The Neo-Tokyo Stock Exchange was a cathedral of glass and light. Thousands of traders and AI-brokers hurried across the floor, watching holographic tickers that determined the life and death of millions. At the center of the room stood a massive, ten-foot-tall statue of a Bull made of solid, enchanted platinum—a gift from the Babel System back when the Tower first opened.
The heavy, reinforced glass doors of the Exchange didn't open. They liquefied.
Yuto Kurosawa walked into the room. He was wearing his dirt-stained hoodie and torn jeans, but he radiated a presence so dense that the holographic tickers nearby began to scroll backward. Behind him walked the Vanguard: a demon, a samurai, a gladiator, and a shivering succubus.
The frantic shouting of the trading floor died instantly. Security drones swarmed overhead, their red targeting lasers painting Yuto's chest.
"Freeze!" a robotic voice commanded. "You are trespassing on Tier-S Private Property! Identify your brokerage or be liquidated!"
Yuto didn't stop. Every step he took left a literal crater in the marble floor as the 52% Vault Pressure sought to ground itself.
"I don't have a brokerage," Yuto said, his voice amplified by the raw, unrendered power in his lungs. "I'm here for a hostile takeover."
A man in a gold-threaded suit—the Head of the Exchange—stepped out onto a balcony overlooking the floor. "Kurosawa! You're the brat who broke the Tower! Do you have any idea what you've done? The global market is in freefall because of your 'hoarding'! You've sucked the liquidity out of the entire hemisphere!"
"Good," Yuto grunted. He reached the platinum Bull statue.
"Security! Delete him!" the Head shouted.
Before the drones could fire, Kurenai let out a roar. She didn't use a weapon. She simply grabbed a nearby marble pillar and ripped it out of the foundation, swinging it like a club to swat the drones out of the air like annoying flies.
Ayase blurred through the crowd, her wireframe katana parrying every laser bolt with rhythmic perfection. Isabella stood guard over Rin, her water-blades creating a swirling vortex of protection that no guard could penetrate.
Yuto placed his glowing right hand on the platinum Bull.
"This statue is a server-tether," Yuto whispered. "It's how you keep the real-world money connected to the Tower's debt."
"Don't touch that!" the Head shrieked. "That statue is worth fifty billion Vita-Fragments!"
"I know," Yuto said, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, golden light. "That's why I'm Vaulting it."
[Admin Override: VIP Ledger Detected.] [Action: Mass-Withdrawal of Physical Assets.]
The ten-foot platinum Bull didn't just break. It began to fold in on itself, turning into a stream of raw, golden data that flowed directly into Yuto's palm.
[Loot Vaulted: 1x Platinum Market-Tether.] [Current Stack: 1 Mythic Chest, 6 Fragments, 2,700 Tokens, 75,000 Vita-Fragments, 1 Hydro-Core, 1 Tear, 3 Dev-Strings, 1 VIP Ledger, 1 Platinum Bull.] [Multiplier: 1.75% - WARNING: ECONOMIC SINGULARITY DETECTED.]
The moment the Bull vanished, the holographic tickers in the room turned a violent, bleeding red. All across the world, the value of Omni-Corp stock plummeted to zero. The "liquidity" they had stolen from the players for years was being physically sucked into the alleyway kid standing in the middle of their floor.
Yuto looked up at the terrified Head of the Exchange.
"The market just closed," Yuto said, his voice echoing through the silent, bankrupt hall. "And I'm the only one with cash."