Galactic Exchange: The Merchant Sovereign-Chapter 71 – The Broken Auction

"The most dangerous items in the galaxy aren’t weapons. They’re the ones that shouldn’t exist."—Excerpt from Trader’s Codex, Section 49.1: Paradox Relics

The Invitation

A week after dismantling the Oracle’s predictive lattice, Kairos received an invitation that chilled even him.

It was hand-delivered by a courier droid forged from mirrorsteel, its body reflecting multiple realities at once. When opened, the invitation wasn’t ink—it was spoken directly into the minds of everyone on the Unyielding Trust.

"The Sovereign Kairos is cordially summoned to the Obsidian Auction aboard the neutral vessel Covenant of Echoes. Host: The Collector."

Kessie, reviewing the invitation, raised an eyebrow. "Obsidian Auction... I’ve only heard rumors. They sell items that defy value systems. Most of them are considered non-linear anomalies."

T’rana frowned. "What does that even mean?"

Kairos leaned back in his seat. "It means... some of those things are from timelines that never happened. Or ones that shouldn’t have."

The Covenant of Echoes

The Unyielding Trust arrived at a floating void-cradle—an obsidian vessel larger than a moon, orbiting nothing.

No stars. No systems. Just absence.

This was the Covenant of Echoes, where only the ungoverned gathered.

The docking protocol didn’t use codes. Instead, it required memories. One crew member had to share a moment of pure intent. Kairos chose the memory of his very first trade—the rusted pliers for half a data chip, back when he was still scraping food off smog-shelves in Cinis Slum 9.

The docking clamp accepted it.

And the doors opened.

Inside the Auction House

The corridors shimmered with woven logic—walls that shifted based on who walked past. T’rana swore she saw her childhood home. Vael claimed he saw a battlefield he’d never fought on.

Kairos saw nothing.

Just a long hall.

At the end was a grand rotunda filled with individuals unlike any he’d seen.

A being of fractured crystal humming in thirteen voices. A shadow cloaked in golden flame. An armored insectoid wearing the bones of extinct species. And near them all, humans, half-humans, hybrids, and worse—all gathered with one purpose:

To trade the impossible.

The Relic Table

Kairos sat in his assigned chair—made of compressed debt, polished until it gleamed.

Kessie whispered through his comm. "I’ve gained access to the lot list. Some of these items are banned across every coalition."

Kairos flipped through the manifest displayed in the air above his seat.

Lot #14: A coin minted in a future timeline that no longer exists.

Lot #19: The final heartbeat of a dead god, bottled in amber.

Lot #23: A mirror that shows the viewer’s unborn regrets.

Lot #31: Ledger 0 – Origin Contract of Sovereign Kairos.

Kairos froze.

"What?"

He highlighted Lot #31 again.

There was no doubt.

Seller: UnknownVerification: Authentic Kairos imprint, confirmed by 3 temporal-authenticatorsNote: "Traded long before he knew he had traded it."

Kessie’s voice trembled. "That... that’s impossible."

"No," Kairos said slowly. "It’s paradoxical."

The Auction Begins

The Collector appeared at the auction’s center—faceless, ageless, his voice a blend of everyone present.

"Welcome, sovereigns and specters," he said. "Today, we trade in what the universe wishes had been forgotten."

The auction commenced.

The first items went quickly—timeline-locked memories, extinct beasts, sunfire grains.

When Lot #19—the dead god’s heartbeat—was sold for a fleet of invisible warships, murmurs swept through the crowd.

But everything went silent when Lot #31 was wheeled out in a stasis case.

Kairos stood.

"I invoke Sovereign Veto."

The Collector tilted his head. "On what grounds?"

Kairos stepped into the circle.

"That’s mine. And I never traded it."

The Challenge

The Collector’s robes shifted like oil on water.

"Obsidian rules permit challenge," he said. "You may prove ownership—by surviving the Ledger’s judgment."

The stasis seal hissed open.

The ledger floated up—thin, metal-bound, humming.

Then it opened itself.

Kairos’s signature glowed on the first page.

But then—

Seller: Kairos (Before Awakening)Trade: Identity of TradeboundReceived: System Initialization Key

His blood ran cold.

"I never made that deal."

But as the ledger flickered, a familiar symbol appeared: the Scarcity Seal.

Kessie gasped. "That’s... that’s your system’s mark."

Kairos realized the horrifying truth.

"I didn’t trade this in the present."

He looked around the chamber.

"I traded this before the system found me."

The Auction Room Collapses

The realization cracked reality.

The logic walls of the auction began to shudder.

Echoes of Kairos flickered into being—older, younger, successful, failed.

Each version of him hovered around the ledger like ghosts pulled into the truth.

The Collector stepped back.

"You have triggered a Paradox Cascade."

"Then stop the sale!" T’rana shouted.

The Collector’s eyes flared. "It cannot be stopped."

"Why not?" Kairos growled.

The Collector stared.

"Because the buyer is already here."

The Buyer Revealed

The room grew dark.

And a figure stepped forward—cloaked in voidskin, face hidden, footsteps silent.

Kairos’s eyes narrowed.

He recognized the aura.

His own.

The figure lowered the hood.

And Kairos stared into a version of himself, far older, eyes glassy with entropy, veins pulsing with cosmic debt.

"Who are you?" Kairos asked.

"I am the Kairos who made no deals," the Echo replied. "The one who refused the system. Who lived and died nameless."

He held out a hand.

"And now I trade back... for everything you’ve built."

Trade War

The ledger burst open—showing both timelines.

Two Kairoi. Two paths.

One of value. One of abstinence.

The Collector’s voice echoed.

"A twin trade has been initiated. Only one Sovereign may retain the name."

The auction’s gravity warped into a battlefield of contracts.

Scrolls collided. Credits screamed in static. Value became weapon.

Kairos dove forward, invoking his Scarcity Key.

He struck the ledger with a single command:

Insert Clause: Identity Cannot Be Traded Once Realized.

The ledger trembled.

The alternate Kairos roared.

"You can’t stop the void! You’re just a name in flux!"

Kairos stared him down.

"No. I’m the trader who chose to exist."

Collapse and Sealing

The ledger exploded into light.

The timeline unraveled.

And the alternate Kairos vanished—his debt consumed by the system he never accepted.

Kairos fell to his knees as the echo faded.

The Collector caught the remnants of the ledger.

"An auction item no longer for sale."

Kairos looked up, blood on his lips.

"Then seal it."

And so the ledger—his origin contract—was locked within a sealed vault known as The Nevertrade, accessible only when reality itself deems it necessary.

Status Panel

Cosmic Units (C.U.): 58,700

Star Credits: 11.8 million

Trust Index: 96.4%

Name Index: 93.9%

Titles:

The Sovereign Unwritten

Threadcutter

Ledgerborn

Paradoxkeeper

New Passive Unlocked: Trade Immunity: Self – Cannot unknowingly trade away identity, history, or system unless clause is explicitly acknowledged

Vault Access: [The Nevertrade]

Notoriety Increase: Kairos’s name now known in 37 new sectors

Auction Status: The Obsidian Auction is now "Watched" by external regulators; Sovereign Kairos flagged as a system disruptor.

Back aboard the Unyielding Trust, Kairos sat in silence.

He held a coin with no face.

Not minted.

Not earned.

Just... untraded.

"I didn’t just save my system," he whispered.

"I saved the choice to have it."

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