Chapter 322 Walk.

Chapter 322: 322 Walk.

A rejected poem?

I just stared at the billionaire.

Fucking hell. You almost had to respect a man who would wield the full, apocalyptic force of his villainy over something that incredibly petty.

It was the industry equivalent of a CEO launching a hostile corporate takeover just because a receptionist misspelled his name on a coffee cup. But mostly, it just completely boggled the mind.

Either way, I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t flat-out rejected Jester’s job offer right off the bat. If a bad poem resulted in a decade-long vendetta of super-scientific proportions, who knew what declining a middle-management position might have caused.

"Goddam," I said.

"Yes. Quite unfortunate," Bradburn sighed, taking another sip of champagne. "As such, I do genuinely hope you succeed in killing him."

"How do you know I’m going to try and kill him?" I asked, keeping my voice down.

Bradburn chuckled thinly. "I’m not an idiot," he said, casting a wry look my way. "You clearly crashed this gala for the specific purpose of talking to me and acquiring this information.

"And the only logical reason you’d need it is if Jester is trying now, or will be trying very soon, to kill you. If you manage to liquidate him first, then that means I’ll have one less massive headache to worry about."

Fair enough.

"In that case," I said, leaning casually against the buffet table. "Would you mind handing over whatever it is you use to weaken Jester’s connection to his god? Give me a bit of a competitive edge?"

Bradburn considered the request as he slowly chewed on a miniature crepe filled with strawberry jam and whipped cream. At length, he swallowed and dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

"I suppose it might be a worthwhile investment," he said, reaching into the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket.

"Really?" I said, genuinely surprised he was giving it up that easily.

He shrugged. "Certainly. Here."

He pulled his hand out and passed something over. I caught a rectangular, glowing green crystal about the size of a standard cellphone.

The absolute second it touched my palm, I felt a subtle, buzzing static race up through my hand and into my forearm. It wasn’t unpleasant. Just... startling.

"What, uh... what exactly is it?" I asked, turning the green rock over in the light.

"A piece of crystallized energy. A primordial chunk of the universe, I suspect. But whatever it fundamentally is, it is the exact material that originally sealed Jester’s god.

"When I funded an archaeological dig at the geographic location where his castle once stood, I found fragments of what was once its prison, buried significantly deeper in the bedrock than he perhaps realized.

"Ever since I brought them back, Jester has not dared to attack me directly. For all his overwhelming power, he is a profound coward when faced with anything that might actually harm him."

"And this does?" I said.

"It would certainly seem so. For some unknown reason, it actively repels whatever otherworldly energy Jester’s god is composed of."

"Damn," I muttered. What was it about interstellar beings and their glaring vulnerability to glowing green space rocks? Well, whatever. The trope existed for a reason. I securely tucked the crystal into the inner pocket of my jacket and snuck a quick look at him.

"Is it really okay for me to just walk out of here with this, though?"

Bradburn waved the concern off casually. "Certainly. I have a few more in the vault. Jester tried his absolute hardest to prevent my excavation teams from getting them, but I managed to secure several large fragments.

"It’s a slight financial loss on my end, but if you do manage to successfully close Jester’s account, it will be an incredibly worthy investment."

Made perfect sense. And it was probably another major reason Jester kept his floating funhouse constantly on the move.

Parking it in one location for too long might encourage Bradburn to actively assault it with a heavily funded team of S-list heroes.

"Thanks," I said, patting my jacket pocket. "Any chance you might be willing to lend a hand personally? I could use the firepower."

Bradburn chuckled wryly. "Oh, my, no. I said I deeply hope you win. I’m certainly not going to gamble my own life on it."

Damn. But I supposed I couldn’t really blame him for that. Not even I was entirely sure my company could pull this hit off.

"Thanks regardless," I said. "I’ll let you know how it pans out."

"I wish you the absolute greatest of luck. Now, Theresa? I think I see a rather lovely cheese fondue over there. Shall we take a look?"

"Right with you, Doctor," the cyborg bodyguard murmured.

I watched the pair wander away to enjoy the rest of the gala. Nice people. And honestly, it gave me another massive reason I really needed to make this whole assassination work.

Because if Jester ever found out where I acquired the green crystal, I highly doubted he’d be satisfied with just sending a monster of the week to harass Bradburn’s poetry magazine.

It was much more likely he’d do whatever it took to level Thaumaturge Industries and get rid of those crystals once and for all.

Shaking my head, I hurriedly made my way across the polished marble floor toward the massive crowd still tightly clustered around Lilith.

She saw me coming, and with a brilliant, beaming smile, she swept forward. The crowd of billionaires and socialites naturally parted around her like the Red Sea before Moses.

"Byeeeee, everyone! Oh my gosh, it has been super-duper amazing to meet you all!" Lilith cheered, waving enthusiastically. "We totally have to do brunch! Call me!"

"Had fun?" I asked as she blew a few highly exaggerated kisses to the swooning crowd.

Still smiling brightly at the room, she leaned in close, her bubbly voice dropping into a dramatic whisper.

"Oh, Milesyyyy, it was soooo incredibly boring! Like, literally the most boring thing ever!" she whined, her tail drooping. "These people are just super petty, and all they talk about are stocks and yachts and boring money stuff! Honestly, it reminded me of exactly why I needed a vacation from the underworld! Can we please, please go get ice cream now?"

"Then I suppose you won’t have any objections to heading out early?" I asked.

The demoness perked up instantly, her golden eyes shining. "Yay! That makes it a super short party, but does that mean you found the shiny thing you needed from the science guy?"

"You’d presume rightly," I said.

Lilith clapped her hands together in absolute delight. "Awesome! Simply awesome! Then please, let’s go! Time is totally of the essence, bossman! Let’s blow this popsicle stand!"

"Agreed," I said, turning and starting toward the glass elevators.

Only for a massive, incredibly strong hand to land heavily on my shoulder.

It was the exact sort of heavy, bone-crushing grip that usually belonged to someone who said things like ’where do you think you’re goin’?’ right before throwing you through a brick wall.

"Where do you think you’re going?" a deep, rumbling voice demanded.

And there it was.

I stopped walking and turned around slowly.

The man who had just grabbed me was big. There was simply no getting around that fact. Or around him, for that matter.

He was built as wide as a commercial refrigerator, and his expensive tuxedo looked like it was absolutely ready to pop its seams and completely shred if he flexed a single muscle.

His square, blocky head was topped with sleek, heavily gelled hair, the cleft in his chin was deeper than the Grand Canyon, and if the sheer, hydraulic strength in his grip wasn’t clue enough, the ridiculous, comic-book bulk of his muscles told me exactly what weight class he fought in.

He also looked absolutely furious.

"Can I... help you with something?" I said carefully.

"Do you remember me?" he growled, his jaw clenching.

I actually took a second to think about it. I’d met a massive number of buff, protein-obsessed guys in this line of work, but I honestly couldn’t remember any civilian quite as ridiculously ripped as this guy.

"Er... no?" I said honestly.

"Well, you should! You knew my brother."

"Great. Cool. Small world. But I really need to catch this elevator—"

"Do not walk away from me, Polaris," the massive guy declared, his voice booming over the jazz band.

"For I am Yes Whey!"