Guild Wars

Draco was currently scratching his head at the Ultimate bench, sticking his tongue out as he pondered how to deal with Privateering, having worked on his other Tradeskills to the limit. Whether or not to take it up as well was bothering him, not to mention that he was worried that if he overfilled his current stacks, he might invite trouble for himself.

As he contemplated, he felt a disturbance as the system sent him a prompt. According to the notification, someone was tampering with his pod in the real world, which was strange and near impossible. Draco checked and found that he was being rapidly pinged by the defense system of the Purgatory Group's building, signaling that they were under some sort of attack.

"Someone actually dares to attack us? In reality, no less, where we can use around 10% of our Eternal bloodlines?" Draco muttered with genuine puzzlement.

There was a time when he and Eva had to be wary of various forces, even joining supernatural groups back then to have some backing in the real world, but that was all before they had awakened their Eternal Bloodlines. Now, they hardly spent time in reality because—at least for the solar system—the planets were too weak and fragile.

They could easily punch through and destroy countless planets around if they wanted to, so how could they take any earthly force seriously? Even the primordials were something they left alive because the Evil Trio didn't want Worldly Energy to be released on Earth yet.

Gaia and her ilk were only alive because they were useful. If the Evil Trio ever wanted to truly get rid of them, the effort required to do so would be infinitesimal. With that in mind, Draco could not understand how this could be happening.

However, Draco was making a very common mistake. He was too used to his own power and was forgetting that not everyone knew or even understood the depth of the power he held. Even if Umbra's power in Boundless was a deterrent for most forces in reality, it was not enough to deter truly top powers, but they simply hadn't had a reason to deal with them until now.

After all, in their minds, Umbra might be almighty in the game, but in reality, they could not go against the power of the state. The land they lived on, the food they ate, all of it was sanctioned by the state. If they could theoretically resist the police, then resisting the military was impossible, and once things got to that stage, it would be more of a loss for Umbra than for them.

Even Nathan Rothschild and Li Jian, who were wary of Umbra since the core members raised his estate, only knew that they were lineage members with Control abilities, so they were individually powerful. However, when they came to his estate back then, it was for Maria, who had some sort of grudge with one of them, as well as Sengo Muramasa, a very clear objective.

He and Li Jian were not touched at all, not even a hair on their heads were harmed. That naturally led them to believe that this force, now revealed to be Umbra and the Purgatory Group, had scruples towards the World Council and didn't want to fall out with them.

The rest of the World Council believed this too, which was why they only dispatched SWAT teams at first, not a military force. This was just to intimidate Umbra slightly and make them surrender, because this was a non-lethal operation meant to harm Glorygore.

The Purgatory Group was just a fat lamb that could be slaughtered at will, not to mention that they had completely legal reasons that no one could deny—millions of dollars worth of evaded taxes!

No one could have predicted the events that occurred next, not even the core members.

Draco, who was already unhappy at being pulled out when he was so close to increasing the important Refinement to the Semi-Origin Stage, logged out for the first time in almost 3 years and pushed open the opening of his pod as he slowly walked out.

He was initially naked, but he used his power to manifest a set of casual clothing on his body, consisting of a black t-shirt and red casual shorts, as well as a pair of slippers, specifically slides. He casually patted down his spiky hair that stood up at the ends and brought it down, giving him a more 'pretty boy'-ish look.

None of the staff were allowed to come to this floor under any circumstances, so Draco only checked that the pods contained Eva, Shuangtian, Lucitian, and Lucitera casually before giving the command to the sub-AI controlling this room not to allow anyone here no matter what.

He then teleported downstairs, coming right before the entrance, which was surrounded by many of the staff in the building who managed the operation of the Purgatory Group in real life. Most of them were also serf members for Umbra in the game, so they balanced their time in the game with reality in shifts, being paid extremely well.

Even though some of these men and women could fight horrific monsters with swords in hand within the game, the moment they saw the SWAT force lined up outside the building, while repeatedly roaring through the speakerphone for them to surrender and come out one by one with their hands behind their heads, they couldn't help but feel uneasy.

Realistically, it was just as the World Council thought—there was a big difference for the average person in dealing with the government in reality compared to whatever challenges existed in the game, for nothing more than the innate stability most craved.

When the workers saw Draco appear while looking so suave, they were dazed for a bit before giving him way to exit the building and negotiate. Looking at the casual smile on his face, most of them were deeply moved by the calmness of their guild leader and hoped to see this issue smoothly resolved.

None of them could even fathom one iota of the thoughts going through Draco's head.

The moment he pushed the doors and came out, the various officers outside reacted and lifted their weapons to aim at him in a motion of intimidation. Having so many powerful automatic rifles pointed at you would make anyone instinctively raise their hands up and cooperate to show that they weren't a threat.

But Draco just walked down the steps casually, with a half-smile, half-smirk, his green eyes slowly passing over the entire group with not a single hint of wariness. In fact, for some reason, these trained officers, who were allocated to the SWAT unit, felt like they were being stared at by a humongous serpent that was hissing with interest as its serpentine eyes glanced at them.

This surprised them, and the grip of their weapons became a bit more hesitant, while some gripped them firmer, as if seeking comfort. The leader of this SWAT unit also felt something was wrong, and his expression became solemn as he stood out with the speakerphone to face Draco.

When Draco's focus fell on him, he felt that strange trepidation even stronger now, and then remembered that this man was likely some sort of Control master, if the reports were true. However, he firmed up his courage, because even the most powerful Control master of today had to succumb to the law!

"The young man in black, put your hands in the air and turn around! This is an order!" The leader shouted through the speakerphone, feeling his confidence return as he said this.

Yes, he was in the right, the one who was following the law, while the one opposite him was a criminal! How could he let himself be intimidated by a mere criminal?

To everyone's surprise, Draco folded his arms and tilted his head. "Why? You'd better have a good reason for coming here and disturbing me like this, because I am not in a good mood."

Saying such words with a smile on his face, everyone felt a sudden dissonance. It enhanced their weird feeling about the whole situation, but the ones most dumbfounded were the leader of the SWAT team.

What the hell did he mean by "why"? It was one thing for average citizens to fight back against individual patrol officers who were arresting them, but it was another to dare to stand in front of a SWAT team and ask for a reason. When a person was being SWATted, they usually understood that the situation was serious, and the slightest mistake could lead to a terrible outcome.

Who had the guts to see so many guns pointed at them and refuse to comply?

"You are being arrested for egregious counts of Tax Evasion, reaching up to $40 million dollars! You, and all the directors of your company, are to come out one by one with your hands behind your heads and accept the arrest. This is your last warning!" The leader said with a fierce expression upon processing Draco's words fully.

A gasp was heard as those who came to watch the situation, as well as those within the building who were peeking, heard this accusation. Tax evasion was no small thing; it was a very powerful and serious crime that one of the most wicked government institutions did not play with at all—the IRS!

Not to mention that people in general did not look too favorably on those who evaded taxes, especially those who were rich. Evading tax when you are a common salaryman is completely negligible to the public, but evading tax when you are a millionaire? Unforgivable.

And this… forty million dollars? Tax evasion of this level was not very common, because those who were rich had ways to avoid taxes smartly and legally, not make a blunder like this.

Looking at the handsome and nonchalant Draco, the nearby public couldn't help but develop a negative opinion immediately. It was one thing to be so greedy as to make so much money and not even donate to charity or help the poor, but he even dared to evade taxes?

On top of that, when his crimes were read out to him, he dared to wear such an uncaring expression. Did he take the people of the country as a joke? Why should they work hard and pay taxes obediently on their small earnings, while he made enough to feed a small state for a long time and completely ignored that obligation?

Just because he thought he was rich? That he thought he was handsome? That he thought he was better?

The crowd began to buzz with negative comments, which were heard by the parties involved, and the formerly nervous SWAT members seemed to gain untold amounts of confidence. They held their guns up straight and even moved forward before the various armored cars, lining up in a formation to blast Draco into a sieve should he even slightly provoke them.

The workers of Umbra in the building felt speechless, looking at each other in astonishment. They were used to being rich, and Umbra being rich, to the point that they had forgotten about such mundane matters. Usually, it was handled by Akainu or Sublime, but both of them had been locked in the game for the same amount of time as Draco, not having logged out in years.

Who had time to file the tax reports?

The average core member had the power to destroy entire continents on Earth with ease, so, like Draco just now, they did not really take matters concerning reality seriously anymore. At best, it was Armonia who occasionally logged out to deal with his family and corporation, as well as the research on the NuSmoothies enhancement.

Hearing the charge, Draco was actually quite stunned, though his 'resting bitch face' was permanently an insidious and villainous half-smile, so it seemed like he was belittling the entire matter at hand.

Pondering the matter, he felt that this was quite the problem, but the solution was even simpler.

"Okay, so to make this charge go away, all I have to do is remove the IRS and all laws that require the payment of taxes, right? Pretty simple," Draco eventually stated with a smile, making everyone's faces change.

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