Senator Alfonso Reyes, known as "Alas" (Ace) in political circles, was not used to losing. The loss of the MMIRP contract—which he considered his personal ATM—was a catastrophic humiliation. Worse, the winner was an eighteen-year-old upstart named Aiden Monteverde, who wore a watch worth more than Reyes's yearly declared income.
Reyes could not fight Aiden on the free market; the System made that impossible. So, he leveraged his decades of political power, turning the government agencies he controlled into weapons.
The Two-Pronged Attack: Law and Order
Reyes initiated a precise, two-pronged attack designed not to defeat Aiden financially, but to imprison him and seize his assets under legal pretexts.
1. The Judicial Fraud Charge (The Seizure):
Reyes first activated his contact in the Department of Justice (DOJ). They initiated a high-profile investigation into Aiden's holding company, accusing him of "Massive Commercial Fraud and Money Laundering".
The Pretext: The sheer, impossible financial success of Aiden's companies (PPG, Archipelago Connect, and the MMIRP bid) was the evidence. The complaint alleged that a massive capital inflow must be tied to international drug syndicates or terrorist financing—the common tactic used to seize the assets of rivals.
The Goal: Obtain a preliminary asset freezing order from a compromised judge, crippling Aiden's cash flow and shutting down the MMIRP project immediately.
Aiden knew this was coming. He tasked Atty. Clara Villanueva with a preemptive counter-filing.
"They are attacking the source of the money, not the expenditures," Aiden instructed. "Clara, tie every major System deposit to a legitimate, legal expenditure—the PPG infrastructure, the PrimeNet acquisition, the MMIRP materials. Show that the funds immediately go back into legal, tax-paying, job-creating projects. Drown them in compliance."
Clara filed a massive legal declaration, proving that every cent of revenue was accounted for, all taxes were overpaid, and every large expense was backed by legally sound, notarized documents. She preemptively submitted evidence proving the Dimaculangan Clan's short-selling attempt and Senator Reyes's connection to the defeated bidding firm, framing the DOJ inquiry as blatant political harassment.
2. The Police Corruption Charge (The Arrest):
Simultaneously, Reyes used his leverage over the National Police. He ordered a secret investigation based on an anonymous "tip" about the firearms acquired by ASL.
The Pretext: The charge was Illegal Possession of Firearms and Private Army Formation. While Aiden had legal registration paperwork for the weapons, the police intended to raid the ASL warehouse, claim the paperwork was forged, and find a technicality to arrest Boss Ramos and Sentinel Dela Cerna, thereby decapitating Aiden's security.
The Goal: Arrest the lieutenants, scare the new workers, and force Aiden to spend his time and money in courtrooms, unable to run his empire.
The Counter-Move: Transparency and Documentation
Aiden deployed the full capacity of his Ghost Legion and the System.
Intelligence:Silencer Cruz used his deep network to get the exact time and location of the planned police raid on the ASL warehouse.
Defense:Sentinel Dela Cerna and Boss Ramos moved the entire legally documented cache of weapons from the ASL warehouse to a highly secure, private bank vault minutes before the raid, leaving the warehouse empty of anything incriminating. They also had the entire interior of the warehouse wired with cameras, recording the raiding officers' movements.
The police arrived at the warehouse, expecting a massive arms cache and an illegal training ground. They found only empty, cleanly organized rooms and polite, legally licensed security personnel (Quick Dela Vega and a new recruit) who immediately produced the valid, original copies of the ASL business permits and firearm registrations.
The System's initial $₱5$ million spent on legal documentation for the firearms had just saved his entire security team from prison.
The police found nothing. The raid was videotaped by ASL and leaked instantly to neutral media sources, exposing the police as heavy-handed and wasteful.
The DOJ Verdict (A Calculated Victory)
The DOJ asset freezing motion failed spectacularly. Aiden's perfect, System-generated documentation was an unassailable wall of compliance. The compromised judge had to rule against the DOJ, citing insufficient evidence and the overwhelming legality of Aiden's business practices.
Aiden had forced the government to validate his wealth. He had fought the power structure and won using their own laws against them.
Senator Reyes was left furious and exposed. His power was not absolute; it could be countered by an opponent with infinite capital and perfect legal documentation.
The threat was neutralized, but the political war was now public. Aiden needed to consolidate his public image, turning his mysterious wealth from a liability into a source of public approval.