The sky above the Margin bled crimson as the Auditors made landfall.

They didn’t crash into the city. They arrived with perfect and calculated precision.

Dozens of crystalline and humanoid constructs dropped into the neon-lit streets and rusted rooftops. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

They possessed no faces, no armor, and no weapons. Their bodies were forged entirely from faceted grey glass that radiated an aura of pure universal law.

They were the immune system of the Omniverse. They were dispatched to collect cosmic debt and erase anomalies. And right now, Arthur Sterling was the biggest anomaly on their ledger.

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"

Three Auditors landed directly at the entrance of the alleyway to block their exit.

The cobblestones didn’t shatter beneath their feet. The stone simply ceased to exist because it was deleted by the conceptual weight of the constructs.

"Stay behind me," Vane barked. He gripped his heavy broadsword with both hands. "You hit them with raw magic and they just absorb it. You have to shatter their central cores."

"I can’t kill them," Arthur stated coldly and stepped up beside the scarred frontiersman.

Vane shot him a look of absolute disbelief.

"Are you out of your fvcking mind? They want to erase you!"

"If I destroy one, the system hits me with a five-hundred percent Destruction Tax," Arthur explained. His eyes locked onto the advancing crystalline figures.

"My debt is already unsustainable. If I trigger the penalty, this entire city goes bankrupt and dissolves into the void. I have to pacify them without lethal force."

Vane stared at him as the realization dawned in his hard eyes. The arrogant corporate bastard in the ruined coat wasn’t holding back out of weakness. He was holding back to save the city.

"Fine," Vane grunted. "I’ll break the ground. You break their legs."

"A joint venture," Arthur smirked. "I don’t really enjoy teamwork."

"SHAAAAANK!"

The lead Auditor blurred forward. It didn’t run. It simply glided across the ground with its glass arm extending into a razor-sharp blade aimed directly at Arthur’s chest.

Arthur didn’t retreat. He met the charge head-on.

He couldn’t use the Primordial Flame and he couldn’t use his Absolute Order. He relied entirely on his raw martial mastery. He sidestepped the thrust by a millimeter. The crystalline blade sliced a clean line through the fabric of his coat.

Arthur brought the Ebonheart Sword around in a tight arc. He didn’t aim for the chest or the head. He aimed for the precise glowing joint connecting the Auditor’s shoulder to its torso.

"CRACK!"

The dark metal of Arthur’s blade bit into the glass joint and severed the internal mana-conduit. The Auditor’s arm went entirely limp and sparked with chaotic blue energy.

"Your turn" Arthur roared. He ducked beneath a sweeping strike from the second construct.

"HAAAA!" Vane leaped into the air and brought his massive broadsword down with righteous fury.

He didn’t hit the Auditor. He slammed the heavy blade directly into the rusted metal grates of the alleyway floor.

"KRAA-THOOM!"

The ground violently buckled and collapsed. The two remaining Auditors stumbled. Their calculated footing was disrupted by the chaotic environmental destruction.

As they fell into the shallow sinkhole Vane had created, Arthur moved like a shadow.

He darted between the constructs with his blade flashing in the crimson light. He was a corporate liquidator dismantling a rival firm.

Strike the knee. Sever the elbow. Crack the ocular sensor.

He systematically crippled the Auditors to render them immobile without extinguishing their central cores.

It was flawless teamwork. In the heat of the brutal melee, the two men fought back-to-back.

Arthur called out the tactical flaws. He pointed out the microsecond delays in the Auditors’ attack patterns and the weak points in their geometric armor.

Vane executed the heavy lifting by using his brute strength to corral the constructs and create openings for Arthur’s surgical strikes.

Vane parried a glancing blow. His muscles strained as he pushed an Auditor back.

He glanced over his shoulder at Arthur.

Arthur was casually dislocating a construct’s knee with the pommel of his sword.

Vane realized with a sinking feeling of respect that Arthur wasn’t just a selfish rogue. The man was a terrifyingly efficient master of combat tactics.

As the motion completed, the crisp sound of the system chimed in his mind.

[System Notification]

↳ Joint operation detected.

↳ Merit Points split 50/50.

↳ +500 Merit Points.

↳ Current Debt: 999,999,999,440.

"Clear," Arthur breathed and shook the crystalline dust off his blade.

The three Auditors lay in the rubble. They were completely incapacitated with their limbs severed and their cores humming harmlessly in a forced stasis. Arthur hadn’t killed a single one.

"Not bad, corporate," Vane panted. He rested his broadsword on his shoulder. He looked at the disabled constructs with genuine surprise in his eyes. "You actually held back."

"I protect my investments," Arthur said smoothly and adjusted his collar.

He looked toward the end of the street. A fourth heavily armored High-Auditor was hovering there. It was preparing to unleash a massive beam.

Arthur tightened his grip on the Ebonheart Sword. He calculated the angle of approach to disable the heavy unit without killing it.

"Take the left flank, Vane. I will distract the main core."

"WHOOSH!"

A sleek and completely silent streak of neon-blue light pierced the crimson sky. It traveled from a rooftop a mile away and moved faster than the speed of sound.

"SQUELCH!"

The sniper bolt slammed directly into the High-Auditor’s central core.

The massive crystalline construct didn’t even have time to register the impact. It violently exploded into a million pieces of harmless grey dust and was completely eradicated from existence.

It wasn’t from either Authur or Vane.

Arthur froze. The tactical layout in his mind shattered.

He stared at the settling dust where the High-Auditor had just been. His pitch-black eyes twitched with sudden outrage.

A glowing holographic bounty puck materialized in the air above the ash. It chimed with a cheerful tune indicating a successful kill.

"Who," Arthur snarled. His voice dropped into a lethal whisper as he glared up at the distant rooftops. "Just stole my fvcking commission?"