The Conquerors Path

Chapter 1070: Chapter 1068 — The Gilded Feast

The heavy, deep-sea diamond doors of the House of Odds sealed shut behind us. The absolute, screaming breakdown of the Mermaid nobility was instantly replaced by the ambient, humming thrum of the Golden Turtle’s financial district.

Krave was vibrating. There was no other word for it. The ancient, divine kraken was practically humming with a manic, hyper-capitalist frequency. She tossed the glowing obsidian cylinder—the deed to the Sunless Vents—from hand to hand, completely ignoring the fact that she was currently holding the economic equivalent of a mid-sized surface kingdom.

“That was fun.”

Krave said, her dark eyes wide and shining with profound, malicious joy.

“You really bullied them a lot; one word from you and they would have willingly given it all up, though.”

I replied mildly, steering us smoothly around a frantic group of dwarven brokers who were currently weeping openly on the platinum pavement.

“I am hungry. Let me eat some beings.”

Luna projected directly into my mind, her claws digging a fraction of an inch deeper into the heavy fabric of my coat.

“No hunting the locals.”

Krave laughed, slipping the obsidian deed into her coat alongside a fortune that could purchase the entire ocean floor.

She didn’t lead us back toward the commercial terraces. Instead, Krave turned toward the absolute centre of the city, navigating the twisting, gilded pathways that climbed the interior curve of the prehistoric turtle shell.

As we ascended, the chaotic noise of the lower banking districts faded, swallowed by the sheer, impossible scale of the calcified bone structures surrounding us. The architecture here was different. It wasn’t built; it was excavated. The Aethelgard Dukedom had favoured fragile, floating glass and suspended water, but the Golden Turtle preferred the heavy, undeniable permanence of ancient remains.

We arrived at the apex of the shell’s interior ridge. Carved directly into the colossal, petrified spine of the prehistoric beast was a massive archway of pure, unblemished deep-earth aurum.

There were no signs. There were no menus posted outside. Establishments of this calibre did not advertise; their mere existence was a closely guarded secret among the apex predators of the financial world.

“The Gilded Vertebra, it is the only culinary establishment in the ocean that requires a verified net worth equivalent to a royal treasury simply to cross the threshold.”

Krave announced, her voice dropping into a smooth, appreciative purr.

‘Rich people.’

[But you are rich now.]

‘I wasn’t rich before, so I can say it now.’

[Idiots]

“I assume there is a waitlist.”

I said.

“Typically, it is measured in decades.”

Krave said, stepping confidently toward the archway.

I dialled back my perceptual filter, allowing the two heavily armed, multi-armed Triton bouncers standing at the entrance to register our physical forms. They immediately crossed their massive abyssal-iron halberds, blocking our path.

“The dining room is entirely reserved.”

The guard on the left rumbled, his gills flaring with practised, aristocratic disdain.

Krave didn’t speak. She didn’t argue. She simply reached into her coat, pulled out one of the massive, glowing pearl-tokens containing a staggering percentage of the central bank’s physical gold reserves, and casually pressed it flat against the triton’s heavily armoured chest.

The guard’s eyes went wide. The magical arrays woven into his armour instantly scanned the token, verifying its absolute, undeniable authenticity.

The sheer, unfiltered weight of the platinum bypassed the three-decade waitlist in a fraction of a second.

Both guards immediately uncrossed their halberds, stepping back and bowing so deeply their foreheads nearly scraped the polished gold floor.

“Right this way, madam, the Sovereign’s Alcove is prepared for your party.”

The guard stammered, his voice trembling slightly.

[I wanna be rich.]

‘Keep dreaming.’

[Yeah, dreams are good.]

“Capitalism is a remarkably flexible magic system.”

I murmured to Krave as we strolled past the trembling guards.

“It is my absolute favourite.”

She beamed.

The interior of The Gilded Vertebra was a masterpiece of insulated, suffocating luxury. The dining room was hollowed out from the marrow cavity of the prehistoric spine. The walls were porous, ancient bone that had been meticulously plated in liquid gold, glowing with a soft, ambient warmth. The tables were massive discs of polished black obsidian, completely devoid of the anti-gravity parlour tricks favoured by the Aethelgard mages. Here, the gravity was kept intentionally heavy, forcing the patrons to feel the absolute, crushing weight of their own wealth.

We were led to a private alcove carved deep into the bone wall, completely isolated from the scattered, hushed conversations of the Mermaid royalty dining in the main cavern.

I sat down, effortlessly expanding my personal spatial barrier to adjust the ambient gravity around my chair to a more comfortable, terrestrial level. Luna immediately scrambled down my arm and hopped onto the obsidian table. She didn’t float this time. She planted all four paws firmly on the polished stone, her silver eyes scanning the empty alcove with intense, predatory expectation.

“Get me the best of the best.”

Luna stated flatly.

A server materialised from the shadows—an ethereal, translucent sea-nymph wearing robes of woven pearl. She didn’t carry a ledger; she simply bowed her head, waiting for our command.

“We will take the Trexton marrow, the entire cut. Slow-roasted over the primary thermal vent. And wrap it in the enchanted gold-kelp. Do not trim the fat, and do not dilute the venom.”

Krave ordered, leaning back in her velvet chair.

The nymph’s translucent eyes widened slightly at the sheer scale of the order, but she offered a flawless, silent bow and vanished back into the shadows.

“Trexton marrow, damn, that’s gonna be good.”

I said,

‘Carmel would kill to be here now.’

“The marrow is harvested from the spinal columns of Abyssal Scythe-Tails. They have to hire entire mercenary fleets just to distract the beast long enough for a master surgeon to extract a single bone segment without killing it. If the beast dies, the marrow instantly sours.”

Krave said.

“Let it just be tasty.”

Luna replied. We didn’t have to wait long. When you possess the liquidity to purchase the restaurant outright, the kitchen prioritises your table.

Four heavily muscled Triton chefs emerged from the back, struggling to carry a colossal, deep-sea diamond serving platter. They set it down in the centre of our obsidian table with a heavy, resonant thud.

The dish was a monument to culinary excess.

Resting on the platter was a massive, cylindrical cross-section of leviathan bone, easily the size of a tree trunk. It was radiating a staggering amount of ambient heat, the air around it shimmering and warping from the intense thermal energy trapped within the bone casing.

Inside the bone, the marrow was a deep, rich, violently pulsing purple. It was bubbling slowly, perfectly slow-roasted by the raw, redirected magma of the deep-tide vents. The scent that rolled off the platter was overwhelming—it smelled of ancient, unfathomable depths, rich, buttery fat, and the sharp, coppery tang of pure, unadulterated apex predator.

Wrapping the exposed marrow were thick, shimmering ribbons of gold-kelp.

“Is that a metal?”

I asked.

“Spun deep-earth aurum, the mages weave a highly localised digestive array into the gold. It melts the instant it touches your tongue, turning the metal into a hyper-dense, incredibly rich butter. It is completely absurd.”

Krave explained, completely ignoring her silverware and reaching directly toward the searing hot bone.

Luna did not wait for an invitation.

She stepped forward on the table, her eyes entirely locked onto the bubbling, purple marrow. She didn’t complain about the presentation. She didn’t offer a sarcastic critique of the chefs’ technique.

She simply leaned forward and sank her jaws directly into the centre of the searing mass.

The ambient heat of the marrow would have instantly liquefied the jawbone of any mortal creature, but Luna’s divine biology barely even registered the temperature. She pulled her head back, tearing a massive, steaming chunk of the marrow and gold-kelp free.

The crunch of the enchanted gold snapping, followed immediately by the wet, heavy sound of the hyper-dense fat tearing, echoed loudly in the quiet alcove.

Luna closed her eyes. She chewed slowly, systematically breaking down the impossibly rich, heavy meat. The ribbons of gold-kelp instantly dissolved in her mouth, coating her fangs in a shimmering, metallic sheen.

I watched her carefully. For a wolf who had spent the entire journey violently rejecting every delicacy the ocean had to offer, her current silence was profound.

Luna swallowed. She opened her silver eyes, looked directly at the remaining marrow, and let out a long, shuddering breath of hot air.

“Austin.”

Luna projected, her voice completely devoid of its usual clinical detachment. The telepathic resonance was thick with absolute, pure reverence.

“Yes, Luna?”

I asked mildly.

“It is perfect,”

She whispered.

Krave let out a bright, ringing laugh of sheer triumph, clapping her hands together.

“I told you! I told you I would find you something worth eating in this miserable, glowing fishbowl!”

“The texture is flawless. The fat-to-venom ratio is impeccably balanced. The sheer caloric density is staggering. I will require the rest of this immediately.”

She dove back into the bone, abandoning all pretence of manners, aggressively tearing into the steaming marrow with terrifying enthusiasm.

“I suppose I should try some.”

I murmured, maybe a bit jealous because she likes this cooking that much, using a silver knife to slice a modest, perfectly proportioned sliver of the purple marrow and gold-kelp for myself.

I placed it on my tongue.

Krave wasn’t exaggerating. The gold-kelp instantly melted, coating my palate in a rich, incredibly heavy, metallic butter that perfectly complemented the intense, earthy, violent flavour of the leviathan meat. It was the taste of ancient power, refined through absurdly expensive magical engineering.

“It’s good.”

I admitted, taking a sip of the dark pearl-wine to cut through the richness.

“And entirely worth the effort of destabilising their economy.”

“Everything is worth destabilising an economy.”

Krave smiled, tearing a chunk of the marrow off with her fingers and chewing happily.

We sat in the glowing, golden alcove for the better part of an hour, enjoying the rare, perfect silence of a truly exquisite meal. The chaotic, manic energy of the casino heist slowly bled away, replaced by a deep, highly satisfying lethargy. We watched Luna systematically hollow out the massive leviathan bone until the inner cavity was completely scraped clean.

The wolf let out a deep, rumbling burp that sparked with faint purple light, then collapsed onto the obsidian table, curling into a tight, incredibly round ball of silver fur.

“Ahhh….This is life; I am giving up walking now.”

Luna announced happily.

“You haven’t walked since we left the surface, you absolute sloth.”

Krave laughed, leaning back in her chair and lifting her crystal glass of pearl-wine.

I picked up my own glass, holding it out.

“To the Abyssal Bourse, may their ledgers forever remain out of balance.”

Krave smiled, her dark eyes reflecting the warm, golden light of the alcove.

“To the Mermaid Emperor, may he forever wonder how a surface apple bypassed three feet of solid diamond.”

I added smoothly, gently clinking my crystal against hers.

We drank.

A moment later, the ambient silence of the restaurant was violently shattered.

It didn’t start with a scream. It started with a heavy, resonant thrum that physically vibrated through the calcified bone walls of the alcove. The localised spatial magic of the dining room violently flickered, the ambient lighting shifting from warm gold to a harsh, flashing crimson.

A deep, deafening, rhythmic tolling began to echo through the water column outside the restaurant. It sounded like massive iron bells being struck by tectonic plates.

“Ah,”

Krave murmured, looking up toward the ceiling with a lazy, deeply satisfied smile.

“The lockdown.”

I shifted my vision, looking past the physical walls of The Gilded Vertebra.

The entire City of the Golden Turtle was entering a state of absolute, catastrophic panic. The central algorithms had finally recognised the sheer impossibility of the financial vacuum Krave had created. Massive, overlapping layers of deep-red lockdown wards were violently slamming into place across the abyssal plain. Thousands of Mermaid templars were swarming the streets, completely abandoning their posts to lock down the commercial sectors.

The House of Odds had undoubtedly just reported that their impenetrable probability magic had failed, and the Vault of Tides was likely currently dealing with a furious Emperor screaming about a piece of terrestrial fruit.

“They are sealing the perimeter.”

I observed, watching the mana flow thicken into a completely impassable magical cage around the city.

“Let them; they are locking the doors to an empty vault.”

Krave said softly, finishing the last drop of her wine.

I stood up, smoothly adjusting my coat. I reached into my spatial storage and pulled out a stack of glowing pearl-tokens, dropping them onto the obsidian table. It was enough wealth to purchase the entire restaurant, the staff, and the prehistoric spine it was built into.

“We should probably take our leave.”

I noted, reaching out to gently scoop the entirely immobile, heavily bloated silver wolf off the table. Luna didn’t even open her eyes as I draped her securely over my shoulders, adjusting my localised barrier to accommodate her increased weight.

“Indeed, I believe we have thoroughly exhausted the local entertainment.”

Krave agreed, standing up and linking her arm elegantly through mine. I didn’t bother walking toward the exit.

We stepped out of the warm, flashing red chaos of the Golden Turtle and seamlessly into the absolute, freezing, silent blackness of the true deep.

The golden city continued to panic behind us, trapped within its own impenetrable lockdown wards, completely unaware that the architects of their ruin were already drifting away into the deeper dark.