[System Error: Scanning Object YUTO_KUROSAWA.] [Calculating Assets... Calculating... Calculating...]
Aurelius's monocle began to whir violently. The golden coins making up his face shifted in confusion. "What is this? Your debt is registered at infinite, but your localized, unspent mass is... it's mathematically impossible!"
"The system is rigged to keep everyone spending," Yuto growled, taking another step. The sheer gravity of his 25% Vault pressure was beginning to crack the marble floor beneath him. "You loan us power, you force us to spend it to survive, and you harvest the transaction fees. But you never coded a protocol for a guy who just shoves it all under his mattress."
"Liquidate them!" Aurelius shrieked in sudden algorithmic panic. "Security! Erase them from the server!"
Dozens of high-level Bank Security guards—paladins clad in platinum armor—rushed the Vanguard.
"Vanguard, engage," Yuto ordered calmly. "But do not spend a single point of mana. Use only offline force."
"With pleasure, Alpha!" Kurenai roared. Without relying on the System's Oni-fire, she simply utilized her raw, biological muscle mass. She grabbed the first charging platinum paladin by the helmet, lifted him off the ground, and used him as a massive, armored baseball bat to smash three other guards across the lobby.
"My path is clear," Ayase murmured. She elegantly side-stepped a security guard's glowing spear thrust. Using the guard's own momentum, she delivered a devastating, purely physical martial-arts palm strike to his chest-plate, shattering the armor through sheer kinetic transfer.
Isabella hesitated for a fraction of a second. Her entire life, she had fought by instantly spending tokens to buff her speed. But as she looked at Yuto—who was literally bleeding from the eyes to protect his savings—she felt a surge of absolute clarity.
I don't need the System's speed, she realized. I am a gladiator. My instincts are my own.
Isabella dodged a heavy sword swing, her movements rougher but infinitely more grounded. She slid across the marble floor, driving her twin blades into the unprotected joints of a guard's armor, dropping him instantly.
"You... you're fighting offline!" Aurelius screamed, watching his premium guards get dismantled by raw, unbuffed violence. "That's illegal! You have to use our combat engine!"
Yuto finally reached the Floor Manager.
Aurelius panicked, raising all six of his golden arms to cast [Absolute Foreclosure], a spell designed to instantly delete a player's inventory.
But Yuto didn't cast a spell. He didn't use a skill. He just reached out with his agonizing, glowing red right hand, grabbed Aurelius by his expensive silk tie, and pulled the eight-foot-tall entity down to his eye level.
"Withdrawal: Customer Complaint," Yuto whispered.
He headbutted the Floor Manager.
Yuto didn't just hit him with his skull. He let a micro-fraction of the 25,000 Vita-Fragments, the Mythic Chest, and the 1.42% compound interest forcefully collide with Aurelius's heavily financed facial structure.
The impact sounded like a bank vault being dropped out of a plane.
Aurelius didn't even have time to scream. The golden coins making up his body violently decompressed, exploding outward like a slot machine hitting a jackpot. Thousands of gold coins, premium data-drives, and VIP access cards rained down across the lobby.
The billionaire Guildmasters in the lobby were screaming, diving under the marble desks to avoid the shrapnel of the Floor Manager.
[Floor Manager Liquidated.] [Loot Dropped: 1x Platinum Elevator Keycard, 50,000 Corporate Vita-Fragments, 1x VIP Vault Ledger.]
Vault it, Yuto commanded, his vision momentarily going entirely white from the pain.
[Loot Vaulted. Current Stack: 1 Mythic Chest, 6 Fragments, 2,700 Tokens, 75,000 Vita-Fragments, 1 Hydro-Core, 1 Tear, 3 Dev-Strings, 1 Admin Key, 1 Guild Cipher, 1 S-Tier Suit, 1 VIP Ledger, 1 Platinum Keycard.] [Multiplier: 1.50% - MILESTONE REACHED!] [Vault Pressure: 30%. CRITICAL: Host is experiencing localized organ failure. Advise IMMEDIATE spending.]
Yuto coughed, a heavy splatter of blood hitting the floor. He stumbled, but before he could fall, Isabella was there, catching him by his good arm and propping him up. Her red eyes were wide with terrified awe.
"You got the Keycard," Isabella breathed, looking at the massive, glowing Platinum Elevator at the back of the lobby. "But Yuto, you are literally dying. Your Vault pressure is at 30%!"
"I'm fine," Yuto wheezed, his entire body radiating heat like a furnace. He looked at Shion, who was frantically picking up dropped, non-vaulted copper coins from the floor just to feed herself a crumb of energy.
"Shion," Yuto gasped. "Call the elevator. We're going to the Penthouse. I want to speak to the CEO."