The Sovereign Emporium was no longer just a shop. With the fifty Origin Shards Omar had taken from Director Marouane, the space had transformed. It was now a sprawling tower of obsidian and silver, existing in a pocket dimension that hovered between Marrakech and the Void.
Omar stood at the top of the spiraling staircase, looking down at the new layout. Massive shelves stretched toward the ceiling, filled with unregulated weapons and artifacts.
"Master," Kaelen appeared by his side, his dark armor pulsing with a rhythmic violet light. "The air is changing. The 'Architects' have stopped trying to delete us from the inside. They are coming from the outside."
Suddenly, the air in the center of the shop began to crystalize. A sound like shattering glass echoed through the hall, and a figure emerged from a rift of pure, blinding white light.
This wasn't a monster. This was a Herald.
It was a being of perfect geometry—a humanoid form made of floating golden plates, with no face, only a single, glowing eye in the center of its chest.
[Identification: Herald of the Prime Architect.]
[Threat Level: World-Ending.]
[Status: The Judge.]
"Omar... the Thief of Essence," the Herald's voice didn't come from a mouth; it vibrated in the very atoms of the room. "You have broken the Sacred Contract. You have stolen the 'Seeds' of the Multiverse and called it 'Trade'."
Omar didn't flinch. He walked down the stairs, his footsteps echoing on the obsidian floor. "I didn't steal anything. I bought my freedom. If your masters want their 'Seeds' back, they can come and bid for them like everyone else."
"Blasphemy," the Herald raised a golden hand. The space around Omar began to compress, gravity increasing by a thousandfold. The floor beneath Omar's feet cracked.
Laila tried to move from the shadows, but the Herald simply flicked a finger, and she was pinned to the wall by a pillar of white light. "Stay back, mortal. This is a matter of Cosmic Audit."
"Audit this!" Omar roared.
He didn't use a system skill. He tapped into the Emporium's Heart. Suddenly, the walls of the shop began to move. The weapons on the shelves—thousands of them—flew into the air, circling the Herald like a storm of steel.
"You think you can fight a God's messenger with scrap metal?" the Herald mocked.
"This isn't scrap metal," Omar said, his eyes glowing with the raw power of the Origin Shards. "This is Unregulated Value."
Omar grabbed a spear from the air—the one he had refused to sell to Marouane. It was the [Architect-Slayer Prototype]. He lunged forward, using the Shadow-Step he had mastered. He didn't just move through space; he moved through the code of the room.
The Herald struck with a beam of white energy, but the Emporium itself absorbed the hit. The shop was Omar's body, and the Herald was an infection.
SHINK!
The spear pierced the golden plate of the Herald's chest. For a second, there was silence. Then, a black, oily substance—Void Essence—began to leak from the Herald's wound, corrupting its holy light.
"How...?" the Herald's voice flickered. "A human... cannot harm a Herald..."
"A human can't," Omar whispered, twisting the spear. "But a Sovereign Merchant can. You made a mistake, Herald. You entered my shop without an invitation. And in my shop... the customer is always wrong if they don't pay."
Omar activated the 'Forfeiture' ability he had kept from his old life, but amplified by his own soul. He didn't kill the Herald. He processed it.
The Herald's golden plates began to fly apart, not into dust, but into Inventory Items.
[Item Acquired: 12x Divine Gold Plates (Rank: Mythic).]
[Item Acquired: The Eye of the Architect (Artifact).]
[Warning: You have declared total war on the Prime Architect.]
As the Herald vanished, the white light died out, leaving only the dim, violet glow of the Emporium. Laila fell to the floor, gasping.
"Omar..." she looked at him with terror and respect. "You just... you just turned a God's messenger into raw materials."
Omar looked at the golden plates floating in his hand. He was trembling, but not from fear. He was trembling from the sheer amount of power he now held.
"They sent a Judge," Omar said, his voice cold. "Next time, they'll send an army. Laila, tell Director Marouane to bring every Hunter who is still loyal to Earth. We're not just selling weapons anymore."
He looked into the 'Eye of the Architect' he had just claimed. Through it, he could see the Architects' home realm—a city of light in the center of the Multiverse.
"We're going to open a shop in their world," Omar smirked. "And we're going to make them pay for everything they've taken from us."