Infinite Survival: My 10,000x Return System

[Ding!]

[Margin Defenses Upgraded. Current Debt Balance: 999,950,000,000 Merit Points.]

Arthur Sterling stood in the center of the newly renovated Mayor’s office. He looked out the massive glass window. He had just spent a fortune of stolen capital outfitting the slums. Brand new anti-air plasma turrets tracked the sky. Heavy reinforced reality-shields hummed over the civilian sectors. Automated defense drones buzzed through the narrow alleyways.

He had turned a garbage dump into a proper corporate subsidiary. It looked clean. It looked profitable.

Then, the sky above the Margin turned a blinding, flashing red.

"WEE-OOO! WEE-OOO!"

High-frequency sirens began to wail across the entire city. The noise was deafening. It rattled the thick glass of the office window. Down in the streets, the citizens who had just started to celebrate their freedom immediately scattered. They scrambled back into their rusted shelters like frightened rats.

Arthur didn’t flinch. He just shoved his hands into the pockets of his tailored suit.

"Looks like Silas Vance is a sore loser," Arthur muttered.

Vane stomped up to the window next to him. The scarred frontiersman gripped the hilt of his broadsword tightly. His knuckles were completely white. He glared up at the flashing red sky.

"The Iron Consortium’s fleet," Vane grunted. "He didn’t waste any time. He wants his money back."

Cassia walked up to the other side of Arthur. She casually leaned her sniper rifle against her shoulder. Her silver eyes narrowed as she looked at the heavy clouds. She didn’t look relaxed anymore. Her rogue instincts were screaming.

"That doesn’t look like a standard pirate fleet, Boss," Cassia warned. Her voice was tense.

The dark, smog-choked clouds parted.

Massive, sleek dropships descended from the sky. They were not the rusted, welded-together scrap metal ships of the scavengers they had fought earlier. These ships were immaculate. They were forged from pure white starlight metal. They dropped through the atmosphere in perfect, synchronized formations.

They didn’t even bother firing the ship cannons. They didn’t need to.

Fifty heavily armored figures dropped out of the ships. They plummeted hundreds of feet and slammed directly into the streets of the Margin.

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"

The impacts shook the entire city. The figures stood up slowly from the craters they had created. They wore seamless white armor that covered their entire bodies. Their faces were hidden behind opaque, mirrored visors. They held long, heavy stun-batons that crackled with condensed Celestial Qi.

Arthur felt the temperature in the room drop. The sheer, suffocating presence of their combined auras reached all the way up to the Mayor’s office.

These were not street thugs. They were not local security.

"Shit," Cassia breathed. She took a step back from the window. "Those aren’t Consortium mercenaries. Those are High Enforcers of the Celestial Court."

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. "Silas called in a favor."

"He called in the fvcking feds is what he did," Cassia snapped. "Those guys are officially sanctioned. They have full universal authority. They don’t just kill you. They arrest your soul and toss you into the celestial crystal mines for ten thousand years."

Vane gritted his teeth. "I don’t care who they work for. They are invading my city."

The hero of the Frontier turned around and headed for the door. He drew his massive, chipped broadsword. The heavy blade scraped against the floor.

"I’ll chop them into pieces just like the rest," Vane growled.

"Stop right there, Vane," Arthur commanded. His voice was a low, absolute rumble.

Vane paused, looking back over his shoulder. "Are you scared of them, corporate? Because I’m not."

"I am not scared of the guards. I am scared of the tax," Arthur said coldly.

He didn’t draw the Ebonheart Sword. He didn’t activate his physical stats. He just pulled up his system interface. He looked at the massive red number hovering in the corner of his vision.

Nearly a trillion points in debt.

"Cassia," Arthur said without looking away from the screen. "What happens if we kill an officially sanctioned Enforcer of the Celestial Court?"

Cassia swallowed hard. "Lethal force against a badged officer triggers an immediate Omniversal Audit. You get hit with a Destruction Tax."

"And how much is that tax?" Arthur asked.

"Five hundred percent," she whispered.

Vane frowned, clearly not understanding the math. "So what? We owe them more money. We can’t pay it anyway."

"You really are an idiot," Arthur sighed. He turned to look at the frontiersman. "If I get hit with a five hundred percent penalty on a trillion point debt, the system instantly bankrupts my entire empire to cover the cost. The Ebon Citadel. The Mortal Domain. The Apex Realm. Me. You. This entire city. We all get dissolved into the void in a single microsecond."

Vane’s jaw dropped. The heavy broadsword in his hand suddenly felt like a useless toy. "We... we can’t fight them?"

"We can’t kill them," Arthur corrected.

Down in the streets, the fifty High Enforcers were marching forward. They moved with terrifying, robotic precision. Their boots hit the pavement in perfect unison. They were heading straight for the central administrative building. They were coming for Arthur.

Cassia pulled her customized stun pistols from her thigh holsters. "Boss. We can’t shoot them. Even if we use non-lethal rounds, hitting a badged officer is a massive felony. They will lock our assets and freeze us in stasis."

Arthur cracked his knuckles. The sound was sharp and loud in the tense office.

"We don’t need to shoot them," Arthur said.

"Then what the hell are we going to do?" Vane shouted. "Let them put us in cuffs?"

"I don’t wear cuffs," Arthur sneered. "I wear tailored suits."

Arthur tapped the side of his head. He brought up the Omniversal Holdings Ledger. He didn’t load up a spell. He didn’t load up a combat technique.

"System," Arthur commanded in his mind. "Pull up the Omniversal Legal Code. I want the exact rules of engagement for sanctioned High Enforcers operating in a Deficit Zone."

[Ding!]

[Accessing Omniversal Legal Database...]

A massive wall of scrolling green text flooded Arthur’s vision. It was millions of pages of dense, incredibly boring corporate law. It detailed the exact parameters of what a Celestial Enforcer could and could not do while on duty.

To a normal person, it was unreadable garbage. To Arthur Sterling, it was a weapon. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

He used his raw, unaugmented cognitive speed to scan the document. His pitch-black eyes darted back and forth behind his eyelids. He ignored the sections on lethal force. He ignored the sections on arrest protocols.

He was looking for liability.

"Got it," Arthur smirked. He opened his eyes. The cold, predatory shark was back.