Standing directly before her now, he looked down with eyes that contained the weight of infinite authority. "Perhaps you've only heard of Nyxliths through rumors and whispers. Today, I'll demonstrate that I can acquire anything I desire without complications, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Maybe then you'll appreciate how considerate I've been."
[Ding! Infinity Equivalent Exchange Concept activated!]
[Ding! 50x Cashback Card activated!]
[Ding! You've bought Sophisticated Space for $6 trillion!]
The system's cheerful chis rang in Parker's ears like victory bells.
"Levi, the paperwork," he called out calmly.
An envelope materialized in his hand—crisp, new, still carrying the scent of fresh ink and legal finality. He opened it and let the docunts spill onto the floor before Seoryeon's kneeling form.
"Read," he commanded.
Still pinned by impossible forces, Seoryeon could only crawl forward to examine the papers.
Her eyes widened as she processed the legal language, the official seals, the transaction records that showed a completed sale. Her family's company—built over generations, her life's work, her empire—no longer belonged to her.
"I'll kill you," she snarled, though the words ca out more like a whimper under the crushing pressure. "I'll destroy everything you—"
"Are you sure?" Parker's smile was sharp as winter wind. He gestured to another set of docunts scattered nearby. "You might want to read those first."
Seoryeon's gaze fell on the purchase agreent, and her breath caught. Five trillion dollars. For a company worth at most two trillion on its best day. Even her family's board would have agreed to such an offer—would have been insane not to.
But the real shock ca as she continued reading. The company structure remained intact. She was still listed as CEO, still maintained operational control. Only the ownership had changed—and she retained ten percent of the shares.
"I overestimated you," Parker said, the disappointnt in his voice sohow more cutting than any threat. "I expected better from a shard of my sister's essence. Nevertheless, family is family, no matter how diluted." He straightened his jacket with casual indifference. "The company will operate normally. You'll continue as CEO. The only difference is that you now answer to ."
Parker wasn't the kind to linger on thinks. He didn't need to process or overthink everything and knew he had to change his plan when he saw she was a Shard or the Princess, in other words...
Family?
Seoryeon barely heard him, frantically pulling out her phone with trembling fingers. The stock prices made her vision blur—Sophisticated Space had skyrocketed from $500 to $1,200 per share in the ti it had taken Parker to complete the transaction. The company was now worth more than ten trillion dollars.
She was still the boss. She just had a boss above her now.
Parker watched her process the information with the satisfaction of soone who had just demonstrated a fundantal truth about power dynamics. "Why do they always look so beautiful when crawling?" he mused to himself. "I should do this more often."
The transformation from arrogance to docile acceptance was intoxicating—watching soone realize that all their fury and threats amounted to nothing more than a tantrum that could be simply... overruled.
"From now on," he said, his voice carrying the finality of cosmic law, "you'll do as I say. Earth's fate may well depend on what Sophisticated Space accomplishes in the coming months."
As the pressure finally released her, allowing Seoryeon to breathe freely for the first ti in minutes, she remained on her knees, staring at docunts that had just redefined her entire existence.
Sotis the most effective lessons were the ones that ca with a very expensive price tag.
*
The pressure in the room dissipated like morning mist as Parker straightened his jacket and moved toward the exit. With a casual gesture, he reversed his earlier manipulation—the sealed doors unlocked with an audible click, the opaque windows cleared to reveal Manhattan's skyline once more, and reality gently deposited his three companions back into the main space from whatever pocket dinsion he had temporarily stored them in.
Ava and Callista materialized looking thoroughly disoriented, their faces pale with the kind of shell-shocked expression reserved for people who had experienced sothing their minds couldn't quite process.
They had been aware of being moved sowhere else, of watching events unfold through what felt like thick glass, but the specifics remained frustratingly unclear.
"What the hell just happened?" Ava managed, her usual professional composure completely shattered. "One minute we were seeing a business eting, the next minute I'm—we're—" She gestured helplessly at the space around them.
Callista simply stared at Parker with the wide-eyed expression of soone whose understanding of reality had just been fundantally altered. "Did you just... how did you... what are you?"
"Cassidy," Parker said, his tone returning to the businesslike cadence of soone issuing routine instructions while completely ignoring the existential crises unfolding around him, "clear all your schedules for the next few days. Make ti for everyone—Claire, Alina, the whole family. I want so quality ti before..." He paused, glancing back at Seoryeon who was still processing her new reality while surrounded by scattered legal docunts.
"Before things get complicated."
Cassidy nodded, understanding imdiately. If Parker was talking about family ti before Earth "flipped," it ant whatever cosmic threats were brewing were more serious than she'd initially realized. Her immortal senses were already picking up disturbances in the dinsional fabric—subtle tears that suggested larger problems approaching.
"Of course. Should I arrange sothing special? Maybe the estate in the Hamptons? Or we could use the private island?"
"Just ti," Parker replied, his voice carrying an unexpected note of tenderness. "Real ti. Before everything changes. Sowhere comfortable where the kids can be themselves without worrying about collateral damage to the local reality."
Behind them, Seoryeon rose unsteadily to her feet, her erald dress wrinkled from her forced genuflection.
The docunts scattered around her represented the death of one reality and the birth of another—she was no longer the empress of her own empire, but rely its most highly paid administrator.
Yet as she gathered the papers with trembling hands, her phone continued buzzing incessantly.
The notifications were relentless: stock prices climbing in real-ti, board mbers calling with barely contained excitent about the most profitable sale in corporate history, financial analysts declaring Sophisticated Space the deal of the century, international news outlets demanding statents about the mysterious acquisition.
Her company's value had essentially tripled in the span of minutes, making her remaining ten percent stake worth more than most Fortune 500 companies.
She had lost everything and gained more than she'd ever imagined, all while being forced to her knees in front of witnesses. The humiliation burned almost as much as the bewildering mathematics of her new situation.
"Mr. Black," she called out as they reached the corridor, her voice steady despite everything that had just transpired. Despite her carefully maintained composure, there was sothing different in her tone now—a recognition of hierarchy that hadn't existed twenty minutes ago.
Parker paused but didn't turn around, his attention already shifting to whatever cosmic concerns occupied beings of his caliber. "Ms. Seoryeon?"
"When you said Earth depends on Sophisticated Space..." She hesitated, then forged ahead with the determination that had built her empire in the first place. "What exactly are we preparing for? What's coming that requires..." She gestured at the impossible architecture around them, the lingering traces of power that still made the air taste like ozone and possibility.
Parker's smile was visible in profile, sharp and knowing and sohow both reassuring and terrifying. "You'll find out soon enough. For now, just keep the company running smoothly. I'll be in touch with specific instructions." He paused, considering sothing. "And Seoryeon? The next ti soone offers you a deal, consider that they might be doing you a favor rather than taking sothing from you. Well, lucky for you, you're mine now, so there won't be a next ti."
As they walked through the impossible corridors toward the building's exit, the walls seeming to contract back to normal dinsions as Parker's presence moved away from them, Ava finally found her voice.
"Did... did you just buy a more than trillion-dollar company by threatening soone?" she asked, her legal mind struggling to process the implications. "Because I'm pretty sure that violates about seventeen different international laws, and I really don't want to be an accessory to—"
"I used five trillion, actually," Parker corrected absently, checking his phone as new ssages poured in from financial markets around the world reacting to the sudden shift. "The market adjustnt was imdiate. And it was a perfectly legal transaction—all the paperwork is in order, all regulatory requirents t retroactively."
"Retroactively?" Callista made a small choking sound that might have been an attempt at laughter or possibly the beginning of a nervous breakdown. "How do you et regulatory requirents retroactively?"
"Very carefully," Cassidy supplied with the weary tone of soone who had stopped questioning Parker's thods months ago. "The legal system tends to be more flexible when reality itself vouches for the legitimacy of your docuntation." She chuckled at Callista's naivety.
Behind them all, Seoryeon followed like a beautifully dressed ghost, still clutching the legal docunts that had redefined her existence. Her mind was racing, trying to calculate the implications not just financially, but cosmically. The Prince of Existence now owned her company.
Whatever was coming to Earth, she was apparently going to be on the front lines of it whether she wanted to be or not.
From corporate empress to highly compensated employee to unwilling participant in cosmic events—all in the span of one afternoon eting.
Even for Manhattan business standards, it had been an unusually eventful day.
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