Chapter 54: The Market Shift

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: The Market Shift

The top floor of the Iron Guild headquarters was supposed to be a sanctuary of absolute power. This morning, it sounded like a sinking ship.

Three different high-end desk phones were ringing simultaneously, their shrill chimes cutting through the heavy tension in the massive office. A dozen holographic screens floated above the mahogany desk, displaying real-time financial tickers. Every single graph was flashing a violent, rapidly dropping red.

Sterling stood with his back to the desk, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Genesis City skyline. His hands were clasped behind his back, his knuckles completely white.

The heavy oak doors opened silently. Damian stepped inside, his slanted eyes sweeping over the ringing phones and the crashing stock graphs. He didn’t look panicked. The bald secretary simply walked to the desk and manually muted the phones one by one.

"The board of directors is demanding an emergency meeting," Damian reported, his voice smooth and devoid of inflection. "Two of our largest political backers have publicly distanced themselves. And Thorne Financial just put a freeze on our credit lines."

Sterling didn’t turn around. "The registry update. Tell me it was a system glitch. Tell me Vance hacked the Association’s mainframe."

"It was not a glitch, Guild Master," Damian said quietly. "I paid off an examiner in the testing block. Evelyn stepped into the primary crystal array this morning. She completely overwhelmed the D-to-A-Rank capacity thresholds. The machine had to initiate an emergency shutdown to prevent a detonation."

Sterling’s massive shoulders went rigid.

"She is an S-Rank," Damian confirmed. "Her class evolved to Valkyrie. The public record is completely verified. The entire city knows."

The sound of Sterling’s fist hitting the reinforced glass window was like a cannon shot. The enchanted glass didn’t break, but a deep, vibrating hum echoed through the large office.

"It’s a lie," Sterling growled, finally turning around. His gray eyes were bloodshot, completely stripped of their usual charismatic calm. "A shattered core doesn’t heal. It definitely doesn’t evolve! She was a broken A-Rank bleeding out in an alley. I watched the doctors declare her finished."

"The boy," Damian said smoothly. "Her backer. He is the variable. I warned you he possessed high-tier holy mana. I severely underestimated his output. He didn’t just heal her. He must have forcefully expanded her core. To do that without killing her... his resources must be astronomical."

Before Sterling could respond, the office doors were shoved open violently.

Kaelen stormed into the room. The A-Rank Berserker wasn’t wearing his polished charcoal armor. He was in sweatpants and a tight training shirt, sweating profusely. His face was pale, his eyes wide and frantic. He looked like a man who had just been handed his own death warrant.

"Tell me it’s fake!" Kaelen shouted, completely ignoring Damian and marching straight toward Sterling. "The news feeds. The registry. Tell me it’s a damn PR stunt!"

Sterling narrowed his eyes. "Lower your voice, Kaelen. You are the Champion of the Iron Guild."

"I am a dead man!" Kaelen roared, slamming his massive hands onto Sterling’s desk, shattering two of the holographic projectors. "I am Level 42! I’m a brawler! I’m not getting into an arena with a mythical class! An S-Rank will cut me in half before the bell even finishes ringing. The duel is off. I’m pulling my entry."

Kaelen turned to walk out.

He didn’t make it two steps.

Sterling moved with terrifying, A-Rank speed. He closed the distance instantly, his massive hand shooting out and clamping directly around Kaelen’s thick throat.

Kaelen choked, his hands instinctively coming up to grab Sterling’s wrist, but the Guild Master’s grip was like an industrial hydraulic press. Sterling lifted the six-foot-six Berserker entirely off the floor, his aura flaring so violently that the heavy mahogany desk behind them cracked down the middle.

"You are not pulling anything," Sterling whispered, his voice dropping into a demonic, guttural register.

He slammed Kaelen backward against the wall. The drywall spider-webbed on impact. Kaelen gasped for air, his legs kicking uselessly.

"Our stock is in free-fall," Sterling snarled, leaning in so close that Kaelen could feel his breath. "The city thinks the Iron Guild is a fraud. They think we threw away a demigod and replaced her with a weak, cowardly dog. If you walk away from that duel, this Guild collapses. And if this Guild collapses, I will personally pull your spine out through your throat."

Sterling dropped him.

Kaelen hit the floor hard, coughing violently and clutching his bruised neck. He looked up at Sterling, genuine terror in his eyes. He realized he was trapped between a monster and a demigod.

"You fight tomorrow," Sterling ordered coldly, turning his back on the gasping Berserker. "Get out of my sight."

Damian watched Kaelen scramble to his feet and stumble out of the office. The secretary adjusted his tie, completely unfazed by the violence.

"Even if he fights, Guild Master," Damian pointed out mildly, "he cannot win. Evelyn’s base stats will completely overwhelm him."

"Then we make sure the fight isn’t fair," Sterling said, walking back to his desk and looking down at the ruined holographic projectors. "I want the arena wards rigged. And prepare the Vault. We are going to need the relic."

Across the city, in the Zenith Spire penthouse, breakfast was proving to be a logistical nightmare.

Evelyn stood at the kitchen island, staring down at a heavy cast-iron skillet. Inside the pan, three eggs were completely obliterated, mixed with a fine dusting of shattered iron.

She let out a frustrated sigh and dropped the metal spatula. It clattered against the marble counter, leaving a faint, permanent dent in the stone.

"I can’t even crack an egg," Evelyn muttered, rubbing her temples. "I just barely tapped the shell against the rim of the pan, and the whole pan buckled."

Donald sat on one of the high stools, sipping a cup of coffee and hiding a massive grin behind the ceramic mug.

"It’s a Level 1 S-Rank problem," Donald said casually. "Your muscles are holding a ridiculous amount of density. You’re used to putting a specific amount of force into your movements. Now, that same amount of effort carries ten times the payload. You just need to recalibrate."

Evelyn glared at him, though there was no real heat in it. Her blue eyes were bright, practically glowing in the morning light. "It’s not funny. I almost ripped the door off the refrigerator five minutes ago. If I try to hug you right now, I might accidentally break your ribs."

"I have passive regeneration," Donald smirked. "I’ll take my chances."

Donald took another sip of coffee, pulling up his internal system interface while Evelyn carefully tried to sweep the ruined cast iron into the trash.

He had drained his account down to zero the previous night to fund her evolution, dropping his entire ten-million-credit balance to force the S-Rank ceiling open. But the System had heavily compensated him for creating a mythical class. The notification from last night still sat in his logs, bringing a wave of deep satisfaction.

[Milestone Achieved: First S-Rank Asset Created.]

[Class Evolution Bonus: Valkyrie.]

[Reward: +50,000,000 System Credits Deposited.]

[Current Balance: 50,000,000 System Credits.]

Fifty million. It was enough to buy a private island, a small army, or entirely crash a regional economy. And Donald knew exactly how he was going to spend the first chunk of it.

"The news hasn’t stopped talking about it," Evelyn said quietly, looking at the muted television screen in the living room. It was showing a loop of her walking out of the Awakener Association holding the platinum black card. "Sterling must be losing his mind."

Before Donald could answer, the burner phone in his jacket pocket started vibrating.

He pulled it out. Unknown caller.

"Speaking of losing minds," Donald said. He tapped the screen and brought the phone to his ear. "Hello."

"I am going to assume," the smooth, cultured voice of Lady Aris Thorne echoed through the speaker, "that you are the reason the entire financial sector is currently having a collective heart attack."

"Good morning, Aris," Donald smiled, taking a sip of his coffee. "I told you we were staging a hostile takeover. I’m just following through on my pitch."

"An S-Rank Valkyrie," Aris breathed. Even over the phone, Donald could hear the raw disbelief in her voice. "Genesis City hasn’t seen an S-Rank in fifty years. You didn’t just embarrass Sterling at the Gala. You completely invalidated his authority. The Iron Guild stock has dropped twenty-two percent since the market opened an hour ago. It’s a bloodbath."

"Which is exactly why I’m calling you," Donald said, his tone instantly shifting from casual banter to cold, hard business. "You mentioned the other night that Thorne Financial is in debt to the Iron Guild. Twelve million credits."

"I did," Aris said cautiously. "What of it?"

"If Sterling loses his Champion in the arena tomorrow, his Guild collapses," Donald stated. "But if he collapses, his assets get tied up in Association courts for years. Your debt gets frozen, but it doesn’t disappear. You’ll still owe the money to whatever vultures pick his bones clean."

Aris was silent for a long moment. She was a C-Rank Oracle, meaning she was incredibly smart and could read the flow of situations perfectly. "You have a proposal."

"I want to buy his debt," Donald said.

Evelyn, listening from the next stool, slowly turned her head to look at Donald.

"The Iron Guild issued millions in corporate bonds to fund their expansion into the lower sectors," Donald continued smoothly, lying through his teeth about how much he actually understood the corporate structure, but leaning entirely on the raw confidence of his System’s bank account. "Right now, investors are panicked. They are dumping those bonds for pennies on the dollar to escape the blast radius. I want you to act as my proxy. Buy them all."

"Buy them?" Aris asked, genuinely shocked. "Why would you buy the debt of a sinking ship?"

"Because if I hold his debt, I become his primary creditor," Donald explained. "When Kaelen dies in that arena tomorrow, Sterling will default. And when he defaults, I won’t have to wait for the courts. I can legally seize his headquarters, his properties, and his remaining assets immediately."

Aris let out a low, impressed laugh. "You want to steal his crown and his castle on the exact same day. That is incredibly ruthless." She paused. "But buying up that much volume, even at a depreciated value... it requires immense liquid capital. Thorne Financial can broker the trades, but we need the cash upfront. It will cost exactly ten million credits to secure a controlling majority of his debt."

Donald’s golden [Valuation Eye] flickered naturally. He didn’t even blink. He mentally accessed his SSS+ Investor interface.

[Current Balance: 50,000,000 System Credits.]

[Initiate Transfer: -10,000,000 System Credits?]

Send it, Donald thought.

[Processing...]

[Transfer Complete. Current Balance: 40,000,000 System Credits.]

"Check your secure accounts, Aris," Donald said into the phone.

A few seconds passed. Then, a sharp, ragged gasp echoed over the line.

"The transfer just cleared," Aris whispered, her voice stripped of all its usual high-society polish. She was staring at a ten-million-credit wire that had materialized out of thin air, completely untraceable. "Who... who exactly are you working for?"

"I work for myself," Donald said simply. "Start buying, Aris. I want the Iron Guild tied up in a neat little bow by sunset."

He hung up the phone and tossed it onto the counter.

Evelyn was staring at him. Her blue eyes were wide, completely locked onto his face.

"Ten million credits," Evelyn said slowly, like she was tasting the words. "Donald, you just dropped ten million credits on a phone call. After paying five million for this penthouse. And buying Bastian’s gear."

Donald picked up his coffee mug, giving her a calm, easy smile. "I told you on the first day we met, Evie. I’m an Investor. The money isn’t a problem."

"But buying his debt?" Evelyn asked, shaking her head. "You’re actually trying to own the Guild."

"No," Donald corrected her. He reached out and gently tapped his knuckles against her arm, feeling the solid, unbreakable density of her new S-Rank muscles. "I’m buying the Guild for you. Tomorrow, you take off Kaelen’s head. And when Sterling tries to run, we hand him an eviction notice."