GLOBAL AWAKENING: My 10,000x Exp Multiplier-Chapter 18: []The Silence Barrier, Architect’s Domain
By the time Vahn finished processing the massive stockpile of EXP potions, the sun outside the inn’s balcony had dipped below the artificial horizon, casting the tenth floor Bazaar into a deep, magical twilight.
His internal reservoir was currently overflowing with astronomical levels of raw data. He didn’t immediately dump the experience into leveling up; doing so would throttle his future gains. Instead, he kept it coiled within his class interface, a tactical nuke resting quietly in his back pocket, ready to be weaponized at a moment’s notice.
"We need to return to the Golden Scale," Vahn announced, standing up from the shattered remains of the oak table. He brushed off his jacket, his movements possessing a new, terrifyingly sharp fluidity. Even his base zero stats felt lighter, augmented by the sheer volume of latent energy humming beneath his skin. "Lunara promised to have the scouting reports on the Origin Relic finalized by evening. I need to know exactly which rift that smartphone was pulled from."
"Finally," Hana groaned, rolling off the plush bed and stretching her arms. "I was starting to think you were just going to sit there glowing all night. Let’s go, Sister-in-Law number one, Sister-in-Law number two. Time to move."
Aria flushed a deep pink, aggressively tightening her grip on her wooden staff. "Hana, I swear to the system, if you call me that in public again, I am going to stop healing your paper cuts."
Sia said nothing, though her silver-grey eyes darted to the floor, her cheeks burning slightly as she hoisted her heavy tower shield onto her back. "Formation ready, Commander. I will take the vanguard."
Vahn simply smiled, shaking his head at the chaotic dynamic of his team. They stepped out of the inn, merging with the evening crowd traversing the cobblestone streets.
The atmosphere in the Bazaar had shifted. The loud, boisterous haggling of the daytime merchants had been replaced by the quiet, tense whispers of high-tier guilds planning their nocturnal raids. Neon signs flickered to life, casting long, erratic shadows across the white stone architecture.
They reached the commercial plaza housing the Golden Scale Auction House. But something was fundamentally wrong.
Vahn stopped dead in his tracks, his [Chronos-Sight] triggering instantly. The glowing azure circuits mapped across his vision, breaking down the ambient mana flow of the plaza.
"Halt," Vahn commanded softly, his tone instantly shifting from friendly to absolute zero. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦
Sia froze, her shield instantly dropping into a defensive slant. Aria bumped into Vahn’s back, letting out a small ’oof’ before peeking around his shoulder.
The grand mahogany doors of the auction house were blown completely off their hinges, reduced to smoldering splinters. The heavily armored NPC guards outside were sprawled on the ground, completely unconscious, their armor stripped of its magical glow.
But that wasn’t what triggered Vahn’s alarm.
It was the dome.
A massive, translucent dome of dark, purple energy surrounded the entire block. It didn’t crackle with lightning or burn with fire. It was perfectly smooth, and it swallowed all sound.
"What is that?" Aria whispered, stepping closer to Vahn. She raised her hand, attempting to channel a basic diagnostic spell. Nothing happened. The green light of her healing magic sparked for a fraction of a second before fizzling out completely. Panic laced her voice. "Vahn... I can’t cast. My mana pathways are completely blocked."
"It’s a Silence Barrier," Vahn stated, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the code. "A high-tier suppression field. It artificially rewrites the localized physics engine to set all mana conductivity to zero. Casters are rendered entirely useless inside its radius."
"Who would attack the Golden Scale?" Sia asked, her military mind racing. "The merchant guilds have hundreds of elite mercenaries on payroll."
"Someone who doesn’t care about credits," Vahn replied. He stepped forward, crossing the threshold of the purple dome.
The moment they entered, the ambient noise of the city vanished, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence. The air felt thick, pressing down on their lungs.
Inside the ruined lobby of the auction house, chaos reigned. Ten figures draped in tattered, shadow-woven cloaks were ransacking the display cases. They wore blank, featureless iron masks. The Cult of the Abyss. They were a radical faction of players who worshipped the chaotic anomalies of the Spire, notorious for targeting high-value relics to sacrifice to the coming demonic vanguard.
Lunara was backed into a corner behind her desk, clutching a small, glowing lockbox to her chest, the box containing the Origin Relic. Two cultists were advancing on her, holding wicked, curved daggers dripping with non-magical poison.
"Secure the Relic!" one of the cultists barked, his voice distorted by the iron mask. "Leave no witnesses! The magic is suppressed; they are nothing but meat!"
"Sia. Intercept," Vahn ordered.
Sia didn’t hesitate. She didn’t have magic, but she had a heavy piece of iron and pure, unadulterated muscle memory. She charged forward, bringing her tower shield up in a brutal, sweeping arc. She slammed into the flank of the nearest cultist, sending him crashing through a glass display case with a sickening crunch.
The remaining nine cultists instantly snapped their attention toward the entrance.
"Intruders! Kill the vanguard, gut the squishies!"
They swarmed. Without the threat of magical suppression fire, the cultists moved with reckless, lethal speed. Three peeled off to flank Sia, their daggers scraping violently against her shield, forcing her to drop to one knee to maintain her center of gravity. The other six bypassed the tank entirely, sprinting straight for Vahn, Aria, and Hana.
"Vahn!" Aria cried out, stepping in front of Hana and raising her wooden staff like a baseball bat, terrified but completely unwilling to back down.
Vahn didn’t reach for his sword. He didn’t even drop into a combat stance. He simply looked at the six assassins charging at him, viewing them not as threats, but as poorly written lines of code trying to execute an unauthorized program.
The Silence Barrier was a localized rule rewrite. The cultists believed they owned the rules of this room because they had suppressed the magic.
They were wrong.
’System,’ Vahn commanded internally, tapping into the massive reservoir of EXP he had just acquired. ’Open Architect Permissions. Target: Localized Engine Rules. Purchase [Architect’s Domain].’[Ding! 2,000,000 EXP Consumed.][Skill Unlocked: Architect’s Domain (Mythic).]
[Activating Override...]
Vahn slowly raised his right hand, snapping his fingers.
The sound echoed like a gunshot in the perfectly silent room.
A pulse of brilliant, blinding gold light erupted from his boots, expanding outward in a perfect fifty-meter radius. It collided with the purple dome of the Silence Barrier and violently shattered it, devouring the dark magic and replacing it with a localized grid of glowing, azure geometric lines.
The air in the room instantly became violently heavy.
The six charging cultists froze mid-stride. It wasn’t a time-stop. The gravity within the golden grid had just been multiplied by fifty.
"What... what is this?!" one of the cultists choked out, his knees buckling under the immense, crushing weight of his own body. He crashed to the floor, his iron mask cracking against the marble tiles.
All across the lobby, the assassins collapsed, pinned to the ground by an invisible, insurmountable force. Even Sia gasped, dropping her shield as the gravity spiked, though Vahn immediately adjusted the parameters around her, granting her immunity.
Vahn casually walked forward, his boots clicking sharply against the marble floor. He stopped in front of the lead cultist, who was desperately trying to drag himself forward by his fingertips.
"You brought a suppression field to a gunfight," Vahn said softly, looking down at the paralyzed assassin with absolute, terrifying indifference. "In my domain, I dictate the physics. I dictate the gravity. And I dictate who gets to breathe."
Vahn looked back at Aria and Hana, offering a small, reassuring smile that contrasted wildly with the sheer dominance he was currently exerting over the room.
"Now," Vahn said, turning his gaze to Lunara, who was staring at him like he was a literal god. "About those scouting reports."
