Chapter 31 – The Shadow of the Sovereign.

Noon at the Ivory Citadel brought a clear purple sky, free of fog.

Atop the highest hill of the south sector rose the Palace of the Council of New Nobles, an imposing structure of polished white marble, enclosed by wrought-iron gates and guarded by elite soldiers of Level 20 and up.

The Arcane Greed Faction arrived at the palace entrance at noon on the dot.

Diana wore Asmodeus's Crystal and Magic Silver Chestplate beneath her dark leather jacket. Beside her, Rhea maintained an attentive posture in her silvery overcoat. Right behind, Kael held his new Volcanic Shield and Lyra carried the Mana Crystal Staff.

Diana stopped at the entry of the palace plaza and turned to Kael and Lyra.

"You two stay here in the outer courtyard." Diana instructed in a calm tone. "Keep the Expedition Aura active on the faction vault. If something goes wrong inside, I will send a signal through system chat and you activate the guild's emergency license."

"Understood, Commander!" Kael beat a fist against his chest, adjusting his shield. "We'll cover the courtyard!"

Diana looked at Rhea. "You come with me."

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Interior of the Palace of New Nobles - Reception Hall

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The palace interior was a parade of wealth and ostentation.

Mana crystal chandeliers floated beneath the high ceiling, the floor was lined with dark velvet carpets, and servants of inferior races served goblets of medicinal fruit wine to guests.

In the center of the reception hall, seated on a throne of fine wood and red velvet, was the man who had sent the summons: Lord Vane, Leader of the New Nobles.

He was a gray-skinned demon, wearing an overcoat woven with gold thread, a magic monocle fitted over his right eye.

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[ENTITY ANALYSIS VIA ANALYSIS VISION]

- Lord Vane (Level 28): Class: Ivory Feudal Noble (HP: 480 / 480).

- 4x Honor Guards (Level 22): Heavy Plate Warriors.

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Level 28. Four Level 22 guards blocking the hall exits.

The moment Diana and Rhea stepped into the hall, two guards shut the heavy oak doors behind them with a heavy thud.

Lord Vane smiled with affected elegance, adjusting his magic monocle as he took a sip of wine from his crystal goblet.

"Welcome to my palace, Commander Diana." Vane said, his voice smooth, refined, packed with feigned superiority. "I appreciate you promptly attending my summons. Please, make yourselves at home. Help yourselves to wine."

Diana didn't touch the goblet offered by the servants. She remained standing in the center of the hall, arms crossed over her Crystal Chestplate, her dark eyes analyzing every inch of the room.

Diana's composure was absolute. There was no sign of panic, fear, or hesitation in her posture.

He set up a perfect stage… Diana calculated rapidly in her analytical mind. Heavy chandeliers on the ceiling, four Level 22 guards blocking the door, a Level 28 noble on the throne. He thinks he scares me with this theater of power.

Without speaking a rude word, Diana replied in a calm, courteous tone:

"I appreciate the welcome, Lord Vane. However, my faction's time is valuable. May we get straight to the purpose of the summons?"

Lord Vane raised his eyebrows, surprised by the cold composure of the Level 14 human girl. He set his crystal goblet on the side table and leaned back on his throne, his smile growing sharper and more predatory.

"Straight to the point… I like that in mercenaries." Vane said, resting his elbows on the armrests of his throne. "Very well. Let us talk business."

Vane gestured with his hand, and one of his servants brought forward an official parchment bearing the nobility's red wax seal.

"Your commercial workshop in the Central Plaza, the Arcane Greed Workshop, is disrupting the price balance of the Noble Alchemists' Guild." Vane began, his smooth tone disguising a veiled threat. "You sell 85% purity potions at prices far below the nobles' list value."

"The Second Circle market is free, Lord Vane." Diana said coldly. "I sell high-quality goods at whatever price I set."

Lord Vane let out a low, disdainful laugh.

"Free for those with noble titles, my dear girl." Vane adjusted his monocle. "You are merely a Level 14 human rookie. You have no lineage, no fiefs, and no protection from a Great House. I am offering you a 'generous' opportunity for integration."

Vane pointed to the parchment on the table.

"You sign this Official Vassalage Contract." Vane declared, his tone turning hard and authoritative. "The Arcane Greed Workshop becomes a subsidiary property of my Noble House. You deliver 80% of your daily production and your potion formulas to my alchemists. In exchange, I permit your faction to continue operating in the Second Circle without my militia destroying your shop."

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The silence that descended over the palace hall was absolute.

The four Level 22 guards stepped forward, adjusting their heavy spears, ready to suppress any violent reaction.

Beside Diana, Rhea rested her hand on the hilt of her Corrosive Daggers, her amber eyes burning with restrained rage.

Lord Vane smiled, victorious. In his mind, that Level 14 human girl, trapped in a hall with Level 22 guards and a Level 28 noble, would have no choice but to cry, tremble in dread, and sign the document.

But Lord Vane made the biggest mistake of his life.

He thought he was dealing with an ordinary mercenary.

He didn't know that the seventeen-year-old girl before him harbored in the depths of her soul the insatiable hunger of a Candidate for the Deadly Sin of Greed.

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Diana didn't shout. She didn't draw her dagger. She made no verbal threat.

She simply uncrossed her arms… and raised her head.

Her dark eyes, previously calm, turned into twin slits of absolute darkness.

And then, the presence of her anomalous soul exploded.

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[HIDDEN SKILL ACTIVATED: AURA OF THE SOVEREIGN OF GREED!]

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An aura pressure, icy, suffocating, devastating, and absurdly terrifying, expanded from Diana's body like an invisible shockwave.

The Level 14 [Aura of Arcane Domain], empowered by her Intelligence 28 and the ancient essence of the Sin of Greed, flooded the palace reception hall.

The hall's temperature plunged twenty degrees in half a second.

The floating mana crystal chandeliers shuddered on the ceiling, emitting sharp cracking noises. The air turned so heavy, so saturated with insatiable predatory hunger, that the servants of inferior races collapsed unconscious on the marble floor instantly.

The four Level 22 elite guards… fell to their knees.

Their iron helmets struck the velvet carpet. They clutched their throats, hyperventilating, cold sweat drenching their heavy armor, utterly paralyzed by a primal, visceral terror preventing their muscles from raising a single spear.

Lord Vane froze on his throne of fine wood.

The crystal wine goblet slipped from his hand, falling to the floor and shattering into a thousand pieces.

The Level 28 noble attempted to stand from his throne, but his legs simply refused to obey. The dread emanating from the human girl before him was not the dread of a strong warrior, it was the dread of a sovereign entity looking down on him not as a noble, but as a miserable insect that had dared try to steal what was HERS.

Diana took three slow steps toward Vane's throne.

With every step her leather shoes took across the carpet, the aura pressure seemed to crush the noble's chest a little more.

"You want… my potions…?" Diana asked.

Her voice was not loud. It was an icy, deep whisper that resonated directly inside Lord Vane's bones, laden with an authority and greed so vast they seemed capable of swallowing the entire citadel.

"You want… 80% of my production…?" Diana took another step, stopping a meter from Vane's throne, tilting her face to stare down at him. "Do you think that because you wear a gold-embroidered coat and hold a shitty noble title… you have the right to try and steal WHAT IS MINE?!"

Lord Vane stammered, his chin trembling with terror, his eyes wide, cold sweat streaming down his horns. He was physically incapable of uttering a single articulate word under the crushing pressure of that aura.

And it was in that moment of terror and absolute submission that Diana's soul anomaly reacted.

The hidden passive [Resource Distortion (Absolute Hunger)] activated automatically before the target's extreme terror!

A strand of golden and black light was ripped directly from Lord Vane's chest and floated through the air, sinking straight into Diana's chest!

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[SYSTEM: EXTRACTION ANOMALY ACTIVATED!]

[Due to extreme terror and submission of target [Lord Vane - Level 28], you permanently absorbed +1 Intelligence point from target!]

- Diana's Intelligence:28 -> 29 INT!

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"AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!"

Lord Vane unleashed a scream of excruciating mental agony, clutching his head with both hands, feeling as though a piece of his brain and magical essence had been ripped out by force and devoured by the human girl before him.

That very second, the extraction pressure caused Vane's magic monocle to shatter into a thousand pieces against his eye.

The monocle's advanced assessment spell malfunctioned and exposed Diana's hidden title in gigantic letters of black gold floating above her head in the middle of the hall:

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[CANDIDATE FOR THE SIN OF GREED]

[SOVEREIGN OF COVETOUSNESS - SUCCESSOR TO THE FOURTH CIRCLE]

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Lord Vane stared at the black-gold lettering above Diana's head.

His eyes widened almost popping out of their sockets. Blood drained completely from his face, leaving him pale as a corpse.

"C-Candidate… for… the Sin of Greed...?!" Vane stammered in a thin, shrill, desperate thread of a voice. "You… you are a Candidate for a Deadly Sin?!"

The four Level 22 guards on the floor nearly passed out from terror upon reading the title.

Extorting a rookie girl was one thing. Attempting to extort and threaten a future possible Sovereign and Deadly Sin of Hell was absolute diplomatic and existential suicide! If word got out, even the Lords of the Second Circle would obliterate the House of Vane just to avoid drawing the wrath of the Sins' Succession War!

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Diana noticed the black-gold title floating above her head and the notification of +1 absorbed Intelligence.

She didn't panic.

Diana's cold mind leveraged the situation to turn the tables completely, in devastating fashion.

She dragged an oak chair over from near the table, placed it right before Vane's throne, and sat down slowly, crossing her legs, staring at the terrified noble like a queen judging a wretched defendant.

"Lord Vane." Diana said, her voice calm, yet loaded with a promise of destruction. "You summoned me here to propose a contract, didn't you?"

"M-Mercy… Supreme Candidate… Mercy!" Vane fell off his throne, crawling on his knees across the velvet carpet to Diana's feet, weeping in pure terror. "It was a mistake! A terrible mistake! I didn't know who you were! Please, do not destroy me!"

Diana pulled an ink quill and a clean parchment from her pouch and tossed them onto the floor right before Vane's face.

"Write." Diana ordered in a calm tone.

"W-What should I write…?! I'll write anything!" Vane whimpered, grabbing the quill with trembling hands.

"A Magical Contract of Immunity and Commercial Non-Aggression." Diana dictated coldly. "The House of Vane recognizes the total independence of the Arcane Greed Faction. The House of Vane grants perpetual tax exemption to our commercial stall in the Central Plaza. And the House of Vane commits to providing diplomatic protection for our workshop against any other noble guild."

Vane wrote every word onto the parchment with manic desperation, signing in his own blood and stamping it with his family signet ring.

"And what about reparations for the insult of threatening me?" Diana asked, tilting her head with a predatory smile.

Vane fumbled at his belt with desperate hands, pulling out a heavy pouch of dragon leather encrusted with precious stones, and handed it to Diana.

"Twenty silver coins!" Vane begged, slamming his forehead onto the floor at Diana's feet. "Twenty pure silver coins as reparations! Please accept and forgive my insignificance!"

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Diana took the heavy dragon leather pouch. She opened the clasp and counted the twenty gleaming silver coins inside.

Exactly twenty silver coins. The equivalent of Two Pure Gold Coins.

Diana picked up the Magical Contract signed by Vane, stashed the twenty silver coins in her pouch, and rose from the oak chair.

The crushing aura of the sovereign of greed slowly dissipated from the hall, allowing the guards and Vane to finally draw air back into their lungs.

Diana looked down at Vane kneeling on the floor.

"A pleasure doing business with you, Lord Vane." Diana said, her tone calm and courteous. "Our commercial license is duly presented. Have a good day."

Diana turned her back and walked toward the palace doors. Rhea followed close behind, a smile of admiration and pride painted across her face.

The Level 22 guards scrambled to open the heavy oak doors in absolute reverence, bowing their heads to the floor as the Commander of Greed passed through.

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[FULL FINANCIAL AUDIT]

Previous Balance: 30 Silver Coins and 50 Bronze.

Reparation Extorted from Lord Vane: +20 Silver Coins!

[NEW ABSOLUTE NET WORTH: 50 SILVER COINS AND 50 BRONZE COINS (5,050 Bronze! / 5 GOLD COINS AND 50 BRONZE!)]

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Fifty silver coins and fifty bronze in the vault. Over five pure gold coins.

Intelligence attribute increased to 29 INT from absorbing Vane's point.

A signed Magical Contract of Noble Immunity and Tax Exemption in her pocket.

Exiting through the palace gates, Kael and Lyra rushed over to them in the outer courtyard, worried.

"Commander Diana!" Kael said. "Is everything alright in there?! We felt a massive magic spike!"

Diana looked at Kael and Lyra, adjusting her jacket with flawless composure, and presented the Magical Contract of Tax Exemption.

"Everything is perfect." Diana said with a subtle, confident smile. "We secured perpetual tax exemption for our workshop and twenty silver coins in bonus."

Kael and Lyra's eyes widened in pure shock, unable to comprehend how Diana walked into the palace of a Level 28 noble and walked out with tax exemption and extorted cash.

Rhea looked at Diana with a spark of genuine adoration in her amber eyes, giggling softly.

"You ripped his money and his intelligence right out of him without throwing a single dagger strike, Diana…" Rhea said softly, in awe.

Diana looked up at the Second Circle's purple sky, feeling her anomalous soul energy throb fiercely in her chest.

"No one touches what is mine." Diana declared, her voice heavy with invincible ambition and authority. "Let's go home. Tomorrow we continue our expansion."

Final Notes:

Well... to be completely honest with you all, my fiancée and I are facing severe financial struggles, and truthfully, these stories and our Patreon are our last resort. We are both autistic and simply don't have the capacity to do anything else other than write, which is what we actually know how to do. We're currently working on another story to publish alongside this one to see if it helps draw more attention. I'm sharing this to show that literally ANY help is welcome, our days are numbered before we end up on the street, so... yeah. Anything helps.

Thank you so much, everyone <3