Chapter 101: The Corporate Toll
Glen lost track of time in the dark.
For what felt like hours, he carved his way through the subterranean industrial nightmare of Sector 88-Sub. He didn’t map the layout. He didn’t search for hidden treasure chests or pre-Awakening artifacts. He simply followed the dense, erratic mana signatures of the Yokai variants, hunting them down with a cold, mechanical efficiency.
He fought packs of cybernetic Kamaitachi, rotting Oni that swung rusted I-beams like clubs, and grotesque, spider-like scavengers that tried to drop on him from the glowing green pipes. He killed them all. He used his Shadow Cloak to bypass their optical sensors, his Lightning Movement to shatter their formations, and the Abyssal blade to end them.
Every time a monster fell, he used Void Touch to rot their cybernetics and consume their corrupted cores.
With every core he absorbed, the void fragment in his chest grew heavier, denser. It wasn’t the chaotic, explosive growth he had experienced in Johannesburg. The artificial mana of the Eastern Spire was refined, structured. As the fragment digested it, Glen felt his own mana channels expanding, hardening like tempered steel to accommodate the sheer volume of dark energy coursing through his veins.
By the time he finally stepped back through the geometric blue portal and into the flooded subway tunnel of the Outer Rings, he was a different person than the one who had entered.
His clothes were soaked in black, viscous monster blood. His left arm, still bound in the splint, ached with a dull, persistent throb, but the bone had fully fused. The Enhanced Regeneration had done its job, fueled by the massive influx of consumed mana.
He stepped out of the portal, his heavy boots splashing into the stagnant water of the subway tracks. The portal hummed behind him, its blue light flickering erratically. He had slaughtered so many variants inside that the dungeon’s ambient mana density had plummeted. It would take weeks for the fracture to spawn a new ecosystem.
Glen exhaled, his breath pluming in the cold, damp air of the slums. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against the rusted dog tag. Sgt. Miller, David. A grim reminder of what he had been killing.
"Look what the cat dragged out of the meat grinder."
The voice echoed down the curved, graffiti-covered walls of the subway tunnel.
Glen didn’t flinch. He had felt them waiting the moment he stepped through the portal. His Predator Domain was still active, a tight, ten-meter radius of oppressive sensory awareness. There were five of them. Human. Their mana signatures were stable, refined, and distinctly corporate.
He slowly raised his head.
Standing on the concrete passenger platform above the tracks were five Hunters. They weren’t the ragged, desperate scavengers of the Outer Rings. They wore sleek, matching tactical armor—matte black with sharp, angular plating that glowed with faint, cyan energy lines. On their left shoulders, stamped in crisp white paint, was the insignia of a stylized starburst.
The Astra Guild.
The leader of the squad, a tall man with a shaved head and a cybernetic silver jaw, stood at the edge of the platform, looking down at Glen with a mixture of amusement and disgust. He held a high-tech, magnetic pulse-rifle resting casually over his shoulder.
"Sector 88-Sub is a restricted zone, Independent," the leader said, his voice amplified by a subtle vocal modulator in his jaw. "Astra Guild property. You’re trespassing."
Glen stared at him. He knew it was a lie. The terminal outside had clearly stated there was no Guild oversight here. The Astra Guild didn’t claim the Outer Rings; they just sent their enforcers down here to extort the desperate independents who managed to survive the unmapped fractures. It was a shakedown.
"I didn’t see a sign," Glen said, his voice a dry, emotionless rasp.
The leader chuckled, a harsh, metallic sound. The four enforcers flanking him fanned out slightly, their hands resting on the hilts of their weapons—a mix of energized stun-batons and sleek, mono-molecular katanas.
"Consider this your verbal warning," the leader said, stepping closer to the edge of the platform. "Now, here’s how this works, rat. You’re covered in variant blood, which means you actually managed to kill something in there. You’re going to empty your pockets. Cores, materials, credits. You hand over a hundred percent of the yield as a trespassing fine, and we let you walk out of this tunnel with both of your legs attached."
Glen looked at the five men. He analyzed their stances, their gear, the subtle hum of their cyan armor. They were C-Ranks, maybe one low B-Rank. In Johannesburg, a squad like this would have been a formidable threat to a solo Hunter.
Here, in the dark, they were just meat.
"I don’t have any cores," Glen said truthfully. He had consumed them all.
The leader’s cybernetic jaw tightened. The amusement vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, corporate cruelty. "Don’t play games with me, trash. I can read the mana density radiating off you from here. You’re loaded. Strip the gear, drop the bag, and kick the sword over. Now."
Glen didn’t move. He looked at the leader, his dark eyes completely devoid of fear, anger, or even basic human empathy. He looked at the Astra enforcers the exact same way he had looked at the Kamaitachi in the dungeon.
"You work for Astra," Glen said softly.
"We are Astra," the leader corrected, raising the pulse-rifle and aiming it directly at Glen’s chest. "Last chance, kid. The bag. Now."
Glen slowly reached up with his right hand and gripped the strap of the canvas bag containing the Abyssal Prism. He slid it off his shoulder.
The enforcers relaxed slightly, expecting compliance. It was the natural order of the Eastern Spire. The strong took from the weak, and the Guilds took from everyone.
Glen let the bag drop.
Before it even hit the stagnant water, Glen vanished.
He didn’t use Lightning Movement. He didn’t want the flash of blue electricity to give away his trajectory. He relied entirely on his raw, newly enhanced physical speed, augmented by the dense mana in his core.
He crossed the ten feet of water and vaulted onto the concrete platform in a fraction of a second.
The leader’s eyes widened in shock. He pulled the trigger of the pulse-rifle, but Glen was already inside his guard. Glen didn’t draw the Abyssal blade. He raised his right hand, his fingers splayed wide.
Shadow Thread.
Five razor-sharp lines of condensed black mana shot from his fingertips. At this close range, they didn’t just bind; they cut. Glen whipped his hand across the leader’s chest. The threads sliced cleanly through the high-tech cyan armor, severing the straps of the pulse-rifle and carving deep, bloody grooves into the man’s tactical vest.
The leader screamed, stumbling backward and dropping the ruined rifle.
The other four enforcers reacted, drawing their mono-molecular katanas with synchronized, humming snaps. They lunged at Glen from all sides.
Glen didn’t retreat. He stepped into the circle of blades. He ducked under a horizontal slash from the enforcer on his left, grabbed the man’s wrist, and twisted it with bone-snapping force. As the man dropped his katana, Glen used him as a human shield, absorbing a thrust from the second enforcer.
The blade pierced the first enforcer’s shoulder. While the second man was momentarily tangled in his own ally, Glen lashed out with his Shadow Threads again. He wrapped the black, wire-like mana around the second enforcer’s throat and yanked. The man gagged, his hands flying to his neck as the threads bit into his skin, choking off his air supply.
The third and fourth enforcers hesitated, their corporate bravado shattering in the face of the sheer, brutal efficiency of the boy in front of them. This wasn’t a fight. It was an execution.
Glen didn’t give them time to recover. He triggered Lightning Movement, closing the distance to the third man in a blur of blue light. He drove his knee into the man’s sternum, the impact cracking ribs through the armor, and followed it up with a brutal, open-handed strike to the throat. The man collapsed, gasping for air.
The fourth enforcer turned and ran. He sprinted down the subway platform, his boots slapping against the concrete, desperate to reach the stairs leading up to the street.
Glen watched him go for a second. Then, he raised his right hand. He condensed all five Shadow Threads into a single, thick whip of black mana and lashed it forward. The thread shot across the platform, wrapping tightly around the fleeing man’s ankle.
Glen planted his feet and pulled.
The enforcer was yanked backward mid-stride. He hit the concrete face-first with a sickening crunch, sliding several feet before coming to a halt. He didn’t get back up.
The entire engagement had lasted less than ten seconds.
Glen stood in the center of the platform, surrounded by groaning, bleeding Astra enforcers. He hadn’t even drawn his sword. He hadn’t used Void Touch. He had dismantled a corporate hit squad using nothing but stolen skills and raw, unadulterated violence.
He walked over to the leader. The man with the cybernetic jaw was propped up against a concrete pillar, clutching his bleeding chest. His eyes were wide with absolute terror as Glen approached.
"What... what the hell are you?" the leader gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "You’re no Independent. You’re a monster."
"I’m Wraith," Glen said, his voice a cold, dead whisper.
He knelt beside the man. He didn’t ask for an apology. He didn’t ask for information. He simply reached into the man’s tactical vest and began pulling out his gear. He tossed aside a few low-grade healing stims and a spare thermal clip.
Then, his fingers brushed against something hard and metallic in the man’s inner pocket.
Glen pulled it out. It was a sleek, encrypted Astra Guild datapad, made of black glass and silver trim. The screen was locked, displaying a biometric thumb-scanner.
Glen grabbed the leader’s right hand, ignoring the man’s weak protests, and forced his thumb onto the scanner. The datapad chimed, the screen flashing green as it unlocked.
Glen dropped the man’s hand and stood up, looking at the screen.
It was a standard corporate manifest. Patrol routes, extortion quotas, and bounty lists for the Outer Rings. Glen was about to toss it aside, assuming it was useless, when a specific file directory caught his eye. It was flagged with a high-level, red encryption marker, but the leader’s biometric scan had temporarily bypassed the firewall.
The folder was titled: [PROJECT PURIFICATION - SITE 4 - EYES ONLY]
Glen tapped the file.
A wall of text and holographic medical diagrams flooded the screen. Glen’s eyes scanned the data rapidly, his heart skipping a beat as he read the clinical, detached notes of the Astra researchers.
...Subject 04 exhibits severe necrotic decay of the spiritual core due to prolonged exposure to Class-V Anti-Mana (The Rot). ...Standard healing magic and high-tier potions accelerate the decay. The anti-mana acts as a parasite, feeding on traditional mana inputs. ...Hypothesis: The only viable method to halt the decay and restore the core is the surgical implantation of a synthesized ’Purification Core’, designed to invert the anti-mana frequency and flush the host’s system. ...Prototype Phase 3 is currently underway at the Neo-Kyoto Black-Site. If successful, the Purification Core will be capable of curing any Hunter afflicted by the Rot, regardless of the duration of exposure.
Glen stopped breathing.
He read the paragraph again. And then a third time.
The anti-mana acts as a parasite... Standard healing magic accelerates the decay... The only viable method is a synthesized Purification Core.
It was exactly what Malachi had described. It was exactly what was killing his mother. Mary McDonald wasn’t dying of a lung disease. She was dying because her shattered SS-Rank core was slowly being eaten alive by the demonic anti-mana she had absorbed eighteen years ago.
And the Astra Guild had the cure.
They were building it right here, in Neo-Kyoto.
Glen looked up from the datapad. The cold, hollow emptiness in his chest was suddenly replaced by a burning, white-hot intensity. The void fragment pulsed, feeding on the sudden surge of absolute, terrifying purpose that flooded his mind.
He had come to the Eastern Spire to dive into the dungeons. He had come to break his limits, to become a monster strong enough to tear open the void and save Caleb.
But now, the path had shifted. The goal was the same, but the targets had changed.
He didn’t just need to kill monsters anymore. He needed to tear the Astra Guild apart from the inside out. He needed to find their black-sites, slaughter their researchers, and steal the Purification Core. He was going to save his best friend, and he was going to save his mother, and he didn’t care how many corporate elites he had to butcher to do it.
Glen looked down at the bleeding squad leader.
"Where is Site 4?" Glen asked, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm register.
The leader coughed, shaking his head. "I... I don’t know. I swear. That’s high-level R&D. We’re just street muscle. We don’t have clearance for the black-sites."
Glen stared at him for a long moment. He could tell the man was telling the truth. The terror in his eyes was too genuine to fake.
Glen turned away. He walked over to the edge of the platform, picked up the canvas bag containing the Abyssal Prism, and slung it over his shoulder. He tucked the unlocked datapad securely into his jacket.
"Tell your bosses," Glen said, not looking back at the bleeding men on the floor. "Tell the Astra Guild that the Outer Rings belong to Wraith now. And tell them I’m coming for their secrets."
Glen walked up the concrete stairs, leaving the groaning enforcers behind in the dark. He stepped out into the neon-lit, rain-slicked streets of the slums, his eyes fixed on the towering, black monolith of the Celestial Tower in the distance.
The hunt had officially begun.
