Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System! - Chapter 425

Chapter 425: Selective Salvation
And that’s my little sister Seraphina,” Nyxavere continued, pointing to another girl who appeared roughly the same age, contentedly sipping from what looked like a designer thermos but smelled disturbingly like fresh blood. “She’s Daddy’s second daughter. We’re, like, a whole thing now.”

Seraphina waved without looking up from her drink, revealing Draven vampiric fingernails that shifted color in response to her emotions—currently a satisfied crimson.

Cassidy sat heavily on the nearest seat, her mind reeling despite her new immortal capacity for processing information. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, but no sound emerged. She looked like a particularly stylish goldfish experiencing an existential crisis.

Atalanta, watching from her corner seat, smiled sympathetically. “Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too,” she commiserated. “It’s a lot.”

“Let me help,” Nyxavere sighed, reaching over to place her palm against Cassidy’s hand. The contact was like plugging into a cosmic USB port—information flooding directly into Cassidy’s consciousness, bypassing the tedious process of verbal explanation. In an instant, she understood the family structure and everything with Origin Families and Existence revelations.

“Oh,” Cassidy said weakly as the download completed. “*Oh*.”

By the time Ava slid into the limo—receiving the same surprise-and-information-dump treatment—the vehicle was already pulling away from the curb, gliding into Manhattan traffic with supernatural smoothness despite weighing approximately three tons more than it should due to its reality-bending occupants.

“So,” Ava said after processing her own cosmic data transfer, smoothing her skirt with practiced nonchalance, “just to be clear, I’m now working for a man who’s essentially a Prince of Existence, dating a princess from a primordial bloodline, and has two daughters with reality-warping powers?”

“Plus a shadow cat from the void dimension, like five lifetimes old,” Seraphina added helpfully, pointing toward what Cassidy had assumed was an oddly shaped shadow under the seat but now recognized as Ere’s sleeping form. “She eats nightmares.”

“Fantastic,” Ava deadpanned. “And the Sullivan deposition is still at three, or has that been rescheduled to accommodate the apocalypse?”

Parker chuckled from his seat. “The apocalypse works around our schedule, not the other way around.” He glanced at his watch—a completely unnecessary gesture for someone who could perceive time’s actual flow, but old habits died hard. “Now, shall we discuss the Sophiscated Space acquisition before any more cosmic revelations?”

As the limo carried them deeper into Manhattan, Cassidy found herself caught between two realities—the familiar corporate world of mergers and acquisitions, and her new existence as an immortal being surrounded by existence royalty disguised as a dysfunctional family.

Strangely, the board meeting suddenly seemed like the less intimidating part of her day.

*

The Sophisticated Space building pierced the Manhattan skyline like a silver needle threading through blue fabric—a monument to human ingenuity and Parker’s architectural vision. As they pulled up to the grand entrance, Parker stepped out of the limo and paused, his attention suddenly drawn to something in the distance that ordinary eyes couldn’t perceive.

Cassidy followed his gaze, her newly immortal senses allowing her to see what had captured his interest. Miles away, beyond the dense urban sprawl, a darkness was spreading. Not the ordinary absence of light, but something sentient and hungry—a dome of writhing shadows expanding with each life it claimed.

Within its boundaries, shadow clones moved with predatory efficiency, each kill feeding the darkness, expanding its territory block by block.

“Jesus Christ,” Cassidy whispered, instinctively reaching for Parker’s sleeve and tugging it like a child seeking reassurance. “Shouldn’t we… do something?”

Parker’s eyes—ancient and utterly unmoved—tracked the carnage with clinical detachment. He simply shook his head, the slight movement containing more finality than a signed death warrant.

Ava stepped out behind them, her attention focused on her phone as she scrolled through emails. “The executive team is already assembled in the conference Room,” she announced, completely oblivious to the distant apocalypse. “Some Harrison guy’s trying to push back on the Tokyo buildings terms, but I’ve got three precedents that will shut him down.”

She finally glanced up, noticing their stillness. “What? Did I miss something?”

Atalanta’s voice drifted from the car window, soft but pointed. “Are you really going to play it cool like this ain’t happening? People are dying over there.”

Parker didn’t bother turning around. “And people are dying in hospitals across the city. And in car accidents. And from heart attacks.” His voice carried no cruelty, just matter-of-fact acceptance. “Should I intervene in all of those too?”

Maya leaned toward the window, her smile holding ancient wisdom that belied her youthful appearance. “The Parker we know? No fucking way is he wasting time on some shadow-god wannabe just because he’s killed a few dozen humans.” She said it with the casual indifference of someone discussing a minor traffic incident rather than an ongoing massacre.

Bella nodded in agreement. “Unless the fool directly challenges him, this isn’t his concern.”

Parker’s attention shifted to the building before them. His senses—operating on a level beyond mere perception—detected a presence within that made even his cosmic power take notice. A being of such potency that the air molecules around the structure vibrated at a different frequency, resonating with controlled might.

“If that idiot wreaking havoc had a single functioning brain cell in his shadowy skull,” Parker said quietly, “he’ll keep his darkness far away from this building.” A smile that contained zero humor curved his lips. “Because he’d die. Painfully and permanently.”

Seraphina rolled her eyes dramatically from inside the limo. “Dad has, like, the biggest god complex ever. But to be fair, he’s actually beyond a god, so…”

“Demi-god, but no your usual gods, daddy doesn’t follow known power structures,” Nyxavere corrected automatically. “He’s technically still in the ascension phase until he clears the Earth Mission.”

“Whatever,” Seraphina waved dismissively. “The point is, he’s not the cosmic police. That’s not his job.”

Parker’s gaze remained fixed on the distant shadow dome, now visible to normal humans as news helicopters circled it cautiously. “It’s not my place to save each human from every pest that comes crawling out of the dimensional cracks,” he said, his tone suggesting this was a conversation he’d had many times before. “They should be grateful I’m bothering to save their world and the connected multiverses from actual threats.”

Cassidy’s brow furrowed, her new immortal perspective wrestling with her still-human empathy. “But those people—”

“Will die whether I intervene or not,” Parker finished for her. “Time is a river with fixed points, Cassidy. Those deaths were written before that entity ever crossed into this dimension. If I save them, something else will claim them. Balance demands it.”

He finally turned away from the distant carnage, his attention refocusing on the meeting ahead with the smooth transition of someone changing television channels. “Besides,” he added more quietly, “there are rules even I must follow when it comes to some things. Boundaries of intervention established when the first Existence laws were written. Break them, and the consequences ripple across all realities.” Collective Fates.