The Infinite Realm Emporium was dead quiet. Without the System's hum, the shop felt like an ordinary room—cold, dark, and empty. The floating screens, the inventory slots, and the "Cosmic Credits" had all vanished.
Omar sat on the floor, leaning against the wooden counter. Beside him, Laila was bandaging her wounds. She looked at the empty shelves and then at Omar.
"We lost everything, didn't we?" she whispered. "The gold, the artifacts, the connection to the other worlds... we're just back to being a guy in a hidden room in Marrakech."
Omar looked at his palm. He didn't see a level bar. He didn't see a status window. But when he closed his eyes, he felt a deep, thumping heartbeat beneath the floorboards of the shop.
"The System was a cage, Laila. It only let me sell what it wanted me to sell," Omar stood up, his eyes burning with a new kind of intensity. "I didn't lose the Emporium. I became the Emporium."
He walked to the center of the room and slammed his hand onto the floor.
"Kaelen! Wake up!"
The floorboards groaned. From the shadows, the Ghost Knight emerged. He was no longer a glowing blue spirit; he was solid, his armor forged from the very essence of the "Void Steel" Omar had claimed during the rebellion.
"Master," Kaelen's voice was no longer a system-generated sound. It was deep, real, and resonant. "The shop is hungry. It needs a new heart."
Omar nodded. He realized that without the Architects' energy, the shop needed a new fuel source. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the only thing he had left: The Skill Orb of Kenji (Shadow-Step Flash) and the Dwarven Mana-Coal.
"I'm not learning this skill," Omar said, looking at the glowing blue orb. "I'm giving it to the shop."
He crushed the Skill Orb in his hand and pressed the fragments into the counter. The shop shivered. Suddenly, the walls began to glow with silver veins. The "Shadow-Step" wasn't just a move for Omar anymore—the entire shop could now shift through dimensions.
[New Reality: The Sovereign Shop.]
[Rule 1: The Merchant's Will is the Law.]
[Rule 2: No currency accepted except 'Soul-Essence' or 'True Sacrifices'.]
"Now," Omar turned to the door. "We need stock. And I know exactly where to find it without asking permission from any 'Architect'."
He opened the door. He didn't use a "Relocation" menu. He simply visualized the place he wanted to go: The Atlas Hunter's Guild Vault in Casablanca.
The door opened not to an alley, but directly inside the high-security vault of the Guild. Thousands of confiscated magical items, mana-crystals, and forbidden scrolls sat there, guarded by lasers and runes.
Laila gasped. "Omar! This is the most protected place in the country! If we're caught—"
"We aren't stealing, Laila," Omar said, walking toward a massive crate of 'Star-Iron'. "We're 'reclaiming' resources for the independent market. Consider it a tax for their years of greed."
As they began to pull the treasures into the Emporium, an alarm began to blare. But Omar just smiled. He waved his hand, and the entrance to the shop began to flicker, moving two inches to the left—just enough to make the Guild's security lasers miss completely.
"The Architects thought they could control the market," Omar said, throwing a bag of mana-crystals to Kaelen. "But they forgot one thing about merchants from my world."
He looked at a security camera and winked.
"We don't follow the market. We create it."
By the time the Guild's S-Rank hunters arrived, the vault was half-empty, and the mysterious black door had vanished into thin air, leaving only a small, hand-written note on the floor:
"Prices have changed. If you want your items back, come to the Emporium. Bring something better than gold. — The Merchant."