Arthur Sterling stood on the cracked marble floor. His left arm hung completely useless at his side, the bones shattered into dust by the gravity gavel. His tailored black suit was ripped to shreds, stained with his own blood and the grey dust of the arena.
He didn't look like a man who had just taken a brutal beating. He looked like a CEO who had just cornered his rivals in a hostile boardroom takeover.
"Are we ready to negotiate a settlement?" Arthur asked. His voice was a calm, cold rumble that echoed perfectly in the absolute silence of the stadium.
High above, the two remaining Prime Auditors were frozen. The shifting numbers and codes on their featureless robes hitched and glitched with obvious panic. The Lead Auditor was dead. The evidence of their multiversal embezzlement was currently being broadcasted to every single entity in the room. They had zero leverage.
