Chapter 27: A Toast

The heavy acoustic vault doors of his private penthouse hissed shut, cutting off the low mechanical drone of the command deck.

Julius stood in the center of his expansive living room, bathed in the amber glow of the fireplace.

Four hundred meters of solid Atlantic basalt insulated him from the dying world above. Down here, there was no sound of torrential rain. There were no screams of dying candidates, no groans of collapsing mountains, and no wailing alarms.

There was only the crackle of seasoned cedar logs burning in the black Nero Marquina marble hearth.

Julius walked to the freestanding bar in the corner. He opened a climate-controlled mahogany cabinet, pulled out an unopened bottle of 1945 Romanée-Conti, and uncorked it with deliberate, unhurried care. He poured the deep ruby liquid into a thin crystal goblet, watching the dark vintage swirl against the glass.

Beside the decanter lay a silver tray sent up by his private chef: thinly shaved slices of cured Iberian ham, fresh sourdough baked less than an hour ago, black truffle butter, and a cluster of chilled grapes harvested directly from Clara Chen’s subterranean greenhouse.

Julius carried the wine and a crystal plate over to the plush velvet recliner facing his panoramic wall screen.

The screen stretched thirty feet across, displaying the real-time external camera feed from the Spire’s southern observation mast. Outside, the North Atlantic was pitch-black, thrashing in a violent, unending gale. Freezing rain battered the armored camera lenses, washing down eighty meters of sheer cliffs before foaming into the dark ocean swells.

Julius settled deep into the leather cushions. He raised his glass to the screen, catching the crimson reflection of the fireplace against the dark glass.

"To seventy billion dollars," he murmured softly.

He took a slow, leisurely sip.

The wine was velvety, rich with notes of dark cherry, oak, and ancient earth. It tasted like absolute, uninterrupted peace.

Julius set the glass down and picked up his black smartphone from the side table.

The interface was still warm. When he unlocked the screen, the system log was a solid wall of crimson notifications, frozen in place after the synchronized detonation:

[SYSTEM LOG: CASUALTY RECORD] ========================================= SITE 01 (CANADIAN SHIELD) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 02 (PATAGONIA) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 03 (SWISS ALPS) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 04 (SAHARA MASSIF) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 05 (SIBERIA) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 06 (EAST ASIA) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 07 (AUSTRALIA) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS SITE 08 (ANTARCTICA) : 30 CONFIRMED KILLS ----------------------------------------- TOTAL HARVEST : 240 / 240 TARGETS REMAINING CANDIDATES : 236 / 500 =========================================

Two hundred and forty of the strongest, most ruthless combatants on the planet.

They had elemental affinities. They had impenetrable armor, divine blades, and dragon bloodlines. They had spent two years looking down on ordinary people, viewing this world as an open-world playground for their chosen gifts.

And now, every single one of them was compressed into ash beneath billions of tons of collapsed bedrock.

Julius let out a quiet, breathy chuckle that gradually grew into a soft, genuine laugh.

It was ridiculous.

When they stood before the celestial monolith at the start of the Trial, they had called him a dead man walking. They sneered at his "useless" Infinite Wealth, telling him that gold couldn’t block a sword and currency couldn’t stop a lightning bolt.

They were right. Gold couldn’t block a sword.

But gold could hire the finest subterranean engineers on Earth. Gold could buy forty metric tons of high-grade demolition compounds and bury them under eight mountain ranges. Gold could purchase closed-loop nuclear reactors, hydroponic biospheres, and four-foot titanium blast doors while the combatants were scrounging for instant noodles in flooded grocery stores.

He popped a sweet grape into his mouth, letting the cold juice burst over his tongue.

Julius tapped open the [World Chat].

The frantic panic from an hour ago had died down. The surviving 236 players who had arrived too late at the bunkers were no longer shouting threats. The reality of what had occurred had thoroughly crushed their spirits.

— [Swift]: I dug through the edge of the rubble in the Alps. The tunnel is just gone. It’s solid rock. Nothing could have survived that.

— [LoneWolf]: He planned it from the very beginning. The food, the beds, the limit of thirty... it was all bait.

— [ShadowStep]: He’s a monster. A real monster.

— [IronSeeker]: We never had a chance against him, did we?

Julius scrolled through their despair with complete detachment.

They called him a monster, but he hadn’t forced a single one of them to murder their friends on the doorstep outside. He had merely provided the stage. Their own greed, arrogance, and bloodlust had written the script.

Julius took a slice of the warm sourdough, smeared a thick layer of truffle butter over the crust, and draped a strip of cured ham across the top. He took a bite, savoring the rich, salty fat melting against the warmth of the bread.

In his previous life, he had spent his final months trapped in a bleak, whitewashed hospice ward. His veins had collapsed from chemotherapy; his joints had ached with every breath. He had eaten bland broth through plastic spoons, staring at an unpainted ceiling while waiting for his organs to shut down.

Tonight, he sat in a heated velvet armchair, wearing soft cashmere, surrounded by miles of impenetrable volcanic rock, dining on century-old vintages while gods and monsters drowned in the mud.

He lifted his glass once more toward the dark storm churning on the wall screen.

"Keep weeping, heavens," Julius whispered to the quiet room, a tranquil smile gracing his lips. "I’m not going anywhere."

He took another long sip of the wine, leaned his head back against the cushion, and closed his eyes in pure, undisturbed contentment.