Chapter 109: [109]: No Negotiation, The Meat Cube
The heavy steel blast doors didn’t just open, they were violently evicted from their frames. They flew across the room and smashed into a row of expensive imported crystal statues before skidding to a halt on the plush blood-red carpet.
CRASH!
Sebastian casually stepped through the ruined doorway, dusting off the shoulder of his torn leather coat. Gwen flanked him, her kinetic pistols drawn and leveled at the center of the room.
The Iron Wraiths’ central boardroom was a ridiculous display of stolen wealth. Despite being buried in the rusted slums of a dead space leviathan, the room was immaculate. A massive polished mahogany table dominated the space, illuminated by floating chandeliers of pure condensed starlight.
Sitting at the head of the table was Jared.
Gwen’s uncle was a greasy rat-faced man wearing a ridiculously expensive suit made of shimmering enchanted silk. He was holding a crystal glass of amber liquid, which had just spilled all over his lap when the doors exploded.
Surrounding Jared, acting as his personal VIP security detail, were four Tier-8 Mages of the Onyx Syndicate. They wore flowing black robes, and their bodies hovered inches off the ground, radiating intense suffocating auras of raw elemental power.
Jared scrambled to his feet, his face flushing a violent shade of purple. He frantically wiped the spilled alcohol from his pants.
"What the fuck is the meaning of this?!" Jared shrieked, his voice cracking. He looked at the ruined doors, then his eyes locked onto Gwen. A nasty arrogant sneer immediately replaced his panic.
"Gwen," Jared spat. "I should have known you’d come crawling back. Jax is dead. The old ways are done. I just finalized the merger with the Syndicate. You don’t have a faction anymore, little girl."
Gwen’s eyes burned with absolute hatred. Her hands gripped her pistols so tightly her knuckles turned white. "You sold us out, Jared. You slit his throat for a seat at a table of murderers."
"It’s called upward mobility," Jared laughed. It was a slimy grating sound. He gestured expansively to the four glowing Mages floating around him.
"And you are severely outgunned. But, because we’re family, I’ll offer you a deal. Drop the guns. Kiss the ring. I’ll let you run the lower-tier smuggling routes. A lesser position, but you get to live."
Jared finally looked at Sebastian. He looked at the ragged clothes, the cracked white half-mask, and the violent green static glitching across Sebastian’s left arm.
"And who the hell is your plus-one? A sick beggar? You brought a dying hobo to a corporate takeover?" Jared scoffed. "Kill the trash. Capture my niece."
The four Tier-8 Mages moved instantly.
They didn’t chant. They didn’t wave wands. They simply flared their auras.
BZZZT!
A massive interlocking defensive ward erected itself around the mahogany table. It was a localized fortress of pure condensed mana, forming a shimmering translucent dome of interlocking hexagonal shields. It was designed to withstand direct orbital strikes.
"Gwen, get back!" Sebastian ordered, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm metallic hum.
He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t even flinch at the blinding display of magic.
He just stood there, looking at the Mages behind their unbreakable shield.
"You corporate assholes are all exactly the same," Sebastian sighed, rolling his neck. "You talk too much, you rely entirely on expensive firewalls, and you completely ignore the guy doing the actual work."
"Kill him!" Jared screamed from behind the safety of the ward.
One of the Mages raised a hand, gathering a swirling vortex of black necrotic lightning.
Sebastian didn’t let him cast it.
He opened his green Admin UI. The [Code Compiler] hummed to life. He accessed the mechanic the Legacy Code had granted him. [Error Accumulation].
To break a perfect system, you just had to introduce a catastrophic mistake.
Sebastian closed his eyes. He purposefully grabbed the digital tether of his own heavily synchronized biological heart. He didn’t stop it completely, that would kill him. Instead, he forced a severe and utterly illogical arrhythmia. He commanded his heart to beat backward for exactly one second.
It was a biological impossibility. The math didn’t make sense. The server violently rejected the action.
"GAAHK!" Sebastian grunted, his knees buckling slightly as a wave of sheer blinding agony tore through his chest.
[Warning: Biological Logic Failure!]
[Error Accumulated: 25%]
His entire body violently glitched. For a fraction of a second, Sebastian didn’t look human. He looked like a screaming jagged mass of raw green binary code and red warning prompts.
He harnessed that agonizing corrupted data. He channeled the 25% Error directly into his right hand.
His glove turned into a buzzing chaotic void of static.
He stepped forward and slapped his glitching palm completely flat against the invincible high-tier defensive ward protecting the Mages.
"System Purge," Sebastian whispered.
The reaction wasn’t an explosion. It was a catastrophic software crash.
The moment the weaponized Error touched the pristine organized mana of the shield, the code violently corrupted. The beautiful glowing hexagons turned a sickly bruised purple, then instantly shattered into jagged screaming lines of static.
"What?!" one of the Mages gasped, their elemental aura violently sputtering out. "The ward! It’s infected!"
The defensive dome didn’t just break. It imploded.
The catastrophic failure of the magic created a localized hyper-dense vacuum right in the center of the four hovering Mages.
VROOOOM!
The implosion was deafening. The sheer gravitational pull of the corrupted code violently sucked the four Tier-8 Mages inward.
They didn’t have time to scream. They didn’t have time to cast a counter-spell.
Their bodies were violently yanked toward the exact center of the ruined ward. They slammed into each other with the force of a high-speed collision. But the physics engine was broken. The implosion didn’t stop at physical contact. It kept pulling.
CRUNCH! SNAP! SQUELCH!
The sound was absolutely horrific. It was a wet heavy sequence of shattering bones, collapsing armor, and bursting internal organs.
The four Mages were aggressively compressed into a single localized point in space. Their robes, their flesh, their pristine magic, it was all mashed together in a blender of broken gravity.
In less than two seconds, the screaming stopped.
The implosion stabilized, leaving behind the gruesome result of the glitch.
Hovering three feet above the ruined mahogany table was a perfect geometric cube of compressed meat. It was roughly the size of a microwave. It dripped a sickening mixture of dark blood, crushed bone, and tattered black fabric onto the polished wood.
The four invincible Syndicate Mages had been turned into a literal butcher’s block.
SPLAT.
A heavy glob of blood dropped from the cube onto the table.
Absolute horrifying silence descended upon the boardroom.
Jared was pressed flat against the far wall, his eyes bulging out of his skull. He stared at the hovering meat cube, his brain entirely failing to process the apocalyptic violence he had just witnessed.
A dark spreading stain rapidly formed on the front of Jared’s expensive silk trousers. He pissed himself, the warm fluid pooling around his expensive leather shoes.
Sebastian casually lowered his hand. The green static faded from his arm, though he still breathed heavily, the physical toll of generating that much Error leaving a sharp ache in his chest.
He stepped over the debris, walking slowly toward the terrified whimpering uncle.
"Your security detail has been downsized," Sebastian said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. He stopped just inches from the trembling man. "Now. Where is the vault?"