I Died 2,000 Years Ago: The Underworld Fears Me-Chapter 84 - 81 — Champagne, Silk… and a Soul in a Glass Cage
The golden elevator moved too fast for standard physics.
The heavy obsidian doors sealed shut, and the gravity-dampeners instantly engaged with a low, bone-rattling hum. My ears popped. The floor pressed gently against the soles of my ruined boots, compensating for an ascent that was pulling us hundreds of feet into the air in a matter of seconds.
The back wall of the elevator was made of thick, reinforced spiritual glass. As we shot upward, the toxic purple smog of the canyon floor fell away, revealing the true scale of the Flesh Exchange.
Wealth up here was not measured in coins. It was measured in distance from the slaughter.
Down below, the coliseum floor was a massive, sunken bowl of black iron grates and rusted spikes. I could see the dark, heavy stains of dried blood coating the metal, layered so thickly it looked like poured asphalt. Beneath the grates, massive industrial vats waited to catch the runoff, instantly converting the spiritual essence of dying gladiators into raw, liquid capital.
Surrounding the pit were the "Bleachers."
It was a staggering visual of systemic poverty. Millions of starving ghosts were packed onto jagged concrete tiers, pressing against each other like caged animals. They screamed, waving betting slips purchased with fractions of their own souls. The sheer volume of their desperation bled through the thick glass of the elevator, a dull, oceanic roar of collective misery.
We cleared the lower tiers. The elevator glided smoothly along the massive, curving ivory of the fossilized ribcage, carrying us up into the Ivory Sky.
Ding.
The ascent stopped. The dampeners disengaged, leaving my stomach feeling light.
The obsidian doors slid open.
The transition from the roar of the bleachers to the interior of the Skybox was jarring. The air here was perfectly still, aggressively filtered, and chilled to a comfortable sixty-eight degrees. It smelled of ozone, crushed orchids, and high-tier Qi champagne.
A soft, synthetic piano melody played from hidden speakers, wrapping the room in an atmosphere of untouchable luxury.
We stepped out onto a plush, crimson silk carpet.
The VIP suite was massive, suspended directly over the center of the arena pit. The outer wall was a continuous pane of curved, transparent armor-glass, offering a god’s-eye view of the violence below. Built directly into the glass were sleek, glowing betting terminals. Neon green and red numbers scrolled continuously across the transparent screens, updating stock prices by the millisecond.
The room was filled with the Board of Directors’ favorite children.
Dozens of Upper Layer elites mingled in small clusters. Men wore tailored suits woven from spirit-silk that actively repelled dust. Women draped themselves in defensive jewelry—necklaces of condensed karma, rings that projected personal kinetic shields. They held thin crystal flutes filled with glowing blue liquid, laughing politely at jokes about interest rates and foreclosure quotas.
My dirty black boots hit the crimson silk carpet.
Squidge.
A chunk of dried, toxic mud flaked off my heel and smeared against the pristine fabric.
Lingshan stepped out behind me, her tactical armor smelling faintly of the acid river. Winter’s Edge hung openly at her hip, the frozen steel clinking against her scabbard.
Then came Red Dog.
The seven-foot Myrmidon squeezed through the obsidian doors. His massive, matte-black iron chassis groaned. A flake of rust detached from his shoulder and hit the floor. He gripped the sleek, glowing silver briefcase with two massive claws, looking completely, absurdly out of place among the crystal chandeliers and silk upholstery.
The soft piano music didn’t stop, but the conversation did.
A woman in a jade-threaded dress froze mid-laugh, her crystal flute slipping from her manicured fingers. It hit the carpet, the glowing blue champagne soaking into the crimson silk.
Heads turned. Conversations died in the throats of the aristocrats.
They stared at my blood-stained collar. They stared at Lingshan’s scuffed knee pads. They stared at the terrifying, rusted iron giant holding a piece of corporate luggage.
The disgust in the room was absolute. They looked at us like a disease that had managed to bypass the immune system of their bank accounts.
I ignored them entirely. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
I didn’t draw a weapon. I didn’t summon the Golden Ledger. I walked casually across the room, my black umbrella tapping rhythmically against the floorboards hidden beneath the thick carpet.
A waiter in a crisp white tuxedo materialized in my path, holding a silver tray of champagne. His hands were shaking so badly the crystal glasses clattered against each other. He looked at me, terrified, unsure if he should offer me a drink or call security.
I reached out and took a glass.
I didn’t drink it. The liquid smelled like fermented starlight and greed. I just held it, twirling the thin stem between my fingers as I walked toward the curved glass wall overlooking the pit.
The crowd parted. They scrambled out of my way, pulling their expensive silks tight against their bodies, terrified that brushing against my ruined jacket might infect them with poverty.
Lingshan stayed tight on my left flank, her dark eyes scanning the room, logging every hidden guard and every piece of defensive jewelry. Red Dog shadowed my right, the heavy silver briefcase ticking softly with the sheer density of the capital inside.
I reached the glass wall. I looked out over the arena.
The pit was empty, being prepped for the next bout. The neon tickers flashed wildly.
Then, a booming, heavy laugh echoed from the far end of the suite.
"I told them to short the biotech sector! The fools thought a plague in Sector Four would drive up the price of cures. They forgot we own the patent on the disease!"
I turned my head.
At the center of a raised velvet lounge area, surrounded by sycophants and high-end brokers, sat the Market Maker.
Baron Zhang.
He did not look like the soft, pampered elites surrounding him. He was a Warlord operating in a corporate skin.
He stood six and a half feet tall, his shoulders impossibly broad. He wore the jacket of a tailored black pinstripe suit, but beneath the open fabric, he didn’t wear a dress shirt. He wore heavy, dull grey First Era iron plating. The metal was etched with the same brutal, geometric runes I had seen on the colossal lock buried beneath my factory.
His face was square and scarred, his jawline thick, his eyes the color of old, dried blood.
But it wasn’t his face that made my lungs stop working.
It was the center of his chest.
Embedded directly into the First Era iron plating, right over his sternum, was a heavy cylinder of thick, reinforced spiritual glass. It was roughly the size of a fist, bolted into his armor with heavy brass clamps. Thick, glowing veins of liquid Qi pumped out of the top and bottom of the cylinder, feeding directly into the Warlord’s flesh.
Inside the glass cage, a light swirled.
It was not the harsh, neon glare of the stock tickers. It was not the artificial, sterile glow of the elite champagne.
It was a soft, agonizingly beautiful light. It pulsed with the rhythm of a dying heartbeat, shifting between shades of pure, blinding white and a deep, tragic gold. It looked like a captured star slowly burning itself out in a vacuum.
The moment my eyes locked onto the cylinder, the rusted hairpin in my breast pocket reacted.
It didn’t just grow warm. It ignited.
A searing, branding heat exploded through the cheap metal. It burned straight through the lining of my jacket, through my shirt, pressing the phantom shape of a Black Lotus directly against the skin over my heart.
The physical pain was staggering. My teeth locked together. The muscles in my jaw bunched so hard they ached.
It wasn’t just heat. It was a sensory flood.
For a fraction of a second, the sterile smell of the Skybox vanished. I smelled crushed peach blossoms and ancient ink. I felt the ghost of a soft hand resting against the back of my neck. I heard a voice, painfully familiar, whispering a warning in a language that hadn’t been spoken in two millennia.
Then, the agony of the trapped fragment hit me.
I felt the heavy, suffocating weight of the glass cage. I felt the parasitic draw of the brass clamps tearing at the edges of the soul, siphoning off its divine Law to power the brutal, mechanical heartbeat of the Warlord wearing it.
He didn’t wear the First Era armor to protect his heart. He wore it to protect the battery.
He was using a piece of the Queen of the First Court as a literal pacemaker to push his cultivation beyond its natural limits.
The crystal champagne flute in my hand shattered.
Crack.
The sharp sound cut through the low murmur of the suite. The glowing blue liquid splashed across the reinforced glass window and dripped down the knuckles of my right hand, mixing with the hot, red blood welling up from the cuts on my palm.
Baron Zhang stopped laughing.
He turned his heavy, scarred head. His blood-red eyes locked onto me across the long expanse of the VIP suite.
He looked at the ruined suit. He looked at Lingshan. He looked at Red Dog.
His thick brow furrowed. He didn’t recognize my face. The White Eye had deleted my physical identity two thousand years ago. To him, I was just a stranger who had somehow bled on his carpet.
But the soul fragment in his chest recognized me.
The swirling light inside the glass cylinder suddenly flared. It spiked violently, flashing a blinding, pure gold. The heavy brass clamps holding the cylinder sparked, groaning under a sudden, massive surge of unprompted pressure.
Zhang flinched, pressing a heavy, ring-covered hand against his chest plate. He gritted his teeth, visibly fighting to suppress the sudden, erratic spike in his own borrowed power source.
He glared at me, his eyes narrowing into slits. He didn’t know why his battery was acting up, but his predator instincts pinned the blame exactly where it belonged.
Lingshan shifted her stance. Her boots planted firmly on the silk carpet. Her hand tightened around Winter’s Edge. She felt the killing intent radiating from my bloodied hand, and she prepared to draw.
If I gave the order, she would cross the room in a fraction of a second. Red Dog would drop the briefcase and tear the sycophants in half. I could summon the Ledger, rip the cylinder from Zhang’s chest, and claim the fragment right now.
But Judge Mortis was watching.
If I murdered a Sector Lord in his own Skybox without a legally binding contract, Mortis would drop his gavel. The audit would fail. I would be executed, and the fragment would fall right back into the hands of the Board of Directors.
I couldn’t just kill him. I had to bankrupt him. I had to legally acquire him.
I forced my hand to open. The bloody shards of the crystal flute dropped to the crimson carpet.
I pulled a crisp white handkerchief from my inner pocket, ignoring the searing burn of the hairpin pressing against my chest. I calmly wiped the blood and glowing blue champagne from my fingers.
I broke eye contact with the Warlord.
I turned away from the velvet lounge and walked toward a sleek, black leather booth situated directly in front of the glass wall. A digital betting terminal was built right into the dark wood of the table.
I sat down. The leather creaked.
Lingshan stood at my left shoulder, rigid and perfectly still. Red Dog stood at my right, setting the heavy silver briefcase onto the table with a solid, definitive thud.
I looked down at the betting terminal. The screen prompted me for a fingerprint to register a new gladiator sponsor account.
I pressed my bloody thumb against the glass.
The screen flared green.
[ACCOUNT ACTIVE. AWAITING CAPITAL INJECTION.]
I looked out the window, down into the black iron grates of the slaughter pit.
I didn’t let the grief show. I didn’t let the rage show. I buried the Queen’s memory back down in the dark, replacing it with the cold, absolute certainty of an Auditor staring at a fraudulent ledger.
"Open the case," I told Red Dog.
The Myrmidon popped the latches. The holy light of a hundred million silver bars spilled across the leather booth.
I reached toward the terminal.
It was time to play the market.
[AUTHOR NOTE]
Ren just found the battery. 💔⚡
The Warlord is wearing the Queen’s soul like a Rolex, and Ren is forced to sit at a table and play the rules to get her back. The restraint is terrifying.
Next up: Red Dog drops into the pit. The elites think they are betting against a pile of scrap metal. They are about to learn what First Era density looks like.
If you want to see the Iron Legion’s vanguard shatter the gladiator market, smash those Power Stones! The IPO begins now! 📈🔥
