Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!
Chapter 449 - 449: One Core Down

Parker's consciousness snapped back to the crystalline chamber like a rubber band released from infinite tension. The cosmic cathedral, the voice of Existence itself, the weight of nine lifetimes—all of it compressed back into the simple reality of underground stone and pulsing light.

The Guardian was gone. Not just destroyed, not banished—simply absent, as though it had never existed. Its purpose fulfilled, its ancient vigil complete.

Only Maya and Seoryeon remained, frozen in perfect temporal stasis mid-breath, mid-thought, mid-heartbeat.

Time had stopped around them the moment Parker's true awakening began, preserving them in crystalline moments while cosmic forces reshaped their protector.

Parker looked exactly as he had before entering the trial—no visible change marked his transformation from broken Prince to chaos incarnate. His hair remained silver-streaked from the sacrifices he'd made. His eyes held the same depth they'd always possessed.

His posture carried the same casual confidence that had defined him since arriving on Earth.

Yet everything had changed. He was complete now in ways that transcended physical appearance, whole in dimensions that existed beyond visual perception. The nine abilities hummed quietly within his consciousness, no longer locked away but integrated so seamlessly they felt like natural extensions of thought rather than cosmic powers.

He approached the Prime Core without ceremony, his footsteps echoing normally in the vast chamber.

The Core, which had pulsed with patient waiting for eons, suddenly blazed brighter than a newborn star. But this wasn't resistance—this was recognition.

The sphere of pure potential energy began moving toward him, its crystalline web shifting and flowing like liquid light as it repositioned itself. The Core wanted this connection, had been waiting specifically for him, for this moment when the Prince of Existence would finally claim his birthright.

Parker reached into his inventory with casual ease, retrieving the pearl his mother had crafted for exactly this purpose.

The small, opalescent sphere seemed insignificant in his palm—just another item among countless others he'd collected. But as he extended it toward the Core, both objects began to resonate at frequencies that made reality itself harmonize.

The moment pearl touched Core, existence held its breath.

Light exploded outward in every spectrum and several that didn't technically exist, bathing the chamber in radiance that would have blinded mortal eyes. The pearl dissolved into liquid starlight, flowing across the Core's surface like mercury finding its perfect vessel.

Where the two substances merged, something unprecedented began to form.

A shell of absolute protection crystallized around the Prime Core—not just physical armor, but conceptual invulnerability. This barrier existed on every level of reality simultaneously: material, spiritual, temporal, causal. Nothing that existed or could exist would ever be able to damage what lay within.

The Core had become truly indestructible, safeguarded by protections that operated beyond the reach of even cosmic-level threats.

But the pearl's integration created more than just defense. As the protective shell completed itself, Parker felt a connection snap into place—not painful, but profound. His consciousness suddenly expanded to encompass the Core's awareness, and through it, every iteration of New York across infinite realities.

The sensation was overwhelming yet manageable, chaotic yet ordered.

He could feel the pulse of eight million souls in his reality, their hopes and dreams and daily struggles flowing through his awareness like a gentle current.

But beyond that, stretching into impossible distance, he sensed the other New Yorks: the underwater city where humans had gills, the floating metropolis where gravity flowed sideways, the reality where the city was built inside a massive tree, the timeline where it existed as pure thought given architectural form.

Hundreds of thousands of variations, each one unique, each one precious, each one now under his direct protection. The connections weren't overwhelming because they weren't separate—they were all facets of the same fundamental concept, all expressions of the same essential dream of human gathering and growth.

Through his link with the Prime Core, Parker felt the protective aura expand outward—not upward to interfere with the battles raging above, but outward across dimensional barriers to encompass every connected New York across infinite realities.

This wasn't protection against internal conflicts or cosmic battles—this was absolute defense against anything that might seek to corrupt or destroy the Core itself.

The THEY, the Gateways, entities that fed on Prime Cores to fuel their parasitic existence—all of them would find these particular nexus points completely beyond their reach. The protection operated on such a fundamental level that it didn't interfere with Nyxavere's earlier safeguards that prevented civilian casualties. Those barriers remained intact, still shielding innocent humans from the reality-warping combat above.

The core now only protected New Yorks annihilation!

What Parker had created was something deeper, more essential—a guarantee that the heart of multiversal New York would endure regardless of what forces might arise to threaten it. The Core pulsed with satisfied recognition, its crystalline web now permanently integrated with protections that existed beyond the reach of corruption, consumption, or conquest.

*

High above, in the sky where divine combat raged between Hercules and the Street Rat, between Ma'at and the Painter, none of the combatants felt the change.

Their battles continued with undiminished fury, reality-warping powers clashing in displays that redefined the possible. The protection wasn't meant for such surface conflicts—it was designed to preserve the fundamental anchor point that kept infinite realities stable and connected.

But in her sanctuary, Nyxavere's head snapped up from her livestream as cosmic awareness flooded through her omniscient consciousness. Her father had descended broken and diminished, soul-damaged and spiritually crippled by his choices to save others.

He was returning complete.

"Daddy," she whispered to her global audience of millions, her voice carrying satisfaction and pride that made the air around her shimmer with possibility.

"You have no idea what's coming back to you."

She had known from the moment he descended what awaited him in the depths.

Had seen the trials he would face, the Guardian he would confront, the Eighth Life that would challenge his very existence. Had watched through omniscient sight as he chose wisdom over power, purpose over perfection, love over dominion.

Her father had gone down as the Prince of Existence in title. He was returning as The One in truth, the guardian of infinite possibility, the protector of everything that was or could ever be.

Everything was about to discover what it meant to have a Prince who understood that true power came not from ruling over existence, but from serving it with perfect, terrible, infinite love.

Nyxavere smiled and adjusted her camera angle to capture the exact moment her father emerged from the depths.

Her followers deserved to witness the return of a god.

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