Chapter 74: The Aristocrat’s Hoard

The interior of the First Continental Reserve’s primary vault was a grotesque, blinding monument to absolute greed.

The cavernous, reinforced concrete room was lined from floor to ceiling with thousands of Old World safe deposit boxes. However, the heavy steel doors of the boxes had been violently ripped open. The Old World billionaires had not retreated to this bunker to hoard paper currency or diamonds; they had hoarded the apocalypse itself. The entire vault floor was piled high with a staggering, chaotic mountain of high-tier monster cores, their combined, localized bioluminescence bathing the room in a harsh, neon, multi-colored glare.

It was an ocean of evolutionary energy.

But Ren did not immediately look at the scattered mountain of cores. His entirely solid, unblinking violet eyes locked onto the massive, grotesque abomination lounging dead center in the sea of concentrated mana.

The System overlay flashed a stark, aggressively red warning across his retinas.

[Warning: Mutated Human-Baseline Detected.] [Gilded Sovereign (Lvl 36)] [Status: Gluttonous / Arrogant]

The creature had once been a human billionaire, one of the elite architects who had locked themselves in the vault when the sky turned purple. He had attempted to force his own evolution by continuously gorging on the hoarded cores without possessing a localized Gluttony skill.

His human biology had violently, catastrophically failed.

The Gilded Sovereign was a bloated, massive humanoid atrocity, easily twelve feet tall and weighing over two tons. His hyper-expanded, sickly pale flesh was completely fused with thousands of melted Old World gold bars. The heavy, localized bullion formed a jagged, impenetrable, glittering armor of solid gold and calcified bone across his massive chest and limbs. His face was a melted, gold-plated nightmare, his jaw distended and dripping with concentrated, glowing acidic bile.

He sat upon the mountain of cores like a gluttonous king, his heavy, gold-plated fingers idly crushing a Level 20 core into dust.

Upon seeing Ren step through the ruined, forty-ton titanium door, the Gilded Sovereign was suddenly worried whether this dark, uninvited peasant would be able to meet his localized tribute expectations. The encounter required the intruder to kneel in the spur of the moment and had a high degree of difficulty. Within a second, the lesser being had to express absolute subservience to suit the Sovereign’s massive ego; this was a real test of a wasteland survivor’s groveling abilities.

Unfortunately for the mutated billionaire, Ren’s heavy, pitch-black tungsten Iron Skin was entirely hidden beneath his ruined military trench coat, so the golden monstrosity could not see his Level 32 features. It was not until Ren’s heavy combat boots crushed a jagged ruby core on the floor that the beast could finally register his completely unbothered, dominant posture.

The Gilded Sovereign laughed gently, a wet, heavy, metallic sound that vibrated the concrete walls, and responded with a cheeky telepathic voice, “Must you track your filthy mud into my private treasury every time you make a move in this city?”

“Can’t you tell? I’m just looking for an excuse to liquidate your assets…” Ren replied calmly.

The Gilded Sovereign’s golden face contorted in anger. “Too bad your localized peasant biology cannot afford the price of admission,” it responded in a quiet, chilling whisper.

“If you tell me you beg for scraps, there might be a miracle,” the Sovereign teased, flexing its massive, gold-plated, two-ton arms. “Do you want to try?”

“Even if there was no miracle, I would still completely bankrupt you,” Ren replied seriously. Because he was entirely indifferent to the four-level deficit, he stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching loudly over the priceless cores.

On the other side of the ruined titanium door, Chloe gave a muffled gasp as she immediately pressed her fragile human body flat against the cold hallway wall, entirely overwhelmed by the sheer, suffocating gravity of the golden beast.

The Gilded Sovereign had no idea there would be a surprise.

After dropping his internal suppression, Ren’s terrifying, Level 32 Aura of the Apex went straight to the center of the vault. As his evolution included Abyssal Tyrant traits, even though he faced a higher-level enemy, he still entered the golden king’s domain with absolute, uncontested dominance.

“Come, let’s get started…” The Sovereign hissed, its heavy, gold-plated boots shattering the floor as it launched its two-ton bulk directly at Ren without much expectation.

Ren nodded, then…

…while Chloe was gathered in the hall waiting to watch him embarrass himself… in a split second, he entered into a completely different state of mind. They watched as he naturally spread his massive legs apart, wrapped his left hand around his right wrist, and gently spread apart his pitch-black talons. As the massive, two-ton golden fist swung down to crush his skull, in an instant, everyone was stunned by the look in Ren’s completely solid violet eyes—it was so threatening… compared to the silent persona he had earlier on, it was like he had turned into a completely different calamity!

What impressed everyone the most was the pitch-black, light-absorbing tungsten skin on his forearm, which appeared to be supplying him with this wild energy. Ren raised his bare arm and casually caught the Sovereign’s massive, descending golden fist.

The collision was deafening. The sheer kinetic shockwave blew the massive mountain of cores backward, scattering the glowing crystals like loose gravel.

The thick, Old World gold plating on the Sovereign’s knuckles violently warped and flattened against Ren’s impenetrable Iron Skin. The beast shrieked in absolute, metallic agony as its localized kinetic momentum was completely and effortlessly halted.

The Gilded Sovereign was speechless… where did the wasteland find this gem? This level of impenetrable density was comparable to that of an international super-bank-vault!

“Your localized armor is forged from a soft, malleable, entirely useless Old World metal,” Ren stated, his deep, resonant voice entirely analytical as he maintained his iron grip on the beast’s crushed golden fist. “You hoarded currency instead of adapting to true density.”

[Skill Activated: Rending Claws]

The ten-inch, pitch-black talons erupted violently from Ren’s knuckles. He didn’t bother using his Corrosive Saliva. He wanted to completely dismantle the aristocracy with raw, unadulterated physical force.

He channeled the absolute maximum output of his Level 32 Strength into his broad, heavily armored shoulders. He gripped the beast’s golden wrist, twisted it violently until the thick, calcified bone inside snapped with a deafening crack, and then drove his right hand directly into the center of the Gilded Sovereign’s bloated, gold-plated chest.

The dark talons punched cleanly through the thick gold bars and buried themselves deep into the beast’s mutated sternum.

Ren utilized his raw, unnatural kinetic torque, leaning backward, and physically ripped the monster’s heavy, two-ton chest cavity completely open.

Thick, glowing, hyper-concentrated yellow blood geysered over Ren’s face and trench coat. The beast thrashed wildly, its golden limbs scraping uselessly against the iridescent obsidian plates of Ren’s Chitin Shell, showering the vault in a blinding cascade of sparks.

Ren plunged his bare, tungsten-sheened arm deep into the ruined, golden cavity. He found the massive, heavily corrupted human core—a jagged, pulsing, sickly yellow crystal the size of a bowling ball.

He ripped the core completely out of the beast.

The Gilded Sovereign collapsed heavily onto the concrete floor, its massive, gold-plated body flattening a pile of cores as its biological functions permanently ceased.

[Target Dead: Gilded Sovereign (Lvl 36)] [Experience Gained: 140,000]

Ren stood completely soaked in glowing yellow blood, holding the massive, corrupted human core. He didn’t hesitate. He raised the heavy crystal to his jaws and completely crushed it between his heavy molars.

[Gluttony Activated.] [Consumed: Mutated Human-Baseline Core (Lvl 36)] [Strength +5] [Vitality +4] [Intelligence +3]

The massive influx of high-tier stats hit his completely saturated bloodstream, his Level 32 architecture effortlessly absorbing the density.

He swallowed the jagged dust, his completely solid violet eyes turning away from the dead billionaire and scanning the massive, scattered ocean of unconsumed cores covering the entire vault floor. The Old World elite had gathered the entire city’s localized harvest into one perfectly sealed room.

The Gluttony skill in his chest surged violently, a massive, overwhelming wave of pure, localized hunger.

“The vault is cleared,” Ren stated, his deep voice vibrating the stagnant air as he stepped deeper into the glowing, multi-colored ocean of concentrated mana.

He didn’t need to break open glass tubes this time. He simply knelt in the center of the massive, glowing pile of thousands of high-tier cores, his pitch-black hands completely submerged in the priceless harvest, driving his massive, Abyssal Tyrant frame into an absolute, uncontested feeding frenzy to drain the bank entirely dry.

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