Chapter 87: Liquidating Assets

Chapter 87: Chapter 87: Liquidating Assets

The vault doors at the back of the factory-citadel were twenty feet tall and forged from solid, enchanted void-iron. A massive, glowing purple magical lock shaped like a demonic skull pulsed in the center of the metal.

Sylvia stepped up to the door, her violet eyes scanning the floor. She frowned.

"The door is flush against the ground. The physical seal is completely airtight," Sylvia reported, stepping back. "I can’t slip my shadow underneath it. We’re going to have to blast it open."

"If we blast it, we might destroy the delicate materials inside," Donald said, stepping up to the glowing skull. "And we are currently on a very strict budget."

He raised his right hand, hovering it an inch over the Abyssal lock.

"[Hostile Takeover]," Donald stated smoothly.

The S-Rank corporate skill activated. A golden holographic receipt materialized over the demonic skull.

[Target Spell: Sovereign’s Ward (A-Rank Lock)]

[Appraised Value: 300,000 System Credits.]

[Purchase Confirmed?]

Donald only had 150,000 Credits in his account. He couldn’t afford it out of pocket.

But Donald was an Investor. He didn’t just spend money; he leveraged assets. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the glowing A-Rank core they had harvested from the Void Centurion yesterday.

"System. Liquidate asset to cover the transaction," Donald ordered.

[Consuming Void Centurion Core (A-Rank).]

[Value: 500,000 Credits. Deducting 300,000 for Purchase. Remaining 200,000 deposited.]

[Transaction Complete. You now own this Ward.]

The glowing purple skull instantly shifted to a bright, corporate gold. The menacing demonic aura vanished.

"Unlock," Donald commanded.

The massive internal deadbolts violently clanked open. The twenty-foot void-iron doors slowly swung inward on perfectly oiled hinges.

"I am never going to get tired of watching you do that," Evelyn laughed, her black ponytail swishing as she walked past him into the vault.

The interior of the vault was staggering. It wasn’t just a safe; it was a dimensional warehouse.

Pallets of refined void-steel were stacked thirty feet high. Massive wooden crates overflowed with highly condensed monster cores, rare abyssal herbs, and heavy ingots of corrupted gold. The sheer monetary value in the room was enough to bankrupt a small nation.

Donald’s golden [Valuation Eye] practically caught fire as red and gold numbers scrolled across his vision.

"Sylvia," Donald said, turning to the assassin. "How much space do you actually have in your shadow?"

Sylvia looked at the mountains of loot, a slow, delighted smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth beneath her half-mask. "The System description said ’infinite mass.’ I guess we’re about to test that."

She stepped up to the first massive pallet of void-steel. She focused her mana and stomped her combat boot.

Her shadow rapidly expanded across the floor, turning into a pool of absolute darkness. The heavy pallet groaned, tipped forward, and seamlessly sank into the flat shadow as if falling into a deep lake. It vanished completely, adding zero weight to her body.

"Oh, this is amazing," Sylvia grinned. She immediately started running through the aisles, dropping her shadow under crates of cores, gold, and weapons, hoovering up the Demon King’s entire treasury like a tactical vacuum cleaner.

While Sylvia handled the heavy lifting, Donald walked over to a massive iron desk in the center of the vault.

Sitting on the desk was a heavy leather ledger. Donald picked it up and flipped it open. The text was written in jagged Abyssal runes, but the System translated it instantly into glowing gold English.

It was a shipping manifest.

Shipment 404: 10,000 Standard Halberds. Destination: Earth Bridgehead (Genesis City).

Shipment 405: 200 Siege Golems. Destination: Earth Bridgehead (Genesis City).

Shipment 406: 50,000 Abyssal Gold Coins. Destination: The Capital (Recipient: Julian Vane).

"Look at that," Donald murmured, tracing the ink with his gloved finger. "Proof."

Julian Vane wasn’t just working with the demons out of self-interest; he was literally on their payroll. The Dragonheart Guild Emissary was receiving dark money directly from the Abyssal factories to fund his political operations on Earth.

Donald checked the signature at the bottom of the ledger.

Authorized by: Demon King Azgalor, The Iron Sovereign.

"Donald. Get over here," Evelyn called out from the back of the vault. Her voice wasn’t excited. It was incredibly serious.

Donald slipped the ledger into his jacket pocket and walked to the back of the room.

Evelyn was standing in front of a heavy, glowing containment field. Inside the field, resting on a pedestal, was a raw, jagged slab of metal the size of an anvil.

It wasn’t dark like the rest of the factory. The metal was radiating a blinding, pure white light. It hummed with a terrifying frequency that made the hair on Donald’s arms stand up.

"The Forge-Master couldn’t use it," Evelyn whispered, her blue eyes reflecting the brilliant light. "It’s completely rejecting the ambient dark mana in this dimension. That’s why they locked it in the back of the vault. They couldn’t melt it, but they didn’t want anyone else to find it."

Donald pulled up his interface and appraised the massive slab.

[Item: Unrefined Astral-Forge Ingot]

[Rank: S-Rank]

[Description: The metallic heart of a fallen star. Highly volatile. It actively consumes and purifies ambient mana. If forged properly, it is completely indestructible and acts as a perfect conduit for celestial magic.]

Evelyn reached out, pressing her hand against the containment field. Her S-Rank wings involuntarily fluttered on her back, reacting to the sheer holy presence of the metal.

"My sword broke because it was made of human steel," Evelyn said, looking at Donald. "If Garrick can forge a blade out of this..."

"You wouldn’t just be a Valkyrie," Donald finished the thought. "You’d be a walking extinction event."

Donald raised his hand and used Hostile Takeover to buy out the containment field’s magic, dropping the barrier instantly.

Evelyn reached out and grabbed the massive, jagged ingot. Despite weighing hundreds of pounds, she lifted it easily. The moment her skin touched the metal, the blinding white light flared, harmonizing perfectly with her S-Rank aura.

"It’s heavy," Evelyn smiled fiercely. "I love it."

"Sylvia!" Donald called out.

Sylvia jogged over. She had completely emptied the rest of the vault. There wasn’t a single coin or scrap of iron left. The entire Demon King’s treasury was safely stored inside the shadow of a five-foot-six assassin.

"Store the ingot," Donald ordered. "We need to move."

Evelyn carefully dropped the massive piece of star-metal into Sylvia’s expanded shadow.

Before they left, Donald walked over to the last remaining pile of corrupted Abyssal gold on the floor. It was a massive mountain of coins the demons used to fund their human traitors.

Donald placed his hand flat against the gold.

"System. Liquidate all Abyssal Currency into System Credits," Donald ordered.

[Appraising Abyssal Gold...]

[Conversion Rate Applied.]

[Depositing: 12,000,000 System Credits.]

[Current Balance: 12,350,000 System Credits.]

Donald exhaled deeply as the massive rush of financial power settled back into his Investor class. His war chest was full again.

Suddenly, the factory alarms began to shriek. The massive blast doors at the front of the citadel slammed shut, and the sound of thousands of marching boots echoed outside.

"They found the dead Forge-Master," Sylvia noted, her tungsten daggers sliding into her hands. "An entire legion is surrounding the building."

"Let them," Donald said calmly.

He didn’t plan on fighting an entire army today. He had accomplished the objective. The factory was paralyzed, the Demon King’s treasury was completely empty, and he had the ledger proving the Capital’s treason.

Donald pulled a small, glowing blue crystal from his pocket—a recall tether Garrick had engineered to link directly to the TIG War Room.

He crushed the crystal in his hand.

A pillar of blue, hexagonal hard-light crashed down through the roof of the factory, enveloping the three of them.

"Next time I see a demon," Evelyn grinned, crossing her arms as the teleportation magic began to pull them upward, "I’m going to introduce them to my new sword."

The light flashed brightly, and the three Awakeners vanished, leaving Demon King Azgalor’s primary manufacturing hub completely, utterly bankrupt.