Chapter 129: [129] : Hacking the Treasury, The Neural Crown
The heavy toxic rain of Sector 7 bounced harmlessly off Declan’s invisible kinetic barrier as he walked down the ruined street.
Morgan and Nova hurried to catch up with him. They kept glancing over their shoulders at the sleek white corporate AV hovering in the distance.
"Are you completely insane?" Nova asked, her voice cracking slightly. Her icy facade was entirely gone. "You just robbed an Apex Paradigm board member to his face! You took the bribe and literally walked away!"
Declan did not even look back. He just chuckled. It was a dark highly amused sound.
"I didn’t rob him," Declan said casually. "He handed it to me. I just accepted a gift from a very generous sponsor."
He pulled his hands out of his coat pockets. Resting in his palm was the glowing gold card he had just taken from Executive Lorin.
It was a beautiful piece of digital hardware. It looked like a credit card made entirely of solidified light.
[Item Recognized: Admin Access Keycard]
↳ Tier: Ascendant Corporate Asset
↳ Functionality: Grants the user limited read-only access to the Apex Paradigm Master Treasury. Allows withdrawal of approved employee-tier items.
↳ Restriction: Employee Only. High-level assets locked by Root Firewall.
Declan read the prompt and laughed out loud.
"Limited access," Declan muttered. "Employee only. That is cute."
He stopped walking. They were standing in a dark alleyway, safely out of sight from the corporate guards.
"What are you doing?" Morgan asked, keeping her hand on her daggers. She was still on high alert.
"I am going shopping," Declan replied.
He did not need to find a secure terminal. He did not need to plug the card into a computer. He just opened his enhancement menu with a quick mental command.
"System," Declan said in his mind. "Enhance the Admin Access Keycard. Push it to plus twenty. Burn whatever points it takes."
He had millions of Origin Points sitting in his Warlord bank. Upgrading an Ascendant-tier item was incredibly expensive, but he literally had the GDP of a small country at his disposal.
A blinding white light erupted from the gold card in his hand. The familiar rapid system chimes hammered inside his head.
[System Enhancement Initiated. Calculating cost...]
[Warning: Item contains highly sensitive corporate encryption. Unauthorized modification will trigger a server-wide lockdown.]
[Immediate item shatter imminent!]
Declan ignored the warnings. His SSS-Rank talent, Boundless Enhancement, surged forward. It violently crushed the corporate firewalls and deleted the red warning boxes in a fraction of a second.
[Talent: Boundless Enhancement activated. Safety protocols bypassed.]
[Admin Access Keycard +15... +18... +20.]
[Item has reached +20.]
[Triggering Conceptual Mutation...]
The bright gold light shifted. It turned into a deep consuming pitch-black void. The physical shape of the card warped. The pristine light solidified into a heavy dark metal slab covered in glowing purple runes.
[Item Mutated: Sovereign Root Override]
↳ Functionality: Completely bypasses all corporate firewalls. Grants the user absolute unrestricted access to the Master Treasury. All item locks and employee restrictions are permanently removed.
Declan smiled. It was a cold and ruthless expression.
"Let’s fix that limited access," he said softly.
He tapped the dark metal card. Instantly, a massive glowing blue holographic screen projected right into the dirty alleyway.
It was the Apex Paradigm Master Treasury!
He was looking directly into the bank accounts and item vaults of the people who built the game. The screen was flooded with thousands of Sovereign-tier weapons, endless stacks of high-grade mana crystals, and classified experimental gear.
"Holy crap," Nova gasped, staring over his shoulder at the massive list of impossible loot. "You just hacked the developer’s personal stash from an alleyway."
"I prefer the term aggressive auditing," Declan noted smoothly.
He did not waste time scrolling through the weapons. He already had the Eclipse Severance halberd. He did not need armor because his mutated Predator’s Coat was a literal tank.
He needed something to protect his mind. The psychic pressure from the Ascension Trial had been incredibly annoying, and he did not want to deal with system-forced headaches anymore.
He typed ’Headgear’ into the search bar and filtered by the absolute highest tier available.
Right at the top of the list, a single item glowed with a terrifying dark red light.
[Item: Sovereign Neural Crown]
↳ Status: Locked. Developer Access Only.
Declan tapped the item. The corporate firewall threw up a massive red ’DENIED’ prompt.
His mutated keycard instantly reacted. The purple runes on the metal slab flared, shooting a stream of corrupted code directly into the terminal. The red ’DENIED’ prompt shattered like cheap glass, replaced by a glowing green ’APPROVED’.
Declan hit the ’Withdraw’ button.
High above the city, in the Apex Paradigm Headquarters, dozens of alarms suddenly started screaming!
Down in the alley, a heavy metallic object materialized directly out of the holographic screen and dropped into Declan’s hands.
It did not look like a crown. It looked like a sleek dark silver halo made of jagged floating geometric shards. It hummed with an intense psychic energy.
He did not put it on yet. He pulled up his enhancement menu one more time.
"System. Enhance the Sovereign Neural Crown. Plus twenty."
Millions of Origin Points vanished from his account. The dark silver halo erupted in a blinding purple light. The system screamed in protest, but the Boundless Enhancement talent crushed the limits instantly.
[Item Mutated: Abyssal Sovereign Crown +20]
↳ Stats: +300,000 HP, +30,000 flat Defense.
↳ Passive Trait: Absolute Mental Aegis. Grants absolute immunity to all psychic damage, EMP blasts, system-forced neural shocks, and telepathic intrusion.
Declan let out a low and highly satisfied whistle.
Three hundred thousand extra health points! Thirty thousand flat defense! He was basically an unkillable raid boss walking around in human form.
He raised the dark silver halo and placed it over his head. The jagged shards instantly sank into his skull, fusing invisibly with his physical nervous system.
He did not feel any pain. He just felt an overwhelming absolute silence in his mind. The constant hum of the game engine, the static of the real-world overlap, everything just went perfectly quiet.
He felt literally untouchable.
Declan closed the holographic terminal and shoved his hands back into his coat pockets. He looked at Morgan and Nova.
