Soulless Soul

Chapter 45: Bargain

Arthur’s eyes shifted slowly down from Vesper to focus entirely on Sky, a look of profound, deeply ingrained disgust crossing the veteran Paladin’s scarred face. The muscle near his jaw twitched, undercutting the stoic facade he so carefully maintained for his subordinates. "The rat. The one they call ’Skies.’ I see you finally decided to stop hiding in the dark corners of the floorboards like the vermin you are. It takes a special kind of nerve for an unranked parasite to stand in my hall and address me directly."

"Hiding is incredibly efficient, Commander," Sky said, his voice flat and entirely unbothered by the giant’s patronizing tone.

He let go of Vesper’s hand, stepping forward with a slow, deliberate stride as he walked lazily toward the center circle of the crowd. The eyes of dozens of Awakened followed his every movement, their expressions a mix of curiosity and hostility. His hands were casually tucked inside his dark tunic pockets, a posture that looked completely relaxed but actually allowed his fingers to stay wrapped around a pair of hidden throwing daggers. His muscles were coiled like springs, ready to deploy the blades at the first sign of a weapon draw. "But let’s stop measuring the size of our shields and start talking actual business, Commander. You want total administrative control over the blueprint economy because your internal guild smiths don’t have the high-density data required to forge anything past common, white-tier baseline gear. Am I wrong? You’re playing king of a castle built out of cardboard."

Arthur’s heavy jaw tightened significantly, the faint golden aura around his silver breastplate flickering with a sudden spike of internal irritation. The light sputtered like a dying candle before stabilizing. Sky had struck a massive, poorly hidden nerve, exposing the foundational weakness of the entire Vanguard Order in front of the very recruits they sought to govern.

The structural truth of the hub was an open secret among the fighting factions: the Vanguard Order had plenty of raw materials—countless crates of common iron ore, stacks of timber, and boxes of depleted energy batteries stored away in their private repository—but the array’s automated Forge Table required specific, highly elusive blueprint data matrices to unlock anything higher-tier, like the legendary Red Dragon lance or the heavy Caliburn broadsword.

Without those drop-rate files, their high-level smiths were completely useless, reduced to forging heavier, bulkier versions of basic common swords that couldn’t crack the upgraded armor of the lower sector monsters. They were resource-rich but technologically bankrupt, trapped in a progression bottleneck.

"What’s your point, rat?" one of the higher-tier players in the room snapped, the voice dripping with pure venom. It was Colton, the green-haired bully. He stepped forward from the edge of the crowd, his bloodshot eyes narrowing as he glared at Sky, his hand dangerously close to the hilt of his weapon. His posture was aggressive, desperate to regain the intimidation advantage for his faction.

Sky didn’t even bother to turn his head to look at him. He completely ignored Colton’s presence, treating the bully like nothing more than background noise. Instead, Sky reached deep into his internal coat pocket and tossed a small, glowing green data chip onto the smooth stone surface of the massive Forge Table. The metallic chip spun smoothly across the polished rock before clicking perfectly into the central, illuminated data receptacle.

A massive, high-definition holographic projection filled the entire room, casting a vibrant emerald glow over the faces of the stunned Awakened. The green light danced across the timber beams of the ceiling, casting long shadows.

[BLUEPRINT DETECTED: MEAT GRINDER]

Type: Heavy Battle Axe / Shotgun Hybrid

Progress: 3/4 Fragments

The room went dead silent, the crackling of the wood fire in the hearth the only sound remaining in the tavern lodge. An Uncommon, green-tier blueprint of this caliber was incredibly rare on the first floor of the array. It was precisely the kind of hybrid weapon that possessed the sheer kinetic mass and armor-piercing capabilities required to completely break through the Crystal Crab’s reinforced outer armor plating. To a faction like the Vanguard Order, this single file was worth more than a thousand bars of common iron. It was the key to unlocking the gatekeeper’s vault.

"Where exactly did you get that?" Arthur demanded, his eyes widening slightly as he leaned over the table, the data stream reflecting in his pupils. His commanding voice lost its performative calm, replaced by a raw, immediate hunger for the resource. He stepped closer to the projection, his heavy armor clanking against the rim of the table.

"Floor 1-3. Hidden chest stowed behind an illusionary ice wall near the eastern transition zone," Sky lied smoothly, his tone perfectly steady, showing zero tells that the system or the Paladin’s attributes could flag. His facial muscles didn’t twitch, and his heart rate remained a flatline on his chest.

In absolute reality, it was a complete fabrication. He hadn’t found it in a frozen cave. Instead, he had secretly traded half of his hard-earned awakening gems to Nix, the notorious independent information broker operating out of the lodge’s lower cellars, in exchange for the exact coordinates of a glitched, out-of-bounds chest sector that the Vanguard Order’s scouting teams had completely overlooked during their routine perimeter sweeps. Sky had kept the fragments hidden for a moment just like this a bargaining chip to dismantle a monopoly and force the hand of a tyrant.

"Three out of four pieces," Colton muttered from the back, his manic grin twisting into an expression of raw envy. "He’s one drop away from assembling a green-tier vanguard weapon on Floor 1. If he gets that final fragment, he can bypass our entire front-line blockade."

Sky looked directly into Arthur’s eyes, letting the green holographic light of the blueprint float between them. "I have the data you need to make your unified raid team actually functional, Commander. But I don’t work for free, and neither does Vesper. So here is the deal: we keep our independence, we keep our gems, and you give us unrestricted, priority access to the Forge Table queue. If you try to lock us out or draft us into your front lines, this chip goes right into the fireplace, and your elite knights can go fight the mutated crab with their common iron toothpicks."

Arthur remained frozen, his massive hand hovering over the rim of his golden tower shield as his internal calculations raced against the ticking clock of the collapsing sector. He was caught in a trap of his own making, forced to choose between absolute faction control and the single weapon blueprint that could guarantee their collective survival. The silence stretched thin, every player in the room holding their breath as they waited for the Commander’s ultimate decree.

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