The shard of the Ace of Diamonds hovered in Silas's palm, a jagged splinter of hard light that pulsed with a rhythm like a second heartbeat.
It was warm to the touch, vibrating with a potential energy that made the hair on his arms stand up.
[SYSTEM MARKET VALUE: 5,000 GOLD]
The number flashed in his retina, a neon temptation. Five thousand gold.
With that money, he could buy fifty High-Quality Mana Vials. He could buy a suit of enchanted leather armor to replace his dusty coat. He could buy a high-velocity magi-tech revolver to supplement his cards. He could buy safety.
He looked at his other hand—the one that had anchored him to the thrashing Tyrant. The fingers were swollen, the knuckles bruised a deep, sickly purple. Even with the Level Up refreshing his stats, the phantom pain of his ligaments straining to the breaking point lingered. The Dead Man's Grip had held, but his flesh had paid the toll.
He was poor. He was fragile. He was mortal.
"Sell it," a rational voice whispered in his head. "Be safe."
"Eat it," Elara whispered in his ear.
She was standing close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin. She smelled of dust, ozone, and the copper tang of the Stalker blood she'd spilled.
"The Gold is a trap, Silas," she murmured, staring at the shard with hungry eyes. "Gold buys you things that break. Potions run dry. Armor cracks. But this?" She tapped the shard. "This becomes you."
Silas closed his fist around the shard. The sharp edges dug into his skin, drawing a single drop of blood.
She was right. In the "Redo," looking for safety was the fastest way to die. The System punished caution. It rewarded the gamble.
"Bottoms up," Silas said.
He didn't hesitate. He tossed the glowing shard into his mouth and swallowed.
It didn't taste like food. It tasted like swallowing a mouthful of broken glass and ice water.
Silas gagged, clutching his throat.
Cold.
Freezing cold spread from his stomach, shooting through his veins like liquid nitrogen. It wasn't the heat of mana; it was the absolute zero of the Diamond Suit—the stillness of preservation.
But then came the echo.
As the shard dissolved, a phantom roar detonated inside Silas's skull. It wasn't his own voice. It was the Crystal-Gorge Tyrant.
For a terrifying second, Silas's vision was overlaid with a geometric, faceted grid. He felt a surge of alien aggression—a primal, mindless hunger to hoard, to crush, to consume. The shard wasn't clean; it was stained with the Wyvern's corruption. The beast's soul was trying to claw its way into his psyche, hitching a ride on the power.
Mine, the alien presence hissed in the back of his mind. My hoard.
"Fold," Silas mentally screamed, crushing the intrusion with the sheer weight of his own ego. He was the Sovereign. He did not bow to lizards.
He fell to his knees, gasping, sweat dripping from his nose. The alien presence shrieked and shattered, refined by the System into raw data.
[SYSTEM ALERT] [CORRUPTION PURGED] [INTEGRATION COMPLETE]
"Breathe," Elara said, not helping him, just watching with fascinated clinical detachment. "Let it harden."
Silas gritted his teeth, feeling his very bones vibrating. The sensation was agonizing, as if his skeleton was being plated in gold.
Then, the pain snapped off.
[NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: THE MISER'S VAULT (RANK 1)]
Class: Spatial / Utility.
Description: Access to a pocket dimension aligned with the Diamond Suit. Time inside the Vault is frozen (Preservation).
Capacity: 100kg / 10 Slots.
Cost: Passive (No Mana Cost to maintain. 5 Mana to Open/Close).
Silas blinked, clearing the tears from his eyes. He stood up, testing his limbs. He felt... heavier. More solid. The echo of the Tyrant was gone, leaving only the cold utility of the Diamonds.
"Well?" Elara asked, tilting her head. "Did you get the laser eyes? Or the skin that turns to steel?"
"Storage," Silas rasped, his throat still numb. "I got a pocket."
Elara blinked. Her face fell. "Storage? You ate a priceless, corrupted artifact of the Old World and you got... a backpack?"
"A dimensional backpack," Silas corrected. He waved his hand.
The air in front of him shimmered and split, revealing a geometric, diamond-shaped rift. Inside, floating in a grey void, was absolute stillness.
Silas turned to the massive carcass of the Crystal-Gorge Tyrant.
"Grab the knife," Silas ordered. "We're butchering it."
He walked over to the beast.
He began to carve. He sliced off the remaining Diamond-Hard Scales. He carefully extracted the Wyvern's massive venom sacs. He pried out the serrated teeth.
As he tossed the items into the rift, he did the math.
One Diamond Scale is worth 50 Gold on the black market. The Tyrant has at least forty intact scales. That's 2,000 Gold right there.
He looked at the Venom Sac. Alchemists kill for this. Another 1,000.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. If he had sold the Ace Fragment, he would have had 5,000 Gold but no way to carry anything else. By eating the Fragment, he gained the ability to carry the entire loot table of a Level 22 Boss.
He wasn't just breaking even. He was doubling his net worth.
"Mobile logistics," Elara mused, watching the massive pile of monster parts vanish into thin air. Her disappointment faded into calculation. "No wagon to slow us down. No tracks to follow. We can move at full speed and carry a king's ransom."
She grinned. "Maybe not as sexy as laser eyes, but I suppose it fits you, Silas. You always did know how to stack the deck."
They moved fast.
Without the wagon, they were ghosts in the canyon. They traveled through the night, the wind howling its mournful song around them.
Silas felt the difference in his gait. He wasn't weighed down by a pack. His hands were free. The Dead Man's Grip passive hummed in his forearms, and the Miser's Vault sat quietly in his psyche, holding enough wealth to buy the city they were heading toward.
He was slowly rebuilding the Sovereign, card by card, skill by skill.
By dawn, the red walls of the canyon began to lower. The whispering wind died down, replaced by a new sound.
At first, Silas thought it was thunder. A rhythmic, bass-heavy thumping that vibrated through the soles of his boots.
THUD-CHUNK. THUD-CHUNK.
They reached the canyon exit.
Silas stopped.
The view before them was not the empty desert he expected. The canyon opened up into a massive, bowl-shaped valley. And in the center of that valley, surrounded by a haze of smog and steam, sat a city.
[LOCATION DISCOVERED: RUST-BUCKET (THE CITY OF GEARS)] [POPULATION: 15,000] [FACTION CONTROL: THE IRON SYNDICATE]
The silence of the wilderness didn't just end here; it was murdered.
The sound was deafening. Massive, building-sized gears turned on the exterior of iron towers, grinding metal against metal with a shriek that drowned out the wind. Steam vents hissed like dying dragons. Piston-hammers slammed into the earth, shaking the ground with a mechanical heartbeat that never rested.
It was ugly. It was magnificent. It was loud.
Neon lights—magi-tech powered—flickered in the dawn gloom through the smog: GIRLS, CASINO, LOANS.
"Civilization," Elara spat, wrinkling her nose at the smell of coal, grease, and unwashed humanity drifting on the breeze. She had to raise her voice over the grinding of the gears. "It sounds like a headache."
"It sounds like opportunity," Silas corrected.
He checked his status.
Gold: 60 (Liquid).
Inventory Value: ~3,500 Gold (Assets).
"We have loot to sell," Silas said. "And I need to buy Mana Vials before the Guild catches up."
"And then?" Elara asked.
"And then we find a card game," Silas said, adjusting his duster. "I need to turn sixty gold into six thousand."
He started walking down the slope toward the city of rust and vice.
Elara followed, her eyes fixed on the city lights.
"Just remember the deal, Silas," she whispered, her voice carrying a dangerous edge. "We have five days left of my 'obedience.' But in a city like that? Full of sin and desperation?"
She licked her lips.
"It's going to be very hard for me to be good."
[KARMA DEBT: 3% (STABLE)] [SYSTEM WARNING: HIGH CONCENTRATION OF 'Gamblers' DETECTED.]
Silas ignored the warning. He stepped out of the wild and into the smog.
The House was open.
A/N: I hope you enjoy this novel. Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. Thank you.