Chapter 181 - 182: Enforcing the Sovereign Sea Tax
The sleek, ivory-white hull of the Vatican diplomatic cruiser Sanctum Astra glided into Berth One under the heavy, oppressive shadow of the primary star-iron breakwater.
Gold leaf filigree along its bow gleamed dully beneath the overcast grey sky, and the crimson velvet banners of the Holy See hung motionless against the tall mast in the stagnant, salt-heavy air.
Unlike the battered merchant freighters that had docked before it, the Vatican vessel carried no scuffs on its hull and no rust along its anchor chains.
It was a floating monument to centuries of unyielding ecclesiastical wealth and divine privilege, floating amidst a harbor that operated purely on the cold, physical reality of the abyss.
Standing on the polished concrete wharf below Berth One, fifty shadow skirmishers formed a pristine, light-devouring corridor that extended from the gangway to the central customs terminal.
In the center of the formation stood Renan, his dark woolen coat buttoned tightly to his throat, his pale hands resting calmly inside his deep pockets.
Beside him, Shadow Knight Arthur held his six-foot claymore upright, the silver dragon-flame hum suppressed into a quiet, vibrating violet thread that made the air surrounding his pauldrons shimmer with localized heat.
Behind them, Chief Quartermaster Miller held an electronic manifest tablet, his spectacles reflecting the immaculate white paint of the newly docked warship.
The heavy hydraulic gangway of the Sanctum Astra lowered with a soft hiss of compressed air, striking the concrete dock with a muffled thud.
A delegation of eight Swiss Guard paladins clad in silver-and-blue enchanted plate armor stepped down first, their hands resting on the pommels of their broadswords as their sharp, vigilant eyes swept over the surrounding shadow troops.
Following closely behind the paladins came Cardinal D’Angelo, a high-ranking papal diplomat in his late sixties, draped in fine scarlet silk robes trimmed with gold thread, holding an ornate staff tipped with a pulsing celestial mana crystal.
Cardinal D’Angelo did not pause at the foot of the gangway.
He walked forward with the measured, arrogant step of a man accustomed to having kings and guild masters bow their heads as he entered a room.
"You have kept a vessel of the Holy See waiting at your outer boundary line for forty minutes, stranger," Cardinal D’Angelo spoke, his voice deep, rich, and carrying the practiced theatrical cadence of a Vatican orator. "In Rome, such disrespect toward the Holy See would warrant an immediate interdict."
Renan did not bow. He did not extend a hand in welcome. His violet eyes locked onto the cardinal’s face with cold, unblinking indifference.
"In Rome, your interdict might have meant something to men who believed in paper indulgences, D’Angelo," Renan answered softly, his voice calm, level, and vibrating with twenty-four thousand eight hundred units of core density. "On this dock, your title holds the exact same weight as a wet piece of driftwood floating in the bay."
The Swiss Guard paladins bristled instantly, their gauntlets tightening over their sword hilts as the air pressure around the wharf plummeted, making every breath feel heavy and dry against their lungs.
Cardinal D’Angelo flinched, the subtle gravimetric weight radiating from Renan pressing down upon his shoulders until the gold-trimmed silk of his robes felt like lead.
He gripped his celestial staff tighter, using its divine mana frequency to stabilize his posture.
"We did not cross the Mediterranean to trade insults with a regional warlord," D’Angelo said, regaining his composure with a sharp, dismissive wave of his silk sleeve. "The Vatican has received intelligence regarding the economic blockades and the unauthorized seizure of the Zurich reserves. Supreme Director Van Houten’s committee has collapsed, but the Church remains the spiritual guardian of human civilization. We are here to establish an official papal sanctuary within your port."
Chief Quartermaster Miller stepped forward slightly, tapping his electronic tablet with a stylus.
"A sanctuary requires a registered municipal application, Cardinal," Miller stated, his voice clinical and dry. "Your vessel bypassed our commercial registry gate, failed to broadcast a cargo manifest, and crossed our fifty-nautical-mile demarcation line without paying the mandatory sovereign maritime tax."
D’Angelo let out a low, disdainful laugh that echoed hollowly across the concrete berth.
"A tax?" D’Angelo repeated, his eyes flashing with indignation. "You dare ask the Holy See for a tax? The Vatican is exempt from secular levies by every international treaty signed in the last five hundred years! We carry sacred relics, consecrated mana crystals, and the private wealth of the Papal Treasury. No sovereign on this earth has ever levied a toll upon the vessels of the Church!"
Renan took one slow, deliberate step forward.
The kinetic energy of the cardinal’s celestial staff instantly died. The pulsing light within the tip flickered once and went completely black as the monarch’s core density crushed the divine mana signature into submission.
"The sovereigns who granted you exemptions are currently hiding in underground bunkers in Geneva and London, D’Angelo," Renan whispered into the cardinal’s pale face, his voice carrying the terrifying finality of an emperor issuing an unappealable sentence. "Their treaties are buried beneath six feet of stone. My domain is bounded by the sea, and everything that crosses my water pays the toll."
Sylas dropped silently from the crane superstructure above Berth One, landing softly behind the Swiss Guard paladins with a stack of digital asset seizure notices in his dark gauntlets.
"The inspection of the Sanctum Astra is complete, Sovereign," Sylas reported, his optical visor glowing with argent light. "The ship’s lower hold contains four hundred high-grade consecrated mana cores, fifty tons of unrefined holy silver, and twelve Class-S divine relics extracted from the Vatican secret archives."
Cardinal D’Angelo’s face turned the color of ash as he realized that Sylas had breached his ship’s magic seals without triggering a single alarm rune.
"Those relics are sacred artifacts of the Church!" D’Angelo screamed, his voice cracking with sudden, hysterical panic. "If you touch those vaults, you risk the eternal wrath of the Divine Realm!"
"The Divine Realm did not build this port, D’Angelo," Renan replied coldly. "And its wrath does not power my foundries."
Renan looked over his shoulder toward Chief Quartermaster Miller.
"Assess the sovereign sea tax," Renan commanded.
"Under the updated maritime code of District One," Miller announced, clicking his tablet screen, "unauthorized military and diplomatic vessels bypassing commercial registration are subject to a ninety percent material tariff upon all onboard assets."
"Ninety percent?!" D’Angelo gasped, clutching his chest as if he had been struck with a iron hammer. "You are robbing the Holy See!"
"We are accepting your payment for permission to dock," Renan corrected smoothly. "You may keep ten percent of your holy silver and one consecrated mana core to power your navigational instruments. The remaining ninety percent, including all twelve Class-S relics, is hereby confiscated and transferred to the Abyssal Soul Forge."
Arthur stepped forward, his claymore resting horizontally across his gauntlets, his silver-black armor humming with sudden, aggressive intensity.
"Surrender the vessel’s manifest keys," Arthur ordered the Swiss Guard paladins, his voice echoing from deep within his crested helm. "Or my shadow skirmishers will dismantle your ship plate by plate and cast your armor into the bay."
The eight Swiss Guard paladins looked at the twenty-five thousand shadow troops lining the cliffs above, then down at Arthur’s light-devouring claymore.
Without a word, their commander unbuckled his gilded sword belt and tossed it onto the concrete dock, followed a second later by the remaining paladins dropping their weapons in absolute, humiliating surrender.
Cardinal D me-Angelo slumped against the wooden guardrail of the gangway, his hands trembling violently as Sylas’s shadow troops marched past him into the lower hold of the Sanctum Astra to begin unloading the immense wealth of the Vatican archives.
Renan turned his back on the defeated cardinal, walking toward the central administrative elevator with Arthur and Miller falling into step behind his heels.
"Store the consecrated cores in the District One primary vault, Miller," Renan commanded, adjusting his cuffs. "The Abyssal Soul Forge will break down their divine signatures and re-forge them into high-density armor plates for our heavy constructs."
"And the cardinal and his crew, Sovereign?" Miller asked.
"Let them stay in Berth One," Renan answered, his voice fading down the long concrete corridor as the lift doors opened. "Let them sit on their empty ship and watch the ocean boil. They wanted a sanctuary; now they have a front-row seat to the end of their world."
As the elevator doors slid shut, sealing Renan inside, the sky over the Western Pacific grew darker still, and the first unnatural red lightning bolt cracked silently across the distant horizon, signaling that the Vatican’s humiliation was merely the quiet prologue to the grand calamity approaching from the deep.