"Rob the Regional Reserve," Vane repeated.

His rough voice sounded completely flat.

He stared at Cassia as if she had just suggested they try to drink the Chaos Sea.

"You are completely out of your fvcking mind."

Cassia just smirked. She casually tossed the glowing bounty puck into the air and caught it.

"I am ambitious, Vane. There is a difference.

We are sitting on the edge of the Deficit Zone."

"The Reserve holds every ounce of confiscated reality energy from a billion audited dimensions. It is the bank. We just need to make a withdrawal."

"It is a suicide mission" Vane roared.

His heavy broadsword clattered against the rusted metal grates of the alleyway as he planted it down.

"That facility exists outside of standard space and time. It is guarded by High Auditors. If you even look at the front door funny, they will erase your entire timeline."

"I am not throwing my life away for your greed."

"It is not greed. It is early retirement," Cassia countered. Her silver eyes shifted toward Arthur.

"What about you, suit? You fought like a man who understands risk versus reward. Do you want to grind out thirty Merit Points a day beating up street thugs, or do you want to own the sector?"

Arthur Sterling stood amidst the groaning bodies of the incapacitated enforcers. His dark eyes analyzed the rogue bounty hunter.

He respected her immediately. She was not blinded by the pathetic idealism that infected Vane. She looked at the universe like a rigged casino and wanted to rob the vault.

"What is the exact payout?" Arthur asked.

His corporate baritone cut through the damp air.

"Arthur, no," Vane warned. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. "You do not understand the scale of what she is proposing."

"I understand numbers, Vane," Arthur replied without looking at him. "The payout, Cassia."

"Enough pure unformatted dimensional capital to buy your own universe," Cassia smiled, revealing perfectly white teeth. "A trillion Merit Points. Minimum."

Arthur swallowed hard.

’A trillion. That would instantly balance my ledger,’ Arthur thought.

It would clear the staggering cosmic debt the Omniverse had slapped him with. It would reactivate his million fold multiplier and give him his absolute god tier power back.

"I am in," Arthur said smoothly.

"You are both dead," Vane spat. He turned his back on them.

"I am leaving. And if I see you two dragging the heat into my district, I will cut you down myself."

Before the frontiersman could take a single step, the ambient temperature in the alleyway dropped to absolute zero.

It was not a spell. It was the complete and sudden cessation of atmospheric physics.

The rusted metal walls of the alley instantly crystallized. The neon signs above them flickered, shattered, and dissolved into grey dust.

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

The system interface in Arthur’s mind violently flared. The harsh red light bled into his physical vision.

[CRITICAL WARNING] 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

[High Auditor Entity Detected.]

[Threat Level: Unsurvivable without System Multiplier.]

The air at the end of the alleyway folded inward. It compressed into a perfectly smooth geometric tear.

Stepping out of the void was a towering ten foot tall construct of immaculate faceted grey glass.

It did not have the bulky armor of the street level enforcers. It was sleek and completely featureless. It radiated a suffocating aura of absolute unyielding law.

"Unauthorized anomaly detected," the High Auditor droned.

Its voice was not sound. It was a physical vibration that rattled the marrow in Arthur’s bones.

"Rogue Hunter Cassia identified. Local combatant Vane identified. You are in direct violation of the Cosmic Ledger."

Vane cursed violently and instantly shifted into a heavy guard stance. The broadsword in his hands hummed with desperate kinetic energy.

Cassia did not smile anymore. The sleek sniper rifle was in her hands in a fraction of a microsecond. The barrel aimed dead center at the construct’s featureless face.

"Well, crap. They tracked the bounty puck."

"Lethal force authorized," the High Auditor stated.

The entity raised a perfectly smooth crystalline hand. A sphere of pure blinding erasure began to condense in its palm.

Arthur’s face immediately paled.

Without his million fold multiplier, his Dimensional Breaker Physique was just highly durable meat. It could not survive a direct conceptual deletion.

If that sphere touched them, they would not just die. They would be unwritten from history.

"Fire!" Cassia yelled.

"BOOM!"

Her sniper rifle roared. A hyper condensed bolt of plasma tore through the air.

At the exact same moment, Vane lunged forward. He swung his massive blade in a devastating overhead cleave meant to shatter a mountain.

"CLANG! SQUELCH!"

The plasma bolt hit the High Auditor’s chest and instantly dissolved into harmless sparks.

Vane’s heavy sword struck the entity’s raised forearm and violently bounced off. The sheer kinetic recoil threw the scarred hero backward into the mud.

"Physical and magical trauma ineffective," the High Auditor buzzed. "Commencing erasure."

"System!" Arthur roared in his mind. "I need a loophole! Scan the local laws!"

[Accessing regional database...]

[Access Denied. Insufficient Merit Points.]

"Fvck!" Arthur grunted.

He did not have the capital to buy a solution.

He had to use what he had on hand.

His hand darted inside his torn dark coat. His fingers closed around the thick leather bound ledger he had looted from the mid level bureaucrat back in the Celestial Court outpost.

It was a physical copy of the Omniversal tax codes.

Arthur pulled the book out. He did not have time to read.

He channeled the last dregs of his raw cognitive processing speed to physically scan the pages as he violently ripped the book open.

"Arthur, move!" Vane yelled, scrambling to his feet.

The sphere of erasure in the High Auditor’s hand pulsed. It was ready to fire.

Arthur’s eyes locked onto a dense paragraph buried in the back of the ledger.

It was a clause. An ancient practically obsolete piece of corporate law written into the fabric of the universe.

"I invoke Article 7, Subsection 4 of the Omniversal Economic Code!" Arthur bellowed.

His voice carried the sheer desperate authority of a CEO fighting off a hostile takeover.

The High Auditor’s hand twitched. The sphere of erasure halted.

"Anomaly," the construct buzzed. "Your debt exceeds the permissible threshold for negotiation."

"I am not negotiating!" Arthur snapped.

He stepped directly in front of the blinding sphere of deletion. He held the open book up like a shield.

"I am formally declaring a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy! This sector, this city, and my immediate assets are currently under corporate restructuring!"

The alleyway went dead silent.

Vane and Cassia stared at Arthur as if he had just grown a second head.

The High Auditor froze. The perfectly smooth glass of its face tilted. The internal mathematical logic of the entity fiercely clashed with the foundational laws of the universe it was programmed to protect.

[Ding!]

[Cosmic Loophole Activated.]

[Validating Legal Claim...]

A wave of scanning light washed over Arthur. It verified the absurdly massive sum of his debt, his lack of current assets, and the formal declaration.

"BEEP."

[Claim Verified. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy status granted.]

The blinding sphere of erasure in the High Auditor’s hand instantly fizzled out.

The suffocating deadly pressure in the alleyway vanished.

"Status recognized," the High Auditor droned. It lowered its arm.

"Hostile actions frozen. You are granted a standard seventy two hour stay of execution to restructure your assets and present a payment plan to the High Court."

"If the debt is not balanced at the end of this cycle, immediate deletion will commence."

The construct did not wait for a reply. It turned around, stepped back into the geometric tear, and vanished from reality.

The oppressive grey lighting of the alley returned to its normal dingy neon glow.

Vane dropped his heavy sword. His chest heaved as he leaned against the brick wall.

"What... what the hell just happened?"

Cassia slowly lowered her sniper rifle. A genuinely amazed smile spread across her face.

"He just out bureaucrated a cosmic executioner."

She looked at Arthur. Her violet eyes gleamed with heavy respect. "I knew you were a shark."

Arthur let out a slow exhausted breath. He tossed the physical ledger into the mud.

He pulled up his system interface. A massive ticking red countdown timer was now permanently burned into the corner of his vision.

[71:59:59]

"We have three days," Arthur said coldly.

He turned to look at his two new employees.

Even though he was not the employer.

He straightened the collar of his ruined coat as the predator returned to his eyes.

"We have three days to rob a bank that exists outside of space and time. Let’s draft a plan."