We didn't have long to celebrate the new hires.
The ground shook. It wasn't the subtle vibration of footsteps; it was the rhythmic thumping of a siege engine. Dust drifted down from the ceiling, coating my shiny black surface.
"He’s here," Seraphina whispered. She walked to the entrance of the Core Room, peering down the dark tunnel. "Bishop Vane. He didn't just bring collectors. He brought the Cathedral."
I expanded my sensor range. My consciousness floated up through the rock, popping out onto the surface above my dungeon.
It was bad.
The forest clearing was gone. In its place was a golden tent the size of a circus pavilion. Hundreds of soldiers in shining armor had set up a perimeter. They weren't attacking. They were waiting.
In the center of the formation sat a man on a floating golden chair. He was enormous—a mountain of flesh draped in silk robes that cost more than my entire dungeon. His fingers were covered in rings, each one glowing with stored mana.
Identify:
Name: Bishop Vane.
Role: High Priest of the Ledger.
Net Worth: Incalculable.
Ability: [Divine Foreclosure].
He wasn't shouting. He was eating a turkey leg.
"System," I thought. "Analysis."
System Alert:
Siege Detected.
Mana Blockade Active.
Incoming Revenue Streams: 0.
He had cut the lines. No adventurers could get in. No potions could get out. He was starving me out.
Then, Vane’s voice boomed. He wasn't using a microphone; he was using magic to project his voice directly into my mind.
"Entity 404-Null," Vane’s voice dripped with oil and false paternalism. "You have disrupted the market equilibrium. You have distributed unregulated goods. And worst of all, you have undercut the Church’s profit margins."
"It’s called competition, Vane!" I projected back, amplifying my thought-voice to boom across the clearing. "Maybe if your product wasn't overpriced garbage, you wouldn't need an army to keep your market share!"
Vane laughed. It was a wet, unpleasant sound. "Oh, poor child. You think this is a war? This is a transaction. And you are in default."
He raised a hand. A massive, golden ledger appeared in the sky above the dungeon. It opened, the pages fluttering in a wind that didn't exist.
"I invoke the Rite of Foreclosure," Vane chanted. "All debts are due immediately. All assets are frozen. All souls are forfeit."
System Alert:
Spell Incoming: [Divine Foreclosure].
Effect: Drains target Mana to settle outstanding debts.
Current Debt: 1,350,000 Mana.
"Max!" Seraphina screamed, turning back from the tunnel. "He’s not attacking your walls! He’s attacking your balance sheet!"
I felt it instantly. It wasn't pain. It was emptiness.
It felt like someone had pulled the drain plug on my existence.
Mana Reserves: 7,000... 6,500... 6,000...
The numbers were free-falling. The blue glow of my crystal body began to dim. Lilith looked up from her clipboard, her tail flicking nervously. "Boss, the ambient mana pressure is dropping. The skeletons are going to de-animate if we hit zero."
"I can’t stop it!" I gritted out. "He has admin privileges!"
"He’s the Regional Manager for the Gods," Seraphina said, running to my pedestal. She placed her hands on my cold surface. "Max, you have to surrender. If you surrender, they’ll just imprison you. If you hit zero, you’re gone. Forever."
"I... don't... surrender," I stuttered. My thoughts were getting sluggish. 4,000 Mana left.
"Surrender is for people who can't do math," I whispered.
I looked at the numbers. Vane was draining me dry. He was taking my mana to pay off the debt I owed to the System. But here’s the thing about the System—it’s based on supply and demand.
Gold is valuable because it’s rare. Mana is valuable because the Church hoards it.
Vane was holding all the cards. He was the bank. But what happens to a bank when the currency becomes worthless?
"Lilith," I gasped. "How much Mana do we have in the reserve tanks? The stuff we haven't processed yet?"
Lilith checked her clipboard. "Roughly fifty thousand units of raw mana stored in the lower fungal caverns. Why?"
"Vent it," I ordered.
"What?" Lilith and Seraphina said in unison.
"Vent it all," I said, my mind racing with the desperate logic of a man about to crash the stock market. "Open the floodgates. Connect our reserve tanks directly to the external atmosphere. Don't filter it. Don't bottle it."
"Max," Seraphina said, her eyes wide. "If you dump that much raw magic into the air, you’ll cause a hyper-inflation event. The local wildlife will mutate. The weather will go insane."
"And the value of Mana," I grinned, "will drop to zero."
Mana Reserves: 1,500.
"Do it!" I roared.
Lilith didn't hesitate. She slammed her hand onto a control rune on the wall. "Venting reserves. Brace for impact."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.