Chapter 129: [129]: The 500-Mile Kingdom, New Management

Valerie did not look like an elegant corporate heiress or a majestic Arcane Valkyrie. She looked like someone who had been hit by a bus, dragged for three miles, and then dumped into a vat of cheap synthetic alcohol.

"Ugh!" She groaned again, spitting another mouthful of clear, foul-tasting digital fluid onto the polished marble of the Resurrection Altar. She wiped her mouth with the back of her trembling, blood-stained hand. "I taste pennies. And... why the hell are you dressed like a corporate sellout?"

Sebastian let out a genuine, exhausted chuckle. The terrifying presence vanished, leaving behind just a guy who was incredibly glad his friend was alive.

"I had a meeting." Sebastian smiled gently, adjusting the cuffs of his midnight-blue Ethereal silk suit. "Welcome back, Princess. The neighborhood is secure."

He reached into his bottomless inventory and pulled out a standard military canteen, tossing it to her. Valerie caught it clumsily. Her fingers still twitched from her digital nervous system rebooting. She unscrewed the cap and downed half the water in three massive gulps.

"Slow down." Sebastian advised, leaning against the edge of the heavy stone slab. "That metallic taste is the altar reconstructing the iron in your blood cells. If you drink too fast, you’re going to throw it right back up."

Valerie stopped, panting heavily. She looked down at her ruined combat leathers, then up at the massive, pulsing blue and gold sphere hovering in the center of the underground core room.

"The Regional Core." She whispered, her blue eyes widening as the memory of the catastrophic wave of creation magic flooded back to her. "You actually got it. You went to the outer servers and stole an administrative anchor."

"I bought it." Sebastian corrected smoothly. "With a five-finger discount."

"Actually, I bought it." A new voice echoed from the shadows near the heavy brass doors. "He just played the distraction and broke some guy’s hydraulic arm."

Valerie jumped, her hand instinctively reaching for the carved oak staff resting near her knees. She squinted through the dim, ambient light of the core room.

Stepping into the light was Gwen. The smuggler had her hands resting casually on the grips of her kinetic pistols. Her distressed trench coat was covered in grime, making her look entirely out of place in Sanctuary.

Valerie glared at the newcomer. "Sebastian. Who is the stray?"

"Hey, watch it, Princess." Gwen shot back, an amused smirk playing on her lips. "I’m the stray who navigated this walking system error through a cybernetic slum so he could get the shiny rock floating over there. Name’s Gwen. I handle logistics."

Valerie’s corporate instincts instantly flared, overriding her nausea. "Logistics? I handle logistics for Sanctuary."

"You handle internal distribution." Sebastian intervened, stepping between the two women before a turf war could break out. "Gwen is from Server 894, same as us. But she’s been surviving in the Juncture for three years. She knows the black markets, she knows the outer server warlords, and she knows how to smuggle data past planetary firewalls. She’s our new external affairs director."

Wraith materialized from the ceiling, dropping down with a soft tap. The Level 25 Assassin looked from Gwen to Valerie, his stoic face hidden behind his mask. "The perimeter is quiet, Boss. Too quiet."

Before Sebastian could respond, the heavy brass doors violently slammed open.

BAM!

Galleon practically tumbled into the room. The dwarven engineer was covered head to toe in black grease, his fiery orange beard singed at the edges. He was holding a cracked, sparking holographic tablet.

"Boss!" Galleon bellowed, his voice echoing loudly in the chamber. "The map! The expansion! It’s beautiful, but we have a massive fucking problem!"

Sebastian sighed, his brief moment of relief entirely evaporating. "I literally just got back. Can I not have five minutes without the apocalypse demanding my attention?"

"You’re the one who planted the Regional Core, Seattle." Gwen pointed out dryly. "Let’s see what you bought."

The group moved out of the medical ward and marched up the spiraling obsidian staircase to the Arcane Observatory. The massive glass domed room at the top of the Citadel was humming with immense energy. The war table in the center was projecting a high definition, three dimensional holographic map of their newly expanded territory.

Sebastian walked up to the table, his silver eyes narrowing as he looked at the projection.

The five kilometer safe zone was gone. In its place was a sprawling, five hundred mile dome of translucent golden light. It covered the entirety of the ruined megacity, stretched across the shattered remnants of the western mountain ranges, and bled out into the boiling Pacific Ocean.

[Territory: Western Seaboard]

[Status: Regional Capital - Sanctuary][Active Wards: Absolute Perimeter Defense]

"You expanded the shield." Valerie breathed, her hands resting on the edge of the table. "Sebastian, this is massive. We own the entire coast."

"Yeah, we own the land." Galleon grunted, tapping a stubby finger aggressively against the holographic display. "But the land wasn’t empty when the barrier expanded!"

The dwarf swiped his hand across the console. The map shifted, applying a localized heat signature and mana density filter.

Instantly, the pristine golden map was flooded with hundreds of violently pulsing red dots. They were scattered all across the five hundred mile radius, lurking in the ruined suburbs, the deep forests, and the flooded craters of the old world.

"The initial expansion wave vaporized everything Tier 1 and Tier 2." Sebastian noted clinically, leaning over the table. "The system purge scrubbed the weak mobs. The basic Infected and the Void Crawlers got deleted."

"Exactly." Wraith said, pointing at a cluster of massive red blips hovering near the ruins of old Seattle. "But Tier 3 and Tier 4 anomalies have enough conceptual mass to resist a non targeted area of effect purge. The barrier expanded past them, locking them inside."

"We didn’t just claim a territory." Gwen summarized, crossing her arms. "We built a giant cage. And we locked ourselves inside with the heaviest hitters the Void managed to drop during the Merge."

Sebastian stared at the red blips. He didn’t feel panic. He felt the cold, familiar annoyance of a homeowner dealing with an infestation. The 10,000x Nexus Glitch hummed warmly in the back of his mind, eager to be unleashed.

"Well." Sebastian said, unbuttoning his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves to reveal his pale, rune scarred forearms. "I guess it’s time to do some housekeeping. Wraith, prep the Sky Fortress. Valerie, get your staff. We’re going on an eviction run."