Chapter 9 — Gold Buys Permanence
Jack Storm did not collapse when Varkath fell.
He should have.
The Spear of Dominion had not been a test—it had been a verdict. A creature designed to erase challengers before they ever threatened the hierarchy. When it ceased to exist, Hell reacted the way ecosystems always did when an apex predator was removed.
It rebalanced.
The obsidian plains trembled as the remains of Varkath dissolved into motes of light—violet, red, and something else entirely.
Gold.
Jack stood at the center of the impact crater, chest heaving, purple flame guttering weakly around his hands. His infernal core was screaming—not in pain, but in overload. Souls flooded him faster than he could process, compressing, stacking, screaming into a pressure that made his vision blur.
He dropped to one knee.
"Enough," he growled. "Slow down."
Hell ignored him.
The Infernal Broker appeared beside the crater, arms folded behind its back, eyes glowing brighter than Jack had ever seen them.
"Congratulations," it said softly. "You have slain a Dominion-class entity."
Jack wiped blood from his mouth. "Feels like it."
The ground around them shimmered.
Numbers—not literal numbers, but weight—settled into Jack's core. He felt it instinctively, the way a predator feels distance or hunger.
Soul points.
A lot of them.
The Broker's voice shifted, formal now. Ritualistic.
"By Hell's accounting," it intoned, "the destruction of Varkath yields—"
The air rang.
"—seventeen thousand lesser soul points."
Jack's breath hitched.
"And," the Broker continued, raising one clawed hand, "two Golden Soul Tokens."
They emerged slowly from the dissolving remains.
Not orbs.
Coins.
Perfectly circular, etched with symbols Jack didn't recognize, glowing with a warm, heavy light that made his skin prickle. They didn't scream. They didn't resist.
They waited.
Jack stared at them.
"Permanent," he said quietly.
The Broker inclined its head. "Gold does not fade."
Jack felt something cold settle in his gut.
Permanent meant no undoing. No reversal. Whatever he bought with these would follow him—even if he earned his life back.
"You don't hand these out lightly," Jack said.
"We don't hand them out at all," the Broker replied. "You took them."
The coins drifted closer, hovering inches from Jack's chest.
"One use each," the Broker continued. "Speed. Strength. Durability. Perception. One aspect per token. No stacking. No refunds."
Jack closed his eyes.
He saw Elliot.
Saw Crowe's men torn apart.
Saw the Collector smiling.
He opened his eyes.
"Speed," he said. "And power."
The Broker smiled like a thing that had just won a long game.
THE FIRST GOLD TOKEN — SPEED
The coin pressed into Jack's chest.
There was no explosion.
No scream.
Just compression.
The world folded inward, then snapped back into place.
Jack gasped as reality suddenly felt… slower.
Not frozen.
Just behind.
He could see the drift of embers in the air, each one tracing a lazy arc. He could hear the distant grinding of Hell's landscape, every fracture echoing distinctly. His heartbeat thundered in his ears—and between beats, there was space.
Too much space.
Jack stumbled, bracing himself.
"What did you do?" he demanded.
The Broker's voice echoed strangely, as if lagging.
"We removed the delay," it said. "Your body no longer waits for thought to finish."
Jack clenched his fist.
The motion blurred.
He stared at his hand, pulse racing.
"Permanent," the Broker reminded him. "Even as a human."
Jack swallowed.
THE SECOND GOLD TOKEN — POWER
The second coin followed immediately.
This one hurt.
The infernal core detonated outward, purple flame and lightning surging violently before snapping inward, compressing into something dense and heavy. Jack screamed as his muscles rewrote themselves—not growing, not swelling, but tightening, every fiber layered with strength that felt… unfair.
He dropped to both knees, gasping.
When he stood again, the ground cracked beneath his feet.
Jack stared at the damage.
"…Jesus."
The Broker tilted its head. "We do not recognize that authority."
Jack huffed weakly. "Worth a try."
The coins vanished.
Gone forever.
Jack felt it settle—deep, immovable. These weren't buffs. They were foundations.
"Anything else?" Jack asked, wary.
The Broker gestured.
New symbols ignited above the platform—dozens of them now, branching paths unlocked by the sheer volume of soul points Jack carried.
"Your options have expanded," it said. "But restraint remains… advisable."
Jack nodded slowly. "I'm not buying everything."
The Broker chuckled. "No one ever does."
Jack stepped back.
"Send me back," he said. "There's work to do."
Hell hesitated.
Then released him.
EARTH — THE HUNT CONTINUES
Jack emerged in motion.
Not falling—moving.
His boots hit asphalt and shattered it as he slid to a controlled stop in the middle of a four-way intersection engulfed in chaos. Cars burned. People screamed. A demon—half-formed, malformed—was ripping its way out of a possessed host near a wrecked bus.
Jack didn't think.
He moved.
Speed triggered instinctively.
The world slowed.
Jack crossed the street in less than a heartbeat, grabbed the demon by the skull, and punched.
Not with hellfire.
With force.
The demon's head exploded.
Purple flame followed, erasing the remains before they could regenerate.
Jack straightened, breathing steady.
"Okay," he muttered. "That's new."
The infernal core pulsed, hungry again.
More demons answered.
Three possessed civilians lunged from the smoke—eyes black, bodies twitching.
Jack's jaw tightened.
"No."
He moved again—faster, cleaner. A palm strike to one chest, ripping the demon free without killing the host. A knee to another, Soul Scream detonating just enough to collapse the entity inside without shattering the mind.
The third hesitated.
Fear.
Jack saw it clearly now—the micro-expressions, the flicker of resistance.
"Run," he told the human quietly.
They did.
Jack incinerated the demon left behind.
Sirens wailed.
Crowe watched from a nearby rooftop, binoculars tracking Jack's impossible movement.
"That speed…" Crowe murmured. "That wasn't there before."
His analyst nodded. "He's faster. Stronger. Permanently."
Crowe lowered the binoculars.
"Then we adapt again."
MULTIPLE HUNTS — NO REST
Jack didn't stop.
Warehouse district.
Suburban sprawl.
An abandoned hospital.
Each location brought new resistance.
A crawler demon that split into copies—Jack erased the original with purple flame, the rest collapsing instantly.
A possessed gang that fought tactically—Jack dismantled them without killing, Soul Scream staggering the demons long enough for clean extraction.
A minor hellspawn that tried to flee—
Jack caught it mid-air.
The speed still surprised him.
He crushed it with one hand.
Purple flame erased the remains.
By dawn, Jack was covered in blood that wasn't his.
He stood on a rooftop, city stretching out beneath him, infernal core swollen with new souls.
He didn't feel victorious.
He felt… efficient.
That scared him more than the fights.
HELL WATCHES
Far below, the Infernal Broker observed through unseen eyes.
"Permanent upgrades already deployed," it murmured. "Fascinating."
Other presences stirred.
"He accelerates too quickly," one voice rumbled.
"Yes," the Broker agreed. "But he still refuses dominion."
A pause.
"…For now."
CROWE'S RESOLVE
Crowe stood alone in a briefing room, staring at footage of Jack moving faster than cameras could track.
"Gold tokens," Crowe muttered. "Permanent changes."
He turned to his team.
"We stop chasing him directly," he said. "We hunt what he hunts."
A beat.
"And we make sure the next time he hesitates…"
Crowe's jaw tightened.
"…it costs him more than it costs us."
JACK — BETWEEN POWER AND PURPOSE
Jack leaned against a rooftop wall as the sun rose.
Purple flame flickered faintly at his fingertips.
Speed thrummed beneath his skin.
Power sat heavy in his bones.
Permanent.
He closed his hand slowly.
"This doesn't end the job," he said to no one. "It just makes it possible."
The infernal core pulsed in agreement.
And somewhere, deep in Hell, new upgrades waited.
So did new costs.