[The Sanctuary - Level 100 (The Basement)]
The elevator doors opened with a heavy hiss. The air was so cold it burned the lungs. The room was a massive, circular cavern. In the center was a lake of liquid nitrogen, bubbling softly. Rising from the center of the lake was a single, towering black obelisk—The Server Farm.
Alex walked onto the glass bridge leading to the obelisk. Behind him, Luna's breath plumed in the freezing air, her swords drawn.
At the base of the obelisk sat The Elder (Seat 1). He wasn't sitting in a chair. He was wired into the machine itself. Cables as thick as tree trunks ran from his spine into the glowing server racks. His physical body was frail, ancient, and decaying, kept alive only by the blue fluid pumping through his veins.
"You took your time, boy," The Elder's voice echoed not from his mouth, but from the cavern's speakers.
"Traffic was bad," Alex said casually, stopping ten feet away. "I had to buy a power grid and evict your banker."
[The Revelation]
The Elder opened his eyes. They were completely black. "You think you are a hero," the old man wheezed. "You think destroying us brings freedom. You are a fool. We are not the jailers of this world, Alex. We are the shield."
"A shield that assassinates people and hoards technology," Alex scoffed.
"A necessary evil!" The Elder's voice boomed, vibrating the glass bridge. "Did you really think you were the only 'Anomaly'? Five hundred years ago, a meteor fell. It carried fragments of a higher dimension. 'Systems.' We found one. We used it to build the Council."
Alex's eyes narrowed. He remembered Vincent and the Plunder System.
"There are other System Hosts out there," The Elder sneered. "Monsters. World-Eaters. We controlled the global economy to fund a secret war against them. If you kill me, the Sanctuary falls. The beacon dies. The others will know Earth is unprotected. You will bring the Cosmic Predators to our doorstep."
Alex pulled a cigarette from his silver case and placed it in his mouth. He didn't light it. "Elder," Alex said softly. "You misunderstand me."
Alex looked up at the massive server. "I don't care about the world. I care about what's on that hard drive. Hand over Elena's data."
[The Ultimatum]
The Elder laughed—a wet, rattling sound. "Love. The ultimate weakness. If I cannot rule this world, then neither will you. And you will definitely not have her."
The Elder's hands flew across a holographic keyboard. [System Alert: Mass Deletion Initiated.] [Target: Sector 7 Memory Banks (Elena_Archive.dat).] [Time to Deletion: 30 Seconds.]
"No!" Luna lunged forward, but a hard-light barrier slammed down, blocking the bridge.
"Watch her die again, Tycoon!" The Elder screamed. "Watch her burn in the digital fire!"
[The Override]
Alex didn't panic. He never panicked. He opened the System Store. "Dawn," Alex's voice was absolute ice. "How much to buy the internet?"
"Clarification required, Administrator."
"I want to purchase the Root Access of this server, the satellites connecting it, and the quantum encryption locking it. I want to buy the data itself."
"Item: Quantum Root-Command Protocol (God-Tier Override). Cost: $1 Trillion."
A trillion dollars. A thousand billion. The GDP of an entire continent. "Buy it," Alex said. "And charge it to my tab."
[Transaction Processing...] [Expenditure: $1,000,000,000,000.] [Status: Approved. Balance: Infinite.]
[The Checkmate]
10 Seconds to Deletion.
VMMMMMM. A wave of golden light exploded from Alex's System Interface, washing over the black obelisk. The red warning lights on the server instantly turned gold.
[Deletion Cancelled.] [New Administrator Logged In: Alex.]
The Elder froze. The cables attached to his spine began to spark. "What... what did you do?" The Elder gasped. "I have the master encryption!"
"I bought the company," Alex stepped up to the hard-light barrier. With a single tap of his finger, the barrier shattered into a million pixels.
Alex walked up to the frail old man. "You said you were the shield against the monsters of the universe," Alex looked down at him. "Let them come. I'll buy their planets and evict them."
Alex reached out and gripped the main life-support cable connecting The Elder to the server.
"Seat 1," Alex whispered. "Your position has been terminated."
RIP.
Alex tore the cable from the machine. The Elder gasped, his black eyes widening in terror. For five hundred years, he had been a god. Now, he was just a dying old man on a cold floor. Within seconds, his body withered into dust, leaving only an empty robe.
[System Notification] [The Council of Five is Destroyed.] [New Title Unlocked: Master of the Earth.]
Alex turned away from the dust. He looked at the glowing golden terminal. On the screen, a single file was pulsing. Elena_Archive.dat