Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System! - Chapter 420

Chapter 420: In New York: Villain Path to Hero
The Ravencroft penthouse stretched like a gilded crown atop the Manhattan skyline, its windows reflecting the morning sun in shards of amber and gold.

Hotel staff scurried across Italian marble floors with the practiced efficiency of worker ants serving their queen, each movement calibrated with precise reverence—glasses positioned exactly three inches from plate edges, sterling silver polished to mirror-like perfection, Egyptian cotton napkins folded into immaculate swans.

The air itself seemed choreographed, perfumed with the subtle aromatics of saffron-infused breakfast delicacies and fresh-cut orchids imported from Singapore at dawn.

Bella reclined in a modernist chair that probably cost more than most cars, her posture relaxed yet her eyes tracking each server’s movement with predatory assessment. Her fingertips drummed against the armrest in a rhythm that somehow disturbed the atmospheric pressure within the room—tiny ripples of distortion that caused the chandelier crystals to vibrate at a frequency just below human perception.

The morning light caught in her irises, revealing galaxies of amber and citrine that hadn’t been there before Parker’s…transformation.

“They’re terrified of touching anything,” she observed with a smirk that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “As if breaking a teaspoon might summon the apocalypse.”

Across the palatial living area, Seraphina—Parker’s newly acquired little daughter and by some cosmic joke of bureaucracy, Atalanta—sprawled across a chaise longue with the casual disregard for furniture that only teenagers possess.

Her thumbs danced across her phone screen with supernatural dexterity, the device’s processor struggling to keep pace with her commands.

Occasionally she’d pat Ere’s head without looking up, her fingers momentarily sinking into fur that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

Ere’s eyes—polished obsidian orbs flecked with cosmic dust—remained fixed on some invisible point beyond the penthouse walls. Her ears, sharp as obsidian blades, twitched periodically, detecting disturbances far beyond human perception.

Since Parker’s regaining of his [Plunder], Ere’s connection to the shadow realm and Dimension had evolved from a mere tether into a vast, pulsing network of sensory awareness.

New York’s shadows had become extensions of her consciousness—every darkened alley, every obscured corner, every slice of darkness beneath beds and behind dumpsters now served as her eyes and ears. The city’s shadowy underbelly had become her nervous system, transmitting information directly into her primal brain with terrifying efficiency.

And right now, those shadows were screaming.

Bella caught the movement instantly. “What is it, girl?”

Ere’s consciousness unfurled across the metropolis like an ink stain on pristine parchment, her awareness racing through shadow-corridors and dimensional weak-points that crisscrossed Manhattan’s architectural lattice.

Miles away, in the financial district, something ancient and terrible had torn through the quantum membrane between dimensions—something that reeked of abyssal power and chaotic malevolence. Reality itself seemed to recoil from the intrusion, spacetime developing hairline fractures that ordinary humans would rationalize as strange weather patterns or momentary dizziness.

“I feel it too,” Seraphina said, suddenly serious, her phone forgotten.

The air around her fingers shimmered with potential energy as reality itself seemed to bend slightly in her presence. “Something’s happening in the financial district. Something… abyssal?”

“Chaotic,” Nyxavere agreed, her eyes now gleaming with an intelligence far beyond her apparent years. “The dimensional barriers are thinning. I can feel the interference.”

Ere’s growl intensified, causing cracks to spread across the nearest window. Shadow-stuff leaked from between her teeth—not darkness, but the absence of light itself—pooling on the floor like spectral oil.

Bella stood, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her immaculate dress. For just a moment, the perfect disguise of humanity slipped, revealing something ancient and terrible beneath her porcelain features.

Then the mask slid back into place, her smile returning with practiced ease.

Ere’s head swung toward Bella, their eyes meeting in silent communication. Then her consciousness, vast and alien since its evolution, brushed against Bella’s mind. Information flooded the connection—the precise location of the disturbance, its magnitude, the taste of the entities attempting to cross over, the probability matrices of various intervention scenarios.

After a moment that stretched like taffy, Ere’s posture relaxed marginally. The shadows retreated back into her form. The temperature normalized.

Bella’s posture shifted imperceptibly, muscle memory preparing for combat before rational thought intervened.

She remembered Parker’s instructions—delivered with that infuriating half-smile as reality literally bent around his words: “Not our circus, not our monkeys. New York has other guardians to handle the everyday apocalypses.”

“Parker was quite clear,” she reminded them, though there was a hint of disappointment in her tone. Her fingers flexed once, and reality seemed to hold its breath. “Whatever cosmic abomination is currently attempting to punch through into Earth dimension from the void between worlds… is none of our business.”

Ere reluctantly retracted her consciousness from the city’s shadowed arterial network, though her eyes remained fixed on the eastern horizon where storm clouds had begun gathering with unnatural speed.

The cat huffed once—a sound that caused the crystal glasses on the breakfast table to resonate at their breaking frequency—and settled back beside Atalanta, who resumed her digital conversation with renewed intensity, as if texting could somehow distract from the cosmic horror unfolding downtown.

“Besides,” Bella added with sardonic detachment, reaching for her coffee cup as a distant thunderclap rattled the windows, “we haven’t even finished breakfast. And I, for one, refuse to face interdimensional calamities on an empty stomach.”

A server approaching with a tray of pastries stumbled slightly as Ere’s tail twitched, momentarily transforming the man’s shadow into something with far too many limbs and eyes.

Bella pretended not to notice, instead focusing on the perfectly poached eggs before her—studiously ignoring the fact that somewhere beyond the penthouse windows, reality was being rewritten by forces that had once terrified her but now seemed merely… inconvenient.

****

Parker stood beneath the cascading water, steam billowing around his form like the primordial mists of creation. The shower’s pressure—enough to strip paint from steel—felt like nothing more than a gentle caress against skin that had withstood the crushing depths of collapsing dimensions.

Rivulets traced the contours of his physique, following paths carved by power rather than mere anatomy.

The bathroom itself seemed to breathe in his presence. Marble tiles hummed with residual energy, microscopic crystals within the stone resonating with the aftermath of power unleashed during his time with Maya.

The mirror remained perpetually fogged, as though reality itself was too modest to reflect his unclothed form without some veil of obscurity.

He lifted his face to the spray, allowing the water to sluice away the lingering evidence of their extended passion. Weeks of lovemaking compressed into hours—his first trivial manipulation of cosmic forces, and perhaps his most personally satisfying. Time manipulation for intimacy rather than combat—Tessa would laugh if she knew, then demand he teach her the technique.

Parker smiled at the thought, and the water momentarily defied gravity, dancing upward before resuming its natural flow. His control was still imperfect when his mind wandered.

With a casual gesture that bent local spacetime, he shut off the shower without touching the controls.

Water droplets paused mid-air around him—thousands of perfect crystalline spheres suspended in defiance of physics—before he released his unconscious hold on reality and allowed them to splash to the marble floor.

Such minor displays of power now happened without conscious thought, the universe itself bending to accommodate his mere existence.

He stepped out onto the bathmat, which instantly dried beneath his feet. Steam parted before him like a reverent congregation making way for its deity. He could have instantly dried himself with a thought, but there was something satisfyingly human about reaching for a towel—one small ritual from his former life that he chose to preserve.

The closet awaited him, filled with clothing specially designed to withstand the occasional fluctuations in his physical form. Ordinary fabrics had an unfortunate tendency to ignite when exposed to the residual energy that now constantly surrounded him.

Parker paused at the bedroom door, glancing back at Maya’s still-resting form.

Within their temporal bubble, she had experienced weeks of intimate connection. Outside, breakfast was likely still warm on the table. He smiled at the thought.

With deliberately human steps, he walked through the penthouse toward the living room, each footfall leaving momentary impressions in the molecular structure of the floor—not from weight, but from the subtle gravitational distortions that now accompanied his every movement.

The air around him carried a faint scent of ozone and something older than time itself.