Blackstone Code-Chapter 624: Devouring

The sudden upheaval caught many off guard. After trying to storm the palace, the protesting crowd left behind dozens of bodies and hurried away.

Reporters from the Federation’s Wave magazine captured the rare footage. When news broke of the palace incident and the king and queen’s suicides, the previously calm crowd went wild, attacking the palace.

Their aim wasn’t to support the so-called Nagaryll National Congress but to take advantage of the chaos. They failed.

The article ended by calling the Nagaryll people vile character.

It wasn’t just ordinary people shaken; the Joint Development Company was baffled. This wasn’t their plan.

Their plan was for reputable Nagaryll figures secretly loyal to them—those with close ties to the Federation or outright Federation collaborators—to overthrow the monarchy.

These popular collaborators would dismantle the royal rule, allowing the Joint Development Company to fully control the country through puppet leaders.

But the National Congress’s rise and the king’s suicide changed everything irreversibly. Now it was a hot potato.

If the king had lived, there might’ve been room for negotiation. But with his death, things became difficult—even the Federation president’s cabinet warned the Joint Development Company not to interfere too much in another country’s affairs.

The Federation wouldn’t bear the blame for overthrowing a foreign government or assassinating a foreign leader. If trouble arose, the Federation would sacrifice scapegoats within the company, and Nagaryll’s interests would suffer greatly.

With no optimal solution, they could only take it step by step.

The next day, back in the Federation, Mr. Herbes saw the news from his hospital bed. Nagaryll, a close ally, held considerable influence in Federation society, so the media gave the events heavy coverage.

Looking at the martial law outside the palace, Herbes sighed silently. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place.

He suddenly felt lazy, losing all will to fight back. He just wanted to lie quietly as everything flashed through his mind.

Yes, the Kingdom of Nagaryll had vanished from history. Valier was now worthless—no doubt about it.

A country destroyed—how could its currency still hold value?

In other words, the one billion Valier currency seized at the border was now worth no more than specialty waste paper.

Could he use this worthless paper to reclaim his collateral from the bank or Lynch?

Obviously not. They’d demand equivalent currency, whether Federation Sol or Flah. For Herbes, this was a fatal blow.

Those assets were worth over forty million Sol. Where was he supposed to get that much now?

If he couldn’t, he’d default and face a daily 1% penalty. It wouldn’t take long before total bankruptcy.

Suddenly, the hospital door burst open. His assistant rushed in, beaming.

“Mr. Herbes, the customs court just called. Our container can leave the port…”

Herbes smiled and shook his head. He pointed to his clothes, which his assistant brought over.

He pulled out a silver cigarette, lit it, savoring the rich flavor between his lips. He exhaled slowly, then sighed deeply.

“It’s too late.”

He smiled as if making a final assessment.

Now that he thought about it, he’d been too greedy and arrogant.

The first meeting with Lynch had cost Lynch a big loss, breeding a deep prejudice in Herbes—he never saw Lynch as a real threat. It was a joke to him.

Later in Nagaryll, Lynch’s terms seemed nothing more than a plundering game to him.

Naïve—that was Herbes’s judgment of Lynch, also seeing in him a fatal gambling flaw.

So he agreed to the deal, arrogance and prejudice blinding him to many red flags, like motives.

He overlooked details he refused to see, leading to this blow. He was finished.

He exhaled deeply, having lost all his savings, investors’ money, and many managed assets.

He didn’t need the Federation or Lynch to trouble him; his investors and his older brother—who pretended to be poor and honest but was really on the brink of losing everything—would come after him.

“I want a duck leg,” Herbes suddenly said. “There’s a restaurant at No. 14 Central Street. Their specialty is roast duck leg. Order me one to-go.”

He pulled out a few twenty Sol bills and handed them to his assistant. Seeing the assistant about to speak, he shook his head and patted the assistant’s hand.

“Go early, come back early.”

The assistant was puzzled but understood. He nodded and left quickly.

From here to Central Street was a distance. Herbes sat on the bed, smoked some Coluff, then sat up.

He went to the bathroom, dressed neatly, took his walking cane, and left the room.

The hospital building was tall—partly because Eminence’s land was valuable, making a low-rise a waste, and partly because the Federation’s medical groups were flush with cash.

They earned unimaginable sums yearly from medical insurance and services. People heard about real estate tycoons but rarely about how much hospitals or medical device companies made. Such details are easily ignored.

The most profitable industries in the world were medicine and funerals—everyone faces them eventually.

He went to the rooftop. The wind whipped his coat as the silver cigarette burned quickly in his hand, flames fanned by the breeze.

He looked down; several ambulances flashed lights, busy as ever.

Of course, they were busy. With Valier gone, the Federation’s six major banks immediately suspended all financial dealings with Valier. The Financial Management Committee even removed Valier’s sign from the foreign exchange board. Eminence was reliving its tragedy from two years ago.

Countless people lined up to the rooftop and jumped.

Bang!

The ground trembled slightly; blood splattered everywhere. Frightened drivers swerved, triggering a chain of accidents.

It was like the end of the world or a demon invasion. People numbly climbed up and jumped down. Ambulances and fire trucks were powerless—there was no time to intervene.

This world…

Hiss…

There’s nothing left to hold on to!

Mr. Herbes exhaled smoke, removed the silver cigarette from his hand, and flicked it hard.

The burning cigarette spun through the air and fell to the ground. He shook his head with a smile—he had lived a glamorous life but fell into a pit at the end. He blamed no one.

His body tilted forward and twisted before crashing down with a loud thud. His jaw was shattered, his body contorted unnaturally against the ground, and both eyeballs were squeezed out by the force, rolling aside.

An ambulance rushed in but couldn’t stop in time, tires crunching over the wreckage of flesh.

A mad day. A desperate day.

News of Herbes’s suicide soon reached Lynch’s ears, delivered by Mr. Truman. When a known figure dies in the Federation, news finds its way to him. Besides being well-known, Herbes was involved in the whole scheme.

“I recall he had no relatives in the Federation…” Lynch said, flipping through the newspaper while answering the call.

“Yes, his family is overseas. Any thoughts?”

Lynch smiled. “No thoughts. You can check with his relatives if anyone is willing to take on his debt… the ever-growing debt.”

The money lent had already generated calculated interest. If someone was willing to pay millions in interest plus over forty million principal, they could claim the assets mortgaged in the bank from Lynch.

It was actually a profitable deal—the assets were worth at least sixty to eighty million.

Mr. Truman sneered, “I don’t think anyone can come up with that much cash all at once, especially now.”

Valier’s insane surge, combined with international hot money inflows, caused uncontrollable spikes in its final phase. Many joined the frenzy, some even risking their entire fortunes.

Now Valier was ruined, and global finance would be affected. To reduce losses from exchange rate gaps in import-export trade, some foreign companies and banks trading with Nagaryll held reserves of Valier currency.

Now it was all fucked!

Maybe someone could come up with that kind of money, but no one connected to Herbes or with inheritance rights could.

If there was, Herbes wouldn’t have killed himself.

“Does this mean I don’t have to bother exchanging another batch of worthless paper for you?” Lynch closed the newspaper.

By Federation law, if a person dies without heirs or a will, all assets are auctioned.

Proceeds are donated without compensation to Federation welfare agencies to cover their daily expenses.

For a small sum, you could buy a hundred billion Valier currency—five containers.

Lynch made tens of millions from this deal.

In the capitalist world, exploiting workers is petty; the real game is capital devouring capital.

The rise of one era always tramples on the corpses of the last.