Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

Parker shook his head as he watched Nyxavere cheerfully narrate cosmic destruction while casually violating the fundamental laws of reality. She could have all the fun she wanted—she had just saved millions of lives after all when she stopped further destruction, now turning potential mass extinction into a bizarre livestreamed entertainment event wasn't too much to ask.

Right? Wasn't she better than gods who watched the destruction they'd created?

He sighed deeply, the sound carrying undertones of cosmic frustration that made the air around him shimmer.

He wasn't a fucking hero for fuck's sake, but his mind was commanding action before conscious thought could intervene. Usually he would have dismissed such chaos as merely Tuesday in a universe full of overpowered entities with anger management issues.

But two things rubbed him the wrong way here. First, the Shadow Bearer—blessed by the Olympians with powers now corrupted by THEY—was wrecking the city even more with Hercules while away the Street Rat's friend fought some woman in the sky. Second, after all the destruction the Olympians were responsible for bringing to Earth, they had the audacity to send their champions to play hero without even caring about the helpless humans dying in their cosmic games and power exchange.

The sheer arrogance of it annoyed him more than he cared to admit.

Luckily for the helpless humans, Parker had resources they couldn't even imagine.

"Seraphina," he called out to his youngest daughter softly, his voice carrying the gentle authority of someone who commanded galaxies but still remembered how to be a father.

Seraphina approached him casually, her blood thermos still in hand, looking up at him with innocent crimson eyes that held the kind of pure trust only children could maintain while living in a family of cosmic entities. Her small form seemed almost fragile against the backdrop of divine warfare, but Parker knew better than to underestimate what she had become.

"Yes, Daddy?" she asked sweetly, tilting her head in a way that made her appear even younger than her apparent age.

Parker dropped to one knee, bringing himself to her eye level with the practiced ease of a father who had learned that even cosmic conversations worked better when conducted at child height.

"Daddy needs you to be very fast and bring all the injured humans—even those on the verge of death—here to us. Can you do that for me, princess?"

Time for practice?

Seraphina nodded eagerly, her enthusiasm brightening her features. "Of course, Daddy! I can save everyone!"

What happened next was a transformation that would have sent theoretical biologists into existential crisis.

Seraphina's small form began to shift and expand, her vampiric heritage awakening with the full authority of her Draven bloodline. Beautiful crystalline wings unfurled from her shoulders, their surfaces reflecting light in patterns that suggested they existed partially in dimensions where beauty operated according to different mathematical principles.

Her white hair elongated and began to flow like liquid shadow, while her eyes ignited with inner fire that made looking directly at them briefly glimpse eternity.

When she breathed, the air itself cried—a sound like wind through broken glass mixed with the whispers of dying stars. Space and time visibly bent around her small form, reality adjusting its fundamental constants to accommodate her presence.

Parker turned to Cassidy and Atalanta, his voice carrying the tone of someone issuing orders that would reshape the immediate future. "You two, same mission. Bring every human you can find to safety."

If they all die what was left to save in Manhattan mainly?

Then his gaze fell on Ere, who looked up at him with cute golden eyes that held the wisdom of entities that predated light itself. "And you, my dear, need to isolate the entire city in your dimension. Can you manage that?"

Ere's response was to expand her consciousness across Manhattan's ruins, her shadow and dimension realm stretching to encompass every street, every building, every space where reality met unreality. The city didn't disappear—it simply began existing in a pocket dimension where cosmic battles couldn't accidentally erase human civilization.

Nyxavere, still livestreaming, captured every moment while adding cheerful commentary.

"Okay everyone, now we're moving into the rescue phase! Daddy's basically turning our family into the world's most overpowered emergency response team!"

Parker turned to Bella, his expression serious. "You'll heal every human they bring. No exceptions."

"And make sure no god watches any of this," he added to Nyxavere, who waved her hand casually and created a massive protected space for incoming civilians while simultaneously blocking divine perception from detecting their humanitarian intervention.

"Got it, Daddy! Creating god-proof rescue zone now!" she announced to her audience, which had climbed past seventy million viewers as word spread that actual deities were conducting a rescue operation live on social media.

Seraphina launched herself into the air with speed that made the concept of velocity weep in inadequacy. She moved faster than light, faster than thought, faster than the cosmos itself could process motion.

Her blood-red aura twisted reality into spirals as she achieved speeds that turned physics into abstract art.

In what appeared to be an instant but contained subjective eternities of movement, she returned with eleven humans carefully cradled in fields of protective energy—civilians who had been moments from death now held in perfect stasis until Bella could work her healing magic.

Cassidy and Atalanta took off in different directions, their immortal-tier speed creating afterimages that confused local spacetime as they began their own rescue operations across the isolated city.

Parker turned to Ava and Callista, his voice carrying the weight of someone who was about to attempt something unprecedented. "I need you two to make a list of every major business, every infrastructure system, every single thing that makes New York function as a city. Everything."

The two women hurried to comply, but before they could even begin, a figure descended from the sky with elegant precision. Seoryeon landed near Parker gracefully, her emerald dress somehow remaining pristine despite the cosmic chaos surrounding them.

In her hands was a tablet displaying exactly what he had just requested—comprehensive lists of every major business, utility company, transportation system, and economic structure that comprised New York City's complex infrastructure.

Parker's smile was genuinely impressed. "So you came around, huh?"

Seoryeon's expression was unreadable as she handed him the tablet. "I prefer to be proactive when cosmic entities decide to restructure reality around my business interests."

Parker accepted the tablet and looked up at the sky where divine and shadow forces continued their reality-breaking conflict. The time for passive observation had ended.

"Levi," he called out, his voice carrying harmonics that made the fabric of existence itself lean in to listen.

[Yes, Master?] came the immediate response, Levi's consciousness interfacing directly with his thoughts.

"It's time to buy New York City itself. The entire major metropolitan area. Everything on this tablet, plus municipal bonds, infrastructure debt, utility companies, transportation systems—I want to own every single thing that makes this place function."

[Processing cosmic-scale acquisition... Infinity Equivalent Exchange Concept standing by... 10x Cashback...]

Parker's smile widened as he prepared to perform the most audacious act of capitalism in human history—purchasing an entire major city while gods battled in the sky above and his family conducted impossible rescue operations in dimensions that existed between heartbeats.

Sometimes being a reluctant savior required thinking very, very big.

Or maybe no so much thinking at all?