Chương 265: Chapter 264 - Corporate Outrage

"Moreover," Mercyros continued, his voice shifting back into a blunt, interrogative tone.

"What exactly do you want? Time is money. State your business." The purple-haired woman smiled, a motion that exposed even more of her bloody teeth through her ruined cheek.

"Oh, that is a wonderful question indeed. The grand age of gods, the supreme age of Mother Alsia, has long since faded into total irrelevancy." Mercyros crossed his massive arms. He looked down at her with analytical precision.

"So you want it completely gone? Out with the old. Precisely what do you want removed from the ledger?" She answered without a single ounce of hesitation.

"I want the sacred doctrine of your beloved creator to burn completely. You want the entire legacy of Mother Fate to perish and be forgotten." Pilt could not contain his outrage any longer. The sheer audacity of her proposal offended his deep sensibilities regarding loyalty and structural integrity. He took a bold step forward, raising his voice to a furious, carrying scream.

"Are you completely insane?" Pilt yelled, pointing a sharply manicured finger at the bleeding woman.

"You would sell out the very fundamental ideology you supposedly follow on a cheap gold platter? That is an absolutely terrible business model. You do not liquidate your core brand just because you suffered a minor hostile dispute. I will personally flay you alive and turn your purple robes into floor mats for my lowest level executives." Mercyros regarded Pilt with complete, woolly indifference. The Monolith did not care about mortal threats or corporate grandstanding.

The deity turned his glowing eyes back to the purple-haired woman, treating Pilt as nothing more than background noise.

"What do you offer as collateral?" Mercyros asked.

"A penny for your thoughts. The transaction requires equal weight." The woman raised her bloody hand and pointed her index finger directly at Pilt. She then shifted her hand to gesture toward the unconscious Mira hanging in the air.

"I offer you the one mortal man who currently owns the most corporate shares in the Timeless Aureate," the woman announced clearly.

"I also offer you the absolute genius architect who built the entire foundation, along with all her vast future potential." Pilt felt a sudden, cold spike of genuine alarm. He was being treated as a tradable commodity. He was accustomed to being the one sitting at the head of the negotiation table, deciding the absolute fate of lesser businesses and ruined men. Being offered as a sacrificial bargaining chip to a divine accountant was entirely unacceptable.

He tightened his fists, preparing to unleash whatever violent Fate Essence he had left in his exhausted reserves. If this deal went through, he would make sure the transition of ownership was as bloody and legally complicated as humanly possible. Mercyros stared intently at the two mortals. The deity evaluated their combined net worth, processing their historical achievements, their current capital, and their future capacity for generating raw belief. The silence stretched endlessly through the featureless room.

Pilt held his breath, waiting for the heavy gavel of divine judgment to fall.

"A measly enterprise," Mercyros finally declared.

"Small potatoes." The purple-haired woman gasped. Her confident demeanor shattered instantly.

"The very future enterprise of the scattered realms rests entirely in their hands. They already have their corporate branches buried deep within multiple monarchies and vast tracts of sovereign land. They control the flow of massive capital." Mercyros did not shift his stance. He remained entirely unswayed by the promise of mortal monopolies.

"No," Mercyros stated firmly.

"The buck stops here. I absolutely refuse the transaction, though I admit it is highly tempting, to say the least." Pilt stood completely shocked in his puddle of gold. His massive, world-spanning wealth, the very empire he had built from dirt and blood, had just been casually dismissed as insufficient currency by a giant wearing a simple robe. The insult stung his massive ego deeply, but the sheer relief of surviving the audit quickly washed the bruised pride away. He allowed himself a small, vicious smirk.

His corporate entity was simply too volatile to be easily absorbed by a stagnant divine portfolio. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The purple-haired woman stared up at the Monolith in total, unmasked disbelief. Blood continued to drip from her exposed teeth, pooling silently on the golden floor. Her ultimate bargaining chip had failed completely.

"Actually, we do possess that exact knowledge," the purple-haired woman stated. She dropped her previously defiant posture and stepped forward. Her voice took on a freaky, earnest tone. She began pleading openly, adopting the pathetic body language of a desperate debtor begging for leniency inside a sterile courtroom.

"Our head leader," she started, before catching her own mistake.

"I mean, myself. We have been granted access to a beautiful, divine gospel. This text dictates the past, the present, and the future. The historical records have been proven entirely true." She spoke with an earnest, hopeful, and pleading cadence. The raw desperation in her voice sounded completely disgusting to Pilt. He evaluated her negotiation tactics with profound corporate disdain.

'You never show a creditor your soft underbelly,' Pilt thought, his lip curling into a sneer.

'You never beg for a favorable audit. This cult operates on a structurally flawed business model. They are completely pathetic.' Mercyros did not interrupt her desperate pitch immediately. The towering deity simply stared down at the bleeding woman. Then, the Monolith shifted his physical state. The massive, towering silhouette began to rapidly compress. The unseen atmosphere of the featureless room cracked and popped violently as divine energy folded inward upon itself.

The giant figure shrank down into a highly compact, human-sized form. Pilt blinked his eyes in surprise. The newly resized deity did not stand on the unseen floor. Mercyros appeared directly at the surface level of the shallow golden puddle. He floated smoothly on top of the liquid metal, gliding across the fluid exactly like a calm swan navigating a quiet pond.

"Tell me your findings then," Mercyros challenged. He floated closer to the bleeding cultist.

"Put your money where your mouth is. That is a strict transaction I am placing directly upon your life. Speak your truth." The woman swallowed hard, causing fresh blood to spill from the exposed bone of her ruined cheek.

"We have constructed three distinct hypotheses regarding your ultimate desire."

"State your first hypothesis," Mercyros commanded.

"The floor is yours." The woman pointed a shaking finger at the floating deity.

"You desperately miss Mother Fate. You are her designated child, after all. You are her only son. She appointed you to control the ledger of commerce. You made Port Vexis your permanent home so you could imitate the glory of Celestia. You govern this ruined space exactly like a sad child playing with broken toys in order to reminisce about something you lost." Her first explanation sounded absolutely shaky. It also sounded incredibly insulting to present directly to a supreme governor of transaction.

Pilt braced himself. He recognized a completely botched corporate pitch when he heard one. Mercyros did not speak a single word in response. Suddenly, the purple-haired woman detonated. Her physical body ripped apart from the inside out. Her skeletal structure collapsed outward in a violent spray of raw gore. Sharp ribs punctured her purple robes. Her internal organs ruptured simultaneously. A massive shower of hot blood and intestinal fluid splashed heavily into the golden puddle.

Human eyeballs detached from their sockets and scattered wildly across the featureless room, bouncing against the unseen floor. Pilt took three precise steps backward to avoid the biological splatter. He wrinkled his nose in deep disgust. The metallic smell of the golden fluid was now heavily polluted by the foul stench of ruptured intestines. A sickening, wet tearing sound echoed from above. Pilt looked up at the grotesque, fleshy limb that still held the unconscious Mira suspended in the air.

The sickly cluster of appendages pulsed rapidly. A large mass of raw meat detached itself from the main limb. It dropped to the floor and began to rapidly stitch itself together. The bone fragments and scattered organs dissolved, replaced by this new, freshly grown clone. Within seconds, the purple-haired woman stood up from the golden puddle, completely restored.

"You stated you have three hypotheses," Mercyros noted calmly, his floating form completely untouched by the bloody explosion.

"You originally had three chances. Now you have exactly two. Three strikes and you are out. If you fail all of your attempts, I will totally erase the biological roots that keep birthing you inside my permanent domain." The newly cloned woman gasped for air. She did not hesitate to continue her desperate gamble.

"You reside here in Port Vexis and deliberately avoid the capital city because you are politically against Vex," she shouted, her voice echoing through the empty vacuum.

"You believe Vex is totally unworthy of the sacred blessings of Mother Fate! You are planning a hostile rebellion against the current administration!" Mercyros simply blinked his glowing eyes. The woman exploded for a second time.