Arthur slammed onto the ground! His boots splashed into a puddle of foul-smelling iridescent chemical runoff.

He stumbled and his knees actually buckled for a fraction of a second. The gravity was not inherently oppressive like the Celestial Court but his body felt incredibly heavy.

Without the million-fold multiplier constantly reinforcing his cellular structure the sheer physical weight of his own muscles felt foreign.

He stood up and coughed as the thick smog-choked air filled his lungs.

"The Margin," Arthur muttered. He read the dull copper text hovering in his peripheral vision.

It was a sprawling chaotic nightmare of a city. Towering rusted scrap-metal skyscrapers leaned precariously against each other. They were connected by a tangled web of sparking neon cables.

The streets were narrow and packed with a miserable assortment of alien species, exiled cultivators, and cybernetically enhanced thugs.

It was a cyberpunk and fantasy mixed slum built right on the precipice of the Deficit Zone.

It was loud. It was dirty. It smelled like burnt copper and rotting meat.

"Hey fresh meat."

Arthur did not turn around. He just let out a slow exhausted sigh.

He was back at this shit again.

Three men stepped out of the shadows of the alleyway. They were a mess of crude augments and cheap magical tattoos. The leader was a hulking brute with a metal jaw and a glowing red optic implant. He tapped a heavy iron pipe against his palm.

"You just dropped into Sector 4," the cyborg sneered. His breath reeked of cheap alcohol.

"This is our pavement. You owe the breathing tax. Empty your pockets or we harvest your organs for the clinic down the street."

Arthur did not have time for this. He needed to find a terminal. He needed to start analyzing the local economy.

"System," Arthur muttered instinctively.

"Absolute Order Sleep."

He waited for the satisfying hum of reality bending to his will. He waited for the thugs to collapse into unconscious heaps.

Nothing happened!

[Command Denied]

↳ Insufficient Funds. Absolute Order requires 50,000 Merit Points to manifest.

[Current Balance]

↳ 0

He was broke, and broke men can’t command authority.

Arthur blinked. He stared at the error message. The reality of his new situation finally slammed into him with the force of a brick wall. He could not cheat anymore.

"Did you just cast a spell?" the cyborg laughed. It was a harsh grating sound. "The freak thinks he is a mage! Break his legs"

The three thugs lunged forward.

Arthur did not pull the Ebonheart Sword. He did not want to accidentally kill them. The system had explicitly warned him about the Destruction Tax. If he took a life the cosmic bank would aggressively penalize his already astronomical debt.

He had to do this the hard way.

The first thug swung a rusted machete in a wild uncoordinated arc aimed at Arthur’s neck. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Arthur ducked beneath the sloppy strike. His body did not blur with Transcendent Spatial Velocity. He just moved with the brutal hyper-efficient muscle memory drilled into him by Caden Cross’s millions of sword swings.

He stepped inside the thug’s guard and drove his fist directly into the man’s floating rib.

"CRACK!"

The thug shrieked. He dropped the machete as his ribcage caved inward. Arthur did not stop. He grabbed the man’s extended arm twisted his hips and brutally dislocated the shoulder with a sickening pop.

He pushed the screaming man aside just as the cyborg brought the heavy iron pipe down toward his skull.

Arthur raised his forearm and caught the iron pipe directly on his bracer.

"CLANG!"

Pain shot up Arthur’s arm. It was sharp genuine unmitigated pain! He gritted his teeth and his eyes widened slightly. He was actually feeling it. His bone bruised. His muscle ached.

It was exhilarating.

Arthur did not retreat. He stepped into the pain and used his free hand to deliver a devastating palm strike directly to the cyborg’s metal jaw.

The kinetic force rattled the thug’s skull and sent him stumbling backward. Before the cyborg could recover Arthur dropped low and swept his leg in a brutal arc that shattered the man’s left kneecap.

"Aaaargh!" the cyborg wailed. He collapsed into the chemical puddle.

The third thug froze. He stared at his incapacitated friends in sheer horror. He dropped his weapon and turned to run.

Arthur was faster. He closed the distance in two long strides. He grabbed the fleeing man by the back of the neck and slammed his face directly into the rusted metal wall of the alley.

The thug went limp instantly. Knocked out cold.

Arthur stood amidst the groaning bodies. His chest was heaving. Sweat beaded on his forehead and stung his eyes. He raised a hand and wiped the moisture away. He stared at his damp fingers.

A slow genuine smile stretched across his face.

He had to sweat for it. He had to bleed for it.

"Fvck, I missed this," Arthur laughed. The sound was gritty and raw.

[System Notification]

↳ Three hostile targets incapacitated. Non-lethal combat bonus applied.

↳ +30 Merit Points.

[Current Debt Balance]

↳ 999,999,999,940 Merit Points.

He was like a government worker that took a student loan.

Arthur looked at the impossibly huge number. Thirty points. He needed a trillion. He was going to have to break a lot of kneecaps.

"Do not move."

The voice was rough and scarred like gravel. It spoke with absolute unwavering authority.

Arthur froze. He had not heard the man approach. He had not sensed a shift in the air. But he could definitely feel the heavy incredibly sharp edge of a massive broadsword resting gently against the back of his neck.

"I saw the spatial tear," the voice continued from behind him. "And I see three broken citizens. You are unregistered. You are not meant to be here."

Arthur did not raise his hands. He did not panic. He just slowly tilted his head and calculated the angle of the blade.

"You are under arrest for unauthorized reality manipulation debtor," the man stated coldly.

"Turn around slowly or I take your head off."