Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World

The entire auction hall of the Astral Emporium was frozen in stunned, suffocating silence.

Silas remained standing in the center aisle. He looked at the glowing Gold-tier [Guild Creation Token] sitting inside the secure glass containment unit on the stage.

He was panting slightly, his face flushed with the absolute, adrenaline-fueled high of total victory.

He had just bid one billion Veridian Credits.

He had completely liquidated his personal, real-world financial portfolio.

He had sold off emergency corporate bonds, drained the Vanguard’s Legacy treasury, and leveraged every single asset he owned to secure the winning bid.

But it was worth it.

He had broken Xerxes. He had established Vanguard’s Legacy as the undisputed, wealthiest power on the server.

The First Guild milestone was going to secure his legacy, impress his corporate backers, and finalize the arranged merger with Sera’s tech dynasty. He was going to rule the Zenith Protocol.

On the stage, Sera stood behind the podium.

Her professional, flawless smile hadn’t wavered once during the entire chaotic bidding war. Her eyes briefly flicked up to the darkened glass of the third-floor VIP suite.

She received the signal.

"I have one billion Veridian Credits from the Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy," Sera announced, her voice echoing perfectly across the silent hall. "Going once."

Silas crossed his arms, basking in the spotlight. The thousands of elite players in the room were staring at him with a mixture of profound awe and deep, unsettling horror.

"Going twice," Sera continued, raising the auction gavel.

"One billion and one hundred thousand credits," a cheerful, automated proxy voice announced.

The voice didn’t come from the crowd. It resounded clearly from the darkened, secondary VIP booth high above the auction floor.

Silas didn’t just flinch. He violently recoiled, as if he had been physically struck.

The absolute, confident smirk completely vanished from his face. His eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated disbelief. He whipped his head around, glaring up at the blacked-out glass of the proxy booth.

The entire auction hall collectively gasped.

"What?" Silas whispered.

Then, the realization set in. He wasn’t competing against Xerxes or Leonidas anymore. The anonymous proxy bidder who had systematically bled him dry over the low-tier dagger at the start of the auction was back.

And they were casually topping his billion-credit bid.

"Who is that?!" Silas roared, his voice cracking violently. The Warlord’s pristine Silver-grade armor clanked loudly as he took a threatening step toward the stage. "Sera! Who is operating that proxy?! They are artificially inflating the market! This is a scam!"

Sera didn’t flinch. "The bidder’s identity is strictly protected by the Astral Emporium’s privacy protocols, Silas.

The bid is verified. I have one billion and one hundred thousand credits. Do you wish to counter?"

Silas was trembling. He looked down at his system interface. He was staring at a flashing red zero on his personal bank account balance. He had literally nothing left. He had just burned his entire empire to the ground to reach a billion.

But he couldn’t lose. If he lost now, he was bankrupt and he didn’t even get the token.

"One point one billion," Silas snarled, his voice tight with desperation. He rapidly accessed his guild’s localized emergency repair fund, completely draining the money reserved for fixing armor and buying potions.

"One point one billion and one hundred thousand," Casanova’s automated proxy countered instantly.

"Stop it!" Silas screamed, his face turning an ugly shade of purple. "One point two billion!"

"One point two billion and one hundred thousand."

"One point three!" Silas yelled, desperately pulling up his external comms interface. He frantically messaged Elara, his real-world advisor, begging her to authorize a high-interest loan from the board of directors.

[Elara: Negative. You have exceeded all acceptable risk parameters. The board will not authorize further funding. You are operating entirely on your own deficit.]

Silas stared at the message. He swiped it away violently.

"One point four billion!" Silas screamed at the darkened glass. He was cannibalizing the guild’s entire reserve structure.

He was selling off physical assets in the real world at massive, ruinous losses just to keep the bidding war alive.

Up in the main VIP suite, Nyx was watching her datapad, her eyes wide behind her dark glasses.

"He’s completely lost it," Nyx whispered. "He’s taking out high-interest loans against his own family’s hardware manufacturing company. If he doesn’t win this, he’s going to be in debt for the rest of his life."

Dante stood near the window, his arms crossed. He watched Silas breaking down in the aisle.

"Hit him again," Dante ordered quietly.

Casanova, sitting on the velvet sofa, grinned maliciously and tapped his interface.

"One point four billion and one hundred thousand."

Silas let out a roar of pure, unfiltered frustration. He kicked the plush velvet chair in front of him, completely shattering the wooden legs into digital splinters.

His lieutenants stepped back nervously, completely unsure of how to handle their Guild Master’s catastrophic meltdown.

Silas glared at the stage. He looked at the glowing Gold-tier token.

He was out of money. He was out of loans. He was completely, mathematically finished.

"One point five billion Veridian Credits," Silas stated.

His voice was entirely hollow. It didn’t sound like a victory. It sounded like a death sentence. It was the sound of a man who had just spent everything he owned and mortgaged his entire future for a digital item. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Up in the suite, Dante held up his hand.

Casanova stopped. The proxy remained silent.

Dante didn’t want to accidentally win the bid and end up paying 1.5 billion credits for a token he already owned. He had pushed Silas to the absolute, razor-thin edge of total financial annihilation. The bleeding was finished.

Sera waited a full ten seconds on the stage, ensuring the silence in the hall was absolute.

"Sold," Sera announced, striking her podium with the wooden gavel. "To the Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy, for one point five billion credits."

The crowd didn’t cheer. They didn’t applaud. They sat in stunned silence, entirely overwhelmed by the sheer, devastating financial violence they had just witnessed.

Silas didn’t celebrate either. He slumped heavily into an intact chair, burying his face in his hands. He had secured the token, but the cost had completely, utterly ruined him.

"Transaction confirmed," Sera said, her voice strictly professional as she accessed her administrative interface.

The heavy glass containment unit on the pedestal hissed open.

Sera didn’t personally hand the item to Silas. A Royal Courier, a high-tier NPC employed by the Emporium for secure transactions, marched down the aisle. The NPC presented the heavy iron [Guild Creation Token] to the Guild Master on a red velvet tray.

Silas grabbed the token.

He stood up, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He slowly regained his composure. He looked around the silent hall, realizing millions of players were currently watching the stream. Cipher’s drones were hovering nearby, recording his every move.

Silas needed to salvage the moment. He needed the grand, server-wide announcement to validate the fortune he had just spent.

He needed to prove to the board of directors that his investment had secured the monopoly.

"The Zenith Protocol demands order," Silas projected his voice loudly, holding the glowing Gold-tier token high above his head for the entire hall to see. "And Vanguard’s Legacy provides it. We lead this cycle. We claim the First Guild!"

Silas closed his armored fist, crushing the token.

The token dissolved into a burst of brilliant, blinding golden light. The light shot straight up, completely passing through the ceiling of the Astral Emporium, heading directly into the sky to trigger the massive system milestone announcement.

Up in the VIP suite, Dante didn’t flinch.

He calmly opened his infinite void ring.

He reached in and pulled out a heavy, iron token stamped with the exact same crossed sword and shield.

It was the second [Guild Creation Token (Gold-Tier)] he had looted from the Earthfire Behemoths during his solo run through the Abyss-level Spire.

"Hey, Silas," Dante whispered softly, looking down through the soundproof glass.

Dante crushed the token in his dark purple gauntlet.

Because Dante was the one activating the token, the system didn’t calculate standard processing speeds or latency. His SSS-grade [Chrono-Shift] talent instantly finalized the action.

His overwhelming cosmic weight pushed his command to the absolute, undisputed front of the server’s processing queue, completely bypassing the massive data packet Silas had submitted a fraction of a second earlier.

The sky above Aethelgardia, and the entire global server, exploded with blinding, celestial light.

Down in the aisle, Silas stood tall. A massive, victorious smile spread across his face as he waited for his guild’s name to be immortalized across the heavens.

The system announcement blared, accompanied by the deafening sound of celestial trumpets.

[CRITICAL SERVER MILESTONE]

[A new power has emerged.]

[Player ’Dan’ has officially established the [Aegis Vanguard], becoming the FIRST registered Guild in the Overture cycle.]

Silas’s victorious smile froze perfectly in place.

The massive golden text hovered in the sky, burning brightly, completely unmissable.

A fraction of a second later, a much smaller, significantly less impressive silver text box popped up directly beneath it.

[Player ’Silas has established ’Vanguard’s Legacy’, becoming the Second registered Guild.]

The absolute, deafening silence in the auction hall completely shattered.

The crowd erupted. It wasn’t cheers or applause. It was sheer, unadulterated mockery.

Laughter exploded from the back rows. Players were pointing at the sky, pointing at Silas, and shaking their heads in absolute disbelief.

"Second place!" a rogue from the Blood Throne yelled, crying tears of mirth. "He spent 1.5 billion credits for a silver participation trophy!"

"He bankrupted his entire alliance to come in second!" another player mocked loudly.

Silas stood frozen in the aisle.

The Warlord’s face wasn’t red anymore. It was completely pale, drained of all color. He stared up at the ceiling, reading the small, silver text box over and over again.

He hadn’t just lost a bidding war. He had been masterfully, systematically manipulated into completely destroying his real-world financial standing to buy an item that Dante already possessed. He had spent his entire fortune on a redundant milestone.

His legacy was ruined. The corporate merger with Sera’s family was dead. His board of directors was going to literally drag him out of his VR capsule and throw him onto the street.

Silas’s hands began to shake violently. He dropped to his knees on the marble floor, his pristine armor clanking loudly, completely ignoring the thousands of players laughing at him.

Up in the VIP suite, the anomaly squad watched the meltdown.

"Oh my god," Lila whispered, her hands covering her mouth. "You didn’t just beat him. You completely broke him."

"He earned it," Dante said flatly.

Dante dismissed his system interface, turning away from the glass window. The auction was over. He had secured his real-world wealth, established his guild, and completely annihilated the biggest threat on the server without swinging a single sword.

It was time to gather the squad and figure out what to do with the First Guild milestone.