled the strike at the last instant, the moment she understood, and it had saved her life.

"Next time," she said hoarsely, "tell me before I swing."

---

[Anchor waking in: 41:20.]

Park didn’t press them. He stood in the center of the room with his hands folded again, as if he had all the time in the world, and in a way he did. Every minute that passed brought the anchor closer to waking. If it woke while the Signet was still contesting the lock, the gate would open under Hanseong with Paimon’s ring holding the door.

Donald crouched beside Sylvia and spoke low and fast.

"He doesn’t need to beat us. He only needs to wait," he said. "So we only get one more try, and it has to be the ring, not him. Kang’s ring cracked the moment it came off his finger. If we break the Chairman’s, the contest ends, and the bearer goes free."

"And the bill?" Sylvia asked.

"Seo-yeon cuts it the moment it appears. She’ll be watching the ring, not him, so she’ll see it a half second sooner." He looked across the room. "Seo-yeon. How much mana does it take to cut a bill line?"

"Eighty," she said. "Same as the others. It’s thin."

"Then you’ll only need one."

He stood up, and Park watched him do it with polite interest.

"You’ve made a plan," Park said. "Good. I like watching plans fail."

"Nyx," Donald said.

The cat came down off the ceiling, where she had been hanging since the ring-bearers fell, and landed on Park’s head.

She didn’t try to siphon him, and she didn’t scratch him, because anything Nyx took from him or did to him would come back to her as a bill. Instead she spread her wings across his face and held on, screaming, so that he couldn’t see, and Park raised both hands to tear her off.

That was the opening.

Sylvia went into his shadow and came up holding it. She didn’t strike him. She took his shadow in both hands and pulled, and the dark wrapped around his legs and his left arm and held them in place. Binding him wasn’t damage, so no gold line came back to her. Park’s right hand came away from his face with Nyx’s fur in it, and for the first time all night the patient smile was gone.

Donald came out of the shadow under Park’s raised right arm.

[Mana: 43 → 3.]

He drove the Pile Bunker straight up at the ring on Park’s finger with every point of strength he had left.

The piston struck the black stone.

A gold line flashed from the ring back toward the gauntlet. It moved faster than anything Donald had ever seen, but this time Seo-yeon was already watching the exact spot it would come from, with her fingers already closing.

"[Severing Seal]."

The blue light met the gold line halfway between the ring and the gauntlet and cut it in two.

The bill had nowhere to go.

The full force of the Pile Bunker went into the black stone, and the stone shattered. It didn’t crack the way Kang’s had. It burst apart into black dust, the gold band split and fell from Park’s finger in two pieces, and a sound came out of the broken ring that Donald felt in his teeth, a long, low cry from somewhere very far away.

Under it, for one moment, he heard a voice. It was smooth and patient and not Park’s at all.

You’ve bought yourself a city, Investor. Now you’ll learn what it costs to keep one.

Then it was gone.

[Signet of the Crowned King: Destroyed.]

[Contest on Hanseong Anchor Lock: Ended.]

[Bearer Park Jae-won: No longer bound.]

[Collector’s Mark: Dissolved. Strength restored.]

---

Park fell, and Seo-yeon caught him before he hit the floor.

He was lighter than he looked, and in her arms he seemed to shrink, the tight skin of his face going loose and gray again, his breathing shallow and quick. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. They were wet and frightened and very old, but they were his own.

"Seo-yeon-a," he whispered. "What year is it?"

She told him, and he closed his eyes for a long moment.

"Joon," he said. "Is the boy home?"

Seo-yeon’s face broke. She held him tighter and put her cheek against his white hair.

"No, Father," she said. "But we’re going to go and visit him. Both of us. Soon."

Donald turned away and gave them that, and raised his hand toward the column of blue light.

[Anchor waking in: 36:02.]

"[Hostile Takeover]."

[Target: Hanseong Anchor Lock]

[Status: Unheld. Uncontested.]

[Appraised Value: 64,000,000 System Credits.]

[Current Balance: 71,460,000 System Credits.]

[Purchase Confirmed?]

"Buy it."

[64,000,000 Credits Deducted.]

[Current Balance: 7,460,000 System Credits.]

[Ownership Transferred: Hanseong Anchor Lock now held by The Investor.]

[Anchor Status: Dormant.]

The column of blue light turned gold from the floor to the ceiling, and the whine faded back into a low, even hum.

[Note: Ring-bound access to the anchor network through Hanseong has been severed.]

[Lien Mark on Genesis City Anchor: Dissolved. No access path remains.]

[Liens on Genesis City districts: Dissolved.]

---

Seven thousand kilometers west, two hundred and nineteen Bailiffs stopped walking at the same moment.

Evelyn had her sword raised over the nearest one, and she held the blow and watched. The gold masks turned toward the east, all together, as if they were listening for an order. Then, one after another, they came apart into smoke and blew away across the Glass Field, until there was nothing left but empty coats and gold masks lying on the black glass.

Behind her, the crack over the anchor sealed itself shut, and the black sun cut into the glass faded and was gone.

[Wall Defense Grid: Bailiffs on field: 0.]

[Sector 2: Lien removed.]

Evelyn lowered Starfall and put her hand flat against her chest, where the tether was. The knot that had been sitting there since the night before had loosened all at once.

"Damian," she said, and her voice wasn’t quite steady. "Tell Helena she can start."

---

[Quest Complete: The Crowned King’s Table.]

[Reward: 2,000,000 System Credits. Genesis anchor turn unlocked.]

[Current Balance: 9,460,000 System Credits.]

[Investor Tier Progress: Silver → Gold.]

[Requirement Met: Anchor of a major city secured (Hanseong, 1 of 1 lock held).]

[Gold Tier advancement will process at next rest.]

Donald read the windows, closed them, and sat down on the white floor of the oath room with his back against the golden column, because his legs would no longer hold him up.

Sylvia sat down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, and Nyx curled up in his lap.

Across the room, Kang knelt beside Seo-yeon and her father-in-law, and none of them said anything for a long time.

[HP: 61%. Mana: 3 / 123.]