My finger pressed the button.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Purchase Confirmed]
[Capital Liquidation Successful]
Remaining Balance:
$274,950,000
[Beginning Diablo Incarnation…]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nothing happened.
No pillars of blinding light.
No reality-shattering explosions.
No glowing magical circles spreading across the floorboards, and absolutely zero dramatic demonic chanting.
The rain just continued its heavy, rhythmic tapping against the glass.
Far below, the Manhattan streets remained completely unchanged—a blurry grid of neon cutting through an autumn storm.
For several seconds, I just sat there on the couch, blinking at the empty space by the windows.
I let out a dry, pathetic breath.
Well.
Awesome.
Did the cosmic plumbing get clogged, or did I just throw away half a billion dollars on a digital glitch?
If the system support line existed, I was going to leave a scathing review.
Then the hairs on the back of my neck stood completely on end.
Every survival instinct I didn’t know I possessed screamed that I wasn’t alone anymore.
A man was standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows, concept-perfectly looking out over Central Park.
I had absolutely no idea when he had appeared.
One single fraction of a second, the space had been completely vacant.
The next, he was just occupying it, as if he had always been a part of the penthouse’s multi-million-dollar architecture.
He was tall—around six foot two—with a lean, athletic build wrapped in a flawlessly tailored, unbranded black suit that looked expensive enough to make corporate executives feel physically insecure.
Every line of his posture was perfectly controlled, perfectly still.
He had sharp, refined features, with smooth black hair framing a handsome face that managed to look entirely elegant and deeply dangerous at the exact same time.
Then he turned his head, and I caught a direct look at his eyes.
Black and gold.
Not a normal dark brown or hazel.
The sclera was a midnight black, and the irises ringed with a brilliant, predatory gold.
For a long, agonizingly tense beat, neither of us said a word.
My heart was thumping a frantic rhythm against my ribs, but I forced my limbs to stay glued to the couch.
The man just calmly shifted his gaze from the storm outside and let it settle directly on me.
The pressure in the room didn’t drop, and there was no theatrical display of purple aura, but the atmosphere changed instantly.
It felt like the entire world outside the glass had just been deleted.
Every single ounce of this man’s terrifying, absolute attention was focused entirely on a single person.
Me.
Slowly, with a fluid, terrifyingly graceful movement, he placed one white-gloved hand over his chest and lowered his head into a deep, flawless bow.
“At last,” he murmured.
His voice was a calm, low baritone—smooth, incredibly refined, and carrying a faint trace of profound relief.
“I have found you.”
A genuine, icy chill crawled straight down my spine.
My newly upgraded brain was firing at a million miles an hour, stripping away the surface level and hitting the cold reality underneath.
The system hadn’t just manufactured a hollow, obedient butler clone using a template.
It had imported Diablo.
Like, the actual Diablo.
And he had finally found the soul signature of his master.
Nope, I thought, my modern cynicism slamming the brakes on the overwhelming narrative gravity of the moment.
Hold on.
Freeze frame.
Before I started discussing cosmic reincarnation, extra-dimensional bureaucracy, and multi-billion-dollar conspiracies with an ancient primordial demon standing in my living room, I needed to establish some clarity.
I really didn’t want my brain turned into soup on day one.
“Analyst,” I called out internally, keeping my face a stone-cold mask while my insides did flips.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Interface Active. Awaiting Query.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Can anyone read my mind?” I thought.
“Specifically, right now in this universe. Because if the answer is yes, I’m hiding under the bed.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Negative.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The white text expanded down the screen with its usual unvarnished precision:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
No telepath, psychic, empath, magical entity, cosmic being, mutant, or artificial intelligence currently existing within this universe can access the user’s thoughts.
The framework possesses exclusive soul-bound authority.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I blinked, testing the limits.
“Even a high-tier mutant telepath like Professor Xavier? Or an advanced digital entity? No bald men in motorized wheelchairs can peek in here?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
All external psychological intrusion protocols will fail.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I let out a slow, silent breath, my shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch.
That was a massive relief.
In a world where mental manipulation was as common as a seasonal cold, a hard-coded firewall was worth its weight in gold.
But then another name occurred to me—the ultimate apex of this reality.
The one every poor bastard who gets dropped into a comic book universe eventually loses sleep over.
“What about the One Above All?”
For the first time since I’d activated the thing, the system actually paused.
A full second ticked by in the silence of the room.
Then another.
I actually held my breath.
Finally, the text rendered:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
The entity designated as The One Above All possesses sufficient authority to access user thoughts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I winced.
“So he can read my mind? Great.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correction.
Could.
Past tense.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I sat up a little straighter.
“What does that mean? Did you fight God?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Preventative measures have already been implemented.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A long pause followed.
Then another line appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
The framework has politely requested that the entity refrain from interfering with authorized systemic operations.
Request accepted.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I stared at the screen, dumbfounded.
“…Politely requested?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“That’s it? You just asked nicely and the supreme creator of the megaverse said ‘understandable, have a great day’?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
The request was strongly worded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Well, that’s both deeply comforting and utterly terrifying, I thought, rubbing a hand over my face.
I glanced back toward the demon standing perfectly still by the glass.
“What about him? Can anyone pierce Diablo’s mind or use psychic tracking to find him? I really don’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. showing up because my butler threw off an eldritch energy reading.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Negative.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The screen cascaded with an immediate breakdown:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Although restricted by local dimensional limitations, Diablo’s underlying spiritual architecture remains fundamentally superior to native mortal lifeforms.
Projected symptoms for external intruders include:
• Extreme existential dread
• Uncontrollable panic
• Acute mental collapse
• Immediate, violent termination of psychic contact
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I slowly lowered the screen, a dry, sarcastic twitch hitting the corner of my mouth.
“…Good. So anyone trying to hack his brain gets a front-row seat to the void. I can live with that.”
If some high-end government telepath tried to sniff around my new butler’s head, they were going to get an immediate mental factory reset.
That was incredibly reassuring.
I looked toward Diablo, who was observing my silent interaction with the empty air with an expression of quiet, pleasant amusement.
That expression, funnily enough, made him look infinitely more alarming than if he were scowling.
“Next question,” I thought, locking eyes with him.
“Can people hear us discussing the system? If we talk out loud in this penthouse, are we leaking information to hidden bugs, spy satellites, or Tony Stark’s rogue smart-fridge?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Information regarding the framework is automatically excluded from unauthorized perception.
Individuals who hear discussions related to the framework will instinctively disregard, forget, or fail to register the information.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I frowned, a skeptical eyebrow creeping up.
“So if I walked into Times Square and started shouting the exact price of Great Sage like a lunatic?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Most observers would ignore the statements entirely.
Those who consciously hear the information would rapidly dismiss it as nonsense, a joke, or an irrelevant conversation.
Long-term retention is negligible.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I blinked.
“They just… forget? The ultimate anti-spoiler filter.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
Unauthorized minds are unable to maintain meaningful awareness of framework-related information.
Any memories formed will naturally degrade and be discarded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“That’s ridiculously convenient.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recommendation:
Do not rely on this mechanism as a substitute for operational security.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I’m not going to write it on a billboard.”
I leaned back into the deep silk of the couch, crossing my legs and trying to pretend my knees weren’t still vibrating from the adrenaline shock.
Okay.
The board of directors couldn’t read my mind.
The government couldn’t hack Diablo’s brain.
And our tactical planning sessions were completely invisible to electronic eavesdropping.
That cleared out about ninety percent of my immediate operational headaches.
I finally cleared my throat, addressing the elegantly dressed monster standing across from me.
“Alright. Now we can actually talk without me worrying about the universe collapsing.”
Diablo’s golden irises locked onto me with a terrifyingly focused intensity.
He didn’t move a muscle, standing at perfect attention.
For the next twenty minutes, I didn’t mince words.
I laid out the raw, unvarnished, completely absurd truth.
I told him about my death in the void, the cosmic pillar, and how I had wagered my soul equity to build this exact progression framework.
I explained the reality we were currently sitting in—the Marvel universe—a chaotic sandbox crawling with self-righteous gods, hidden spy agencies, and armored tech billionaires.
Then I gave him the messy street-level logistics: the Sterling family mining empire, my parents’ sudden death in the Atlantic, the fact that I was currently a vulnerable sixteen-year-old heir, and the room full of corporate vultures trying to strip my voting rights before my seventeenth birthday in three weeks.
I showed him the blueprints of the system shop—the multi-trillion-dollar paywalls blocking Great Sage, the absurd costs of Magicule Bodies, and the reality that becoming truly powerful in this world required amounts of capital that could fund global superpowers.
Diablo listened to the entire breakdown in absolute silence.
No interruptions.
No expressions of disbelief.
No “Master, surely you jest.” Just complete, unwavering attention, his golden eyes tracking my expressions with a chillingly analytical stillness.
When I finally finished, the quiet returned to the penthouse, heavy and cold.
Diablo looked back out toward the rain-slicked Manhattan skyline for a brief moment, then turned back to me, his gloves smoothing down the front of his pristine suit jacket.
“I understand,” he said simply.
That was it.
That was his entire reaction to discovering he was a de-powered anime character trapped in a high-finance comic book thriller.
I stared at him, entirely deadpan.
“That’s all you’ve got? No questions about the dimensional shift? No existential crisis? A simple ‘I understand’?”
“The alternative immediate response would involve me systematically eliminating your current corporate enemies,” Diablo replied, his tone conversational and polite, like he was suggesting a nice tea blend.
“…”
“Which, based on your current timeline, appears strategically premature.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, letting out a dry chuckle.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
That is exactly the kind of unhinged, logical pragmatism I paid half a billion dollars for.
I pulled the blue interface back up, scrolling through the locked high-tier paths—Raphael, Ciel, Elemental Kings, and Ultimate Skills.
Diablo stepped closer, his eyes scanning the numbers with an elegant, focused curiosity.
“A fascinating mechanism,” he murmured, his gaze resting on the massive price tags.
“An expensive mechanism,” I corrected, pointing a dead finger at the screen.
“Every single scrap of baseline power in this reality is going to cost us cold, hard currency. Not millions, Diablo. Eventually, we are going to need trillions. Quadrillions. The kind of numbers that don’t even fit on a standard corporate balance sheet without making the accountants faint.”
Diablo gave a slow, thoughtful nod, his expression completely undisturbed.
“I understand perfectly, Lord Chris.”
I waited for him to ask about logistical scaling, supply chain tracking, or maybe shorting some stocks.
Instead, he tilted his head slightly, his smile remaining perfectly serene.
“Would you like me to go ahead and conquer this world for you?”
The truly terrifying part wasn’t the question itself; it was the fact that he sounded entirely, completely serious.
He said it with the same casual politeness someone would use to ask if I wanted another cup of coffee.
I stared at him, my expression entirely deadpan.
“No. Let’s not do that on a Tuesday.”
Diablo’s smile faltered by a millimeter, his head tilting further.
“No?”
“First of all, you’re not strong enough yet,” I said, leaning forward and tapping the desk.
“You read the system warning. You’re physically superior to Steve Rogers, but you have zero magic, zero sorcery, and zero spiritual manifestation capabilities in this vessel. This is Marvel. There are literal cosmic entities, reality warpers, and planet-destroyers walking around. There are people in this universe who could erase an entire civilization before breakfast without even getting out of bed. If you go rogue and start a global war, an unarmored super-soldier body isn’t going to save you from a localized tactical nuke or a mystical intervention from a guy in a magic cape.”
Silence stretched across the room, broken only by the low rumble of thunder over the Hudson.
Then, slowly, Diablo’s dangerous smile returned, his golden eyes flashing with a sharp, terrifying light.
“A temporary limitation.”
“Exactly,” I said, leaning back.
“We don’t make noise until we have the hardware to back it up. I like my skin intact.”
His smile widened, a dark, unsettling glint appearing in his gaze.
“Then it settles into a singular, logical priority. We shall acquire the necessary wealth first.”
Somehow, that answer worried me significantly more than his casual proposal for world conquest.
Because looking at that smile, I had the distinct, uneasy feeling that my new primordial butler was already running complex financial calculations through his genius-level intellect—and whatever he was planning, it was almost certainly going to violate several international banking laws.
A sudden thought occurred to me.
I turned my attention back to the blue light of the interface.
“Analyst,” I thought, my expression hardening.
“Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario. If an asset is intentionally hidden, reported missing, or legally obscured… how does the system evaluate authority?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Interface Active. Awaiting Query.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Let’s say someone gains complete digital or physical control over a hidden offshore account,” I formulated carefully.
“Or unreported black-market assets. If they exercise absolute authority over it, does the framework recognize it as active balance?”
The text generated instantly:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Conditional.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I blinked.
The line expanded into crisp parameters:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
The framework recognizes currency ownership according to practical authority and direct control.
Assets that are actively secured within legal, active corporate or individual ownership structures remain unavailable for automatic system conversion without a voluntary, authenticated transfer from the record holder.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
That made practical sense.
Otherwise, I could just walk down Wall Street, point an accusing finger at Stark Industries or the Baxter Building, and call dibs on their corporate treasury to fund my skill tree.
Slightly disappointing, but fair.
The text continued scrolling:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Assets that have been intentionally concealed, scrubbed from legal ownership registries, or abandoned outside of standard institutional frameworks may be instantly recognized by the framework upon the user establishing definitive authority.
Example: The $2.85 Billion offshore capital reserves hidden by Mark Sterling.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I paused, tracking the logic.
“Because those specific accounts weren’t legally declared to any regulatory government or standard corporate board?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
Practical cryptographic control existed.
Legal ownership records did not.
Therefore, the framework evaluated the unallocated assets as recoverable capital immediately upon user retrieval of the access keys.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I paused for a moment.
“What about physical resources?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Clarification:
The ownership restriction applies exclusively to financial assets.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I blinked.
“Meaning?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Currency, bank accounts, securities, corporations, and digital financial instruments require legitimate ownership or authority before conversion.
Physical resources are evaluated separately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The screen expanded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Minerals, metals, energy sources, magical materials, biological resources, and similar commodities do not require ownership verification.
Once transferred into System Storage, the framework recognizes them as available resources.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I sat up slightly.
“So if I found a chunk of Vibranium?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
The framework would evaluate the material immediately upon successful storage.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“What if the Vibranium technically belongs to somebody else? Like, say, an entire hidden African nation or a guy with a star-spangled shield?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Ownership status is not a recognized parameter for resource valuation.
The framework evaluates only successful transfer into System Storage.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I frowned.
“So ownership doesn’t matter at all?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
The framework does not recognize legal claims, property rights, government registrations, or commercial ownership records when evaluating physical resources.
If a resource has been successfully stored within the System Inventory, it is considered available for valuation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…That sounds incredibly illegal. You’re basically telling me to become an intergalactic kleptomaniac.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Legal classification is not a recognized valuation parameter.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
I slowly turned my head toward Diablo.
His dark, golden smile had already widened to an alarming degree.
The primordial demon had just discovered that the framework treated hidden bank accounts and rare strategic resources as two entirely different problems.
One required ownership.
The other merely required storage.
That smile was becoming increasingly concerning.
He looked like a kid who had just been handed the keys to a candy store, if the candy store was full of highly volatile alien alloys.
“Analyst,” I thought quickly, a sudden wave of caution hitting me.
“Can those financial baseline restrictions be bypassed?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Clarify.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Can an individual or an entity holding legitimate assets be… persuaded… to execute a voluntary transfer? What if threats, intimidation, or leverage are used to force a signature? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
The penthouse room became incredibly quiet.
Diablo stood perfectly still, his white-gloved hand resting elegantly over his chest, his smile stretching into something that would make a seasoned corporate lawyer drop their briefcase, burst into tears, and run for the nearest exit.
The white text rendered with chilling clarity:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Yes.
If an asset is voluntarily and completely transferred to the user’s authority via valid cryptographic or legal signature, the framework will recognize the capital.
The framework operates purely on absolute authority and economic value; it does not evaluate the morality or methodology behind the acquisition.
Threats, intimidation, leverage, or physical coercion are recognized as valid operational mechanisms to achieve a transfer of legal or digital authority, provided the final transaction is executed willingly by the target.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I rubbed my forehead, letting out a heavy sigh.
Of course it doesn’t care.
The system is entirely transactional.
Value is value, whether it comes from a mining dividend or a high-stakes shaking down of a corrupt corporate executive.
If a target signed the papers to save their own skin, the framework viewed it as a totally legitimate transaction.
“…Voluntarily,” I muttered out loud, emphasizing the word.
“So we can’t just rob them.”
I glanced toward Diablo.
“We have to convince them that giving us the money is the healthier long-term decision.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I stared at the screen for a second.
“That’s not extortion.”
Another pause.
“It’s extortion with paperwork.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I slowly turned my eyes back toward Diablo.
Diablo slowly turned his head toward me, his black-and-gold irises gleaming in the dim ambient light of the penthouse.
That elegant, serene expression was becoming increasingly concerning.
“Do not,” I warned him, my voice completely flat.
“Wipe that look off your face.”
Diablo kept his hand over his heart, his tone the absolute picture of innocent, high-end hospitality.
“I have not spoken a single word, Lord Chris. I am merely contemplating the layout of the city.”
“That’s exactly what worries me,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“I know that look. You’re already figuring out how many board members can fit into a standard elevator before it exceeds the weight limit.”
The blue screen in front of me suddenly flickered, outputting a final, unexpected line of text right at the bottom of the ledger:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Recommendation: Do not allow the Diablo Incarnation to participate in hostile acquisition or corporate restructuring negotiations without direct user supervision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
For the first time since Arthur Graves had walked out of this room, I actually burst out laughing.
The sound echoed sharply against the rain-streaked windows, cutting through the lingering tension.
Even the multiversal, cosmic progression system had structural concerns about letting this man loose in a boardroom with a blank contract and a fountain pen.
I looked back at the screen, then at my new butler, the remaining $274,950,000 war chest humming silently in my soul.
Thaddeus Vance and his little executive committee thought they were preparing a clinical, legal hostile takeover against a helpless sixteen-year-old kid.
Honestly?
They weren’t even my biggest problem.
The hostile takeover was next month.
My parents’ funeral was tomorrow.
One of those involved a room full of corporate vultures trying to steal my company.
The other involved standing in front of two coffins.
Somehow, the board meeting sounded easier.
See you in the next chapter!