When Charles finished his daily work, the air was still cold. His shirt was wet with sweat, and he was breathing steadily but deeply.
The private training court in the East Wing sparkled with morning dew and lingering starlight. Small cuts covered his hands, but they healed almost right away. His body was used to this.
To outsiders, it might have looked peaceful, even ritualistic. But for Charles?
To him, it was a gym session—if every squat could bankrupt an enemy and every inhale was worth literal gold. Stakes like these made pain almost dull.
He wiped his hands, put his cloak back on, and walked into his study. The room was filled with old Ziglar maps, floating scrolls, and filing shelves protected by shadow-seal encryption. He went to his desk, and with a blink, the familiar blue screen appeared.
[SIGMA: Daily Physical-Cultivation Quest Complete. Reward Allocation: 500 Gold Coins deposited into Primary Treasury Account.]
Charles let a dry, half-smile show on his lips.
He made five hundred gold coins a day just by stretching, hitting the air, and pushing himself. That much in a week was too much for most nobles. For Charles, it was just a matter of linking his progress to SIGMA, which tracked and added gold to his treasury.
[SIGMA: Weekly Accrual Report – Total Earnings: 517,000 Gold-Equivalent Value, inclusive of darkline hacks, market trades, and relic reclamation.]
[SIGMA: Treasury Asset Redistribution Ongoing – Risk Level: Controlled.]
"Siphon trial?" Charles asked.
A three-dimensional projection appeared over his desk. Glowing lines ran across a model of the Arcana Empire, showing hidden flows of money, corruption, and theft. Some points on the map glowed red.
[SIGMA: Trial Hack into Hidden Imperial Pocket Vaults – Phase 3 of 12 Complete.]
[SIGMA: Using Tier-1 Spatial Laws + Interdimensional Law work to breach local anchor points. Success rate: 62.4% and climbing.]
Charles squinted. "And no pings?"
[SIGMA: No detection. Navigating dead IPs and collapsed tether points. The funds are ancient—owners are long dead.]
A break.
[SIGMA: Also... While taking a small amount of money from House Marlegrave's forgotten ceremonial fund, I may have crashed their inventory server.
Charles gave a smile. "Oh no."
[SIGMA: Your rank controls the Robinhood Protocol. More networks become available as cultivation increases. Soul Realm encryption or anchored safewards still keep some vaults locked. We're getting closer.]
"And what happens when I reach Core Rank 4?"
[SIGMA: Expected growth: Imperial war treasuries, tribute-tax floats, intercontinental storage contracts, and class-A Stellar Dominion accounts.]
Charles dropped into his chair and used one hand to dry his hair.
"So basically, the stronger I get, the more things I probably shouldn't own."
[SIGMA: You grow; I hack. You ascend; I embezzle. Your progress destabilizes empires. That's partnership.]
[SIGMA: As requested, new sub-accounts have been created within your Stellar Bank Tier-2 portfolio. Each sub-account serves a distinct function and is encrypted with identity-cloaked credentials routed through five nations. Audit-resistant. Self-scrambling. Current allocations and account types are as follows:
Primary Liquid Account: 2.5 million gold
Growth Stocks Portfolio: 600,000 gold. This investment account allows SIGMA to purchase shares in companies focused on tech-artefact development, floating citadel properties, and qi-refinement farming. All profits and dividends from these investments are returned automatically to the Primary Liquid Account each week.
Shorting Strategy Index: 400,000 gold. This specialized account enables SIGMA to automatically short-sell assets, targeting declining noble conglomerates, iron markets, and teleportation circle values. Profits generated from these short sales are routed to the Primary Liquid Account.
Phantom Holdings Fund: 1.1 million gold. This covert, off-the-books fund is managed through SIGMA's shadow-market algorithms. It serves as an emergency war chest, keeping assets liquid and moving them secretly across untraceable trades without revealing Charles's identity.
Charles narrowed his eyes. "Shorting teleportation circles?"
[SIGMA: Eastern Gate Guild over-leveraged on Empire expansion in the Broken Reaches. Valuations are set to implode. Expect a 240% return in five.]
Charles whistled. "So we're bankrupting the corrupt. I'm in."
[SIGMA: You are the market correction.]
Charles laughed. "Nobles spend more on concubines than on armies. More mistresses, less sense, more greed."
[SIGMA: Data confirms. Lord Grevaris has sixteen concubines, four children, and finances that rival chaos.]
Charles laughed louder. "He deserves to lose everything."
[SIGMA: Intake: 517,000 gold. Growth at current rank: capped. Core Realm 4 unlocks deeper access—three banks, two taxation conduits, legacy vaults with 200,000 gold to sub-portfolios weekly.]
"Randomize. Mask," Charles ordered.
[SIGMA: Confirmed. Fractals refreshed. Decoys deployed. Phantom accounts rotate every 7.1 days.]
Charles let out a breath and looked at the blue mountains outside his window.
While nobles fought in court and generals fought over borders, Charles was quietly building something else: an empire made of numbers, names, and quiet power.
When the time came to pay, it wouldn't start with armies or riots. His scheme would start with the missing gold.
And it would end with crowns falling off empty thrones.
Silent Collapse
Tension hung in the air like a knife drawn too long in the gilded halls of House Marlegrave.
The gold-leafed walls and ceremonial banners couldn't hide the anger that was building up inside Duke Valemar Marlegrave. He was a big man with iron-gray hair and a scary reputation. He stood at the head of the long table where his advisors sat in silence, looking pale.
"Again," he said calmly.
Grand Treasurer Darnis cleared his throat, but it did nothing to steady the tremble in his hands.
"The… the ceremonial fund is missing, Your Grace. All 1.3 million gold. Gone from the imperial pocket vault. No breach alarms. No trace. It's like the coins never existed."
Valemar's expression didn't change.
"The ceremonial fund," he said, enunciating each syllable, "was sealed behind a soul-bound oath-lock and time-suspended access ward. Even I need three blood verifications to open it. You expect me to believe it vanished?"
Darnis swallowed hard.
"Not vanished, my lord. Reallocated. It was drawn through a ghost line—an old, broken interdimensional tether... possibly pre-empire era. We only noticed when a transaction echo failed to register during quarterly cleansing."
"And who authorized that cleansing?"
A silence heavy enough to suffocate the room followed.
At House Elgrev's estate in another part of the kingdom, things were going wrong behind closed doors. Lady Sylvanna Elgrev threw her crystal goblet at the wall, and red wine went everywhere.
In the province of Davona, the same symptoms kept appearing: private accounts were emptied, tribute floats didn't appear, and fake debts appeared in ledgers that were already clean.
Some vaults showed time echoes that were off by weeks, and others showed "authorized access" without saying who gave it.
Yet no alarm spells went off. No audit stones broke. No curse locks sounded.
Nobles began blaming their own people—stewards, heirs, cousins, even their spouses.
"You've siphoned funds to your lover!" Lord Halven shouted at his son.
"Why did our mint draw funds during mourning?" the dowager of House Corven yelled.
Some lords pointed fingers at the Empire's central bank. Some people thought that rogue groups, bandits with high-quality keys, or old sects that had been asleep for a long time were behind it.
But no one had the guts to say the darker truth:
That something or someone was doing something behind the scenes. A ghost that lives behind the golden walls of their power.
And at the heart of it all, sipping spiced tea in the East Wing of House Ziglar, Charles merely raised an eyebrow at SIGMA's morning report.
[SIGMA: Destabilization protocol update:
House Marlegrave: treasury bleeding. Suspicion index: 73%. Likely scapegoat: youngest daughter's consort.
House Vehlmere: three ghost-scarred vaults. Family turning on itself.
House Corven: advisor missing, probably bribed authorities. Local panic rising.
Traceability: Negligible—less than 0.02%.
Noble infighting status: 12 confirmed duels, 4 attempted assassinations, 1 accidental goat poisoning.]
"They're used to power taken by force. Silence baffles them," Charles said.
[SIGMA: Phase One chaos achieved. Initiate Phase Two: discreet acquisition of failing noble industries and merchant fleets via shell entities?]
"Begin quietly," Charles said. "But tell me something first."
He leaned back, smiling. "How does the short compare?"
[SIGMA: Eastern Gate Guild lost the expansion bid. Investor collapse. Projected 248% return within one month.]
Charles whistled softly. "Nobles have more concubines than kids and are worse with money than a drunk goat." Who would have thought their egos were as big as their theft?"
[SIGMA: Your hypothesis is consistent. The higher the concubine count, the lower the portfolio integrity.]
"Plot it on a graph."
[SIGMA: Already done. X-axis: number of concubines. Y-axis: likelihood of financial implosion.]
Charles laughed aloud this time.
"Tragic. And poetic."
He stood up and stretched his arms. The aches from his morning training were almost gone.
"Continue the Robinhood siphoning. No alerts. No traces. Let them burn themselves out while chasing shadows."
[SIGMA: Confirmed. Phase Two is underway.
Projected sub-sector collapse: 3 minor noble estates, 1 guild bank, and 2 shadow market brokers.]
Charles turned to the window and looked out at the horizon of Davona.
"Let the nobles tear each other apart with suspicion. I'll be there to pick up what's left of their empires."
High above, storm clouds slowly moved over the kingdom.
No one realized the winds had already changed.
And Charles Ziglar, the hidden force behind it all, was already shaping the next chapter with gold, silence, and destruction.
The Echoes of a Phantom Theft
They woke up to silence—not the peaceful kind, but the kind that comes when the money stops.
In the capital of the Arcana Empire, behind the rich curtains and displays of wealth, vault doors stood half-open and strangely out of place. Security measures that had held for centuries now showed broken runes and mixed-up soul-locks. There were no signs of a break-in, no damage, and no bodies. Just emptiness.
House Marlegrave lost eight ceremonial accounts overnight—gone without a trace. The family head, Lord Rejovian Marlegrave, woke to an emergency report from his steward and promptly hurled his wine goblet through a stained-glass mural of his great-grandfather.
"Who would dare breach a locked tribute fund from the emperor's own Ascension Year?"
His younger brother, pale and sweating, whispered, "It's not just us. House Berovant's trade coin float is missing. House Vantar lost a tribute package meant for the eastern front. Even the Guild Banks are scrubbing logs."
The room went quiet again.
Then came the worst part. No one could find the thief.
No one could find the thief—not with spiritual tracking, bloodline pacts, or even the empire's special mirror arrays for questioning the dead. The thieves had slipped past everything, like whispers through walls that were never meant to carry sound.
In the fortress city of Reth-Kael, Lady Tissara Vehlmere stared at her banking orb as if it had personally insulted her.
"Where," she said through gritted teeth, "is the marriage dowry for my third concubine's son?"
The orb offered no answer. The funds had vanished through a starlight ledger route that didn't exist last week.
Her captain of accounts cleared his throat. "My lady, forgive me, but… perhaps someone within the Vehlmere family—"
"Silence." Her voice cut like a guillotine. "You dare suggest blood betrayal?"
But he wasn't the only one who was suspicious. Across the noble houses, distrust spread quickly, like weeds in spring.
Allies became distant. Brothers started to question each other. Concubines were questioned, and more than one mistress ended up locked in a jade cell for a so-called financial audit.
Somewhere far from the glittering rot of the empire, in the Ziglar estate's East Wing, Charles read the intercepted reports with idle amusement.
[SIGMA: Three major houses suspect internal betrayal. Two lesser houses have dissolved pre-marital alliance contracts. One noble committed fratricide over a stolen tribute chest.]
Charles sipped his tea. "And yet… not a single whisper about me."
[SIGMA: You are not a suspect. You are a concept. An economic myth with no footprint.]
Charles laughed quietly. "Perfect. Let them fight among themselves. Noble pride and old greed are a dangerous mix."
[SIGMA: Would you like to increase the siphoning rate by 8.2%?]
"No. Let them have some time. For now." He set his cup down. "Ruin is better when it has time to mature."
In the Empire's Treasury Conclave, an emergency meeting was held in secret—its doors sealed by blood-ink edicts.
"Every safeguard was in place," High Chancellor Tharyn said. " No breach in space. No magic is allowed. Not a thing."
A voice with no emotion came from the shadows. "Nothing... means it wasn't taken."
"Arcanum Keeper, what do you think we should do?"
The man walked into the light of the lamp. His robes bore the old symbols of the Dominion Archives, and his eyes sparkled with fear.
"I think something has started," he said. "A quiet revolution. Not with swords, but with ledgers, with numbers, and with battles fought in the details of accounts."
There was a long pause.
"Then find the bastard."
The Keeper of Secrets did not reply.
Because he already knew one thing for certain.
The bastard wasn't one of them.
And that terrified him more than anything.