For the following three weeks, Skrax beca like a ghost of his forr proud self. He tried everything. He went to rival banks, swallowing his pride to ask for loans. He courted investors, pitching them on the limitless potential of the bank. But the deals always collapsed.
He couldn’t offer shares in exchange because he didn’t control them, and without Leo’s presence, the entire galaxy could see that the company was a sinking ship. They didn’t want to touch Alpha Corp even with a ten thousand foot pole.
The mont Leo had opened the bank, the financial elites had already claid that it was a bubble waiting to burst. However, as long as Leo was at the helm, that bubble had shown a frightening stability.
In his absence, the tension had finally snapped. After all, Leo wasn’t just the leader. He was the primary engine, the main investor who had funded the entire operation out of his own seemingly bottomless pockets.
By the end of the third week, the general public knew the bank was essentially a corpse. People who showed up hoping for more loans were denied at the door.
Not a single credit was granted, leading the sharp-eyed predators of the space sector to realize the bank was dry.
Skrax, who had once fought so fiercely for control of the company, now looked distraught and haggard.
He looked as if he hadn’t slept in an age. He eventually put his arrogance aside and crawled to Alpha Labs, begging for a fraction of their profits just to pay the salaries of his massive employee base.
Despite Alpha Labs making a fortune through their innovation sales, they refused him. Yelina, who now controlled the Labs, was cold and ruthless.
She stated that every credit was earmarked for further research. Now that Leo was gone, the thread that had bound the various branches of the corporation together had unraveled completely.
Yelina even toyed with the idea of using this crisis to cut Alpha Bank off entirely. Whether she was simply greedy, or she truly saw the bank as a failed experint, she didn’t dwell on the sentintality of Leo’s dream.
To her, the bank was bleeding money, and there was no point in keeping a limb that was already dead. She would rather focus on her labs, where she believed she could help more people through science than through a bankrupt treasury.
Skrax felt like he had fallen into a literal hell. The dignity he had enjoyed after Leo’s departure was a mory. Because he couldn’t pay his staff, he was cursed and spat upon in the hallways.
He was branded as incompetent as branches across the planets were shuttered, unable to even pay their utility bills.
Heavy locks were placed on the bank doors. Since there was no collateral and the vaults were empty, there wasn’t even a need for guards. Just one month ago, Alpha Bank had dominated the sector and dread of universal expansion.
Now, it was disappearing from the map. Even the physical land of the branch offices couldn’t be sold to recover costs due to the legal authority ss. And the borrowers? No matter how nicely they were asked, they simply refused to pay.
Sitting alone in the darkness of the main branch, Skrax looked out at the empty lobby that had once been teeming with life.
He felt the weight of fate pressing down on him. He had thought that after Leo’s death, he would prove he was an equal, if not a superior. It had taken only weeks for reality to shatter that delusion.
"Fine," he muttered, his eyes snapping open with a sudden cold light. "If the reputation is already gone, why am I still trying to protect it?"
He made up his mind. He would use force. He had a massive fleet at his disposal. Why let it sit idle while their treasury was empty? He would beco a recovery agent.
Even if he could never return to the banking business, he could use the recovered capital to start sothing else under the Alpha na.
From that mont on, the space sector was engulfed in tension. Massive fleets, flying the banner of Alpha Corporation, moved from planet to planet.
Skrax wanted to remind the galaxy that they were not insects to be crushed. When faced with the literal cannons of battleships, even the most stubborn tycoons and warlords found the honor to pay back their debts.
They paid, but they didn’t forget, spreading word of Skrax’s tyranny to every corner of the system.
The reputation of Alpha Corp hit rock bottom, but Skrax was beyond caring. He was a man possessed. If soone couldn’t pay, he seized assets of equal value.
Within three days, he had recovered a mountain of wealth, though the light in his eyes had been replaced by a hollow emptiness.
He brought the spoils back to the main branch. The building was filled with mountains of physical currency, piles so vast that there was no room to walk.
"My Lord," the assistant asked, looking at the ocean of cash. "Wouldn’t it be better to have this in digital form?"
"Hmph! What do you know?" Skrax snapped. "Digital recovery goes to the main accounts, where the Board could lock it down. But physical form? This belongs to us. They can’t just lock it."
"Just watch how I use this to rise again! I will start a new branch, a new subsidiary, and make everyone regret doubting !"
He left for his mansion, eyes set on a eting with foreign investors the next day, not bothering to inform the other board mbers. He would present them with a surprise.
As Skrax departed, the bank fell into a heavy silence. The unbreakable security formation beca activated around the piles of money.
In the silence of the night, a figure stepped out from the shadows of the lobby. He looked at the main building before him as a faint, wry smile appeared on his lips.
"He made wait a long ti," Leo mumbled. "I thought he would do it sooner. Then again... at least the month is still not over."
Leo took a deep breath, feeling a twinge of guilt for the stress he’d put Skrax through, though he knew it was the only way to get it done faster.
He stepped forward, passing through the unbreakable formation as if it were nothing more than a sumr breeze.
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