Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!-Chapter 338: Power Hierarchies

They were deeper. Smarter. Older. They owned pieces of the world people didn't even know were for sale. They didn't flex their wealth—they wielded it. Quietly. Permanently.

Not to mention other families like the Beaumonts!

He remembered that and cleared his head.

He wasn't them. Not yet.

He wanted to think of himself as a swan—elegant, controlled, gliding above the surface... while beneath, the water churned. Quiet now. Loud later.

He was still building.

And then there were the Origin Families—a different breed entirely. They didn't just control money. They were currency. Their wealth wasn't measured in digital accounts or offshore banks—it was woven into laws of existence.

Take Robert Blackwood.

The man had only officially owned Blackwood Co.—a company that hadn't even hit the $100B mark before Parker bought it. But Parker knew. That wasn't it.

Robert could as well have vaults under mountains, filled with artifacts, minerals, living contracts—phoschitic shit Parker didn't even want to imagine. His true worth? It couldn't be counted. It had to be felt. In the rooms he entered. In the way lesser men stopped talking.

And that was just one family.

Parker was rich—no doubt. A powerhouse. A storm in human form.

But he wasn't the richest.

And that needed to change.

He laughed.

Really laughed. The kind that echoed with sharp teeth, hunger, and ambition twisted into something damn near holy.

"Greed," he muttered to himself, "that shit's a hydra. Cut off one head, and three more grow."

He had trillions—and still, here he was plotting like a broke hustler.

Because here's the truth about the richest:

Even the richest… want more.

And Parker?

He wasn't done yet.

Not even close.

*

Parker sat down in the middle of the quiet bed, letting gravity clench him. No throne. No luxury seat. Just the earth. Just himself. The buzz of the world—the numbers, the systems, the noise—all faded behind his ribcage like static underwater.

For a moment, he simply... sat.

No one looking. No gods watching. No charts or currencies or messages to respond to. Just him. The screen had vanished. The trillions had landed. The power was his.

And yet, Parker didn't feel victorious. Not really.

The excitement that had crashed over him minutes ago—the mad laughter, the rush, the thrill of shaking the very bones of capitalism—it had already gone still. Like water after the splash. And Parker, ever the ghost in his own story, could feel the truth start to creep back in.

He didn't stay happy. He never had.

It wasn't sadness. Not even depression. It was something else entirely—disconnection. That strange, weightless feeling of being untouchable, unkillable, unshakable… and yet unreachable. Like he'd become so far removed from the chaos of the world that even his joy couldn't keep up with him.

It had always been this way.

Even as a kid, Parker's joy had expiration dates. Fast ones. He'd get something, celebrate for a second, and then… emptiness. A new standard was set. The bar moved. And life became that again—normal.

His wins were just stepping stones. Not destinations.

And this moment? The trillions? The achievement?

Gone. Just like that.

Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.

"Why can't I hold onto it," he muttered under his breath, staring at the faint outlines of his fingers as they dug into the grass. "Why does it all feel so... small?"

It wasn't the money.

It was him.

He'd lived too much. Even if he couldn't remember it all, his soul carried echoes—reincarnated weight, ancient burdens, old truths folded deep into the marrow of his bones. He had felt the cosmos before. Held power before. Broken cycles before.

And compared to that, what was this?

A few trillion?

Pocket change for a soul that had bartered with stars.

Parker rested his head back, staring up at the afternoon sky, watching clouds drift by like old memories.

He wasn't sad.

He was just... unmoved.

Which was worse.

Because the more money he got, the more meaningless it started to feel. Like collecting coins in a game you'd already beaten twice. He couldn't even remember the last time he spent money that mattered.

Everything came so easy now.

So fast.

So hollow.

And still… he wanted more.

That's what scared him the most but loved it too.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Spoke to himself more than anyone else. "I say I don't care... but I do. Not because I love money. But because I hate limits." He opened his eyes again. Cold. Focused.

"No… It's not meaningless. Not yet." He sat forward, brushing grass off his palms. "There's more. Higher. Deeper."

Because he knew… somewhere out there were men and families and entire bloodlines who held more. The Big Five Families. Mundane-world royalty. Hidden vaults with old money so deep it had layers of dust history forgot.

So no—he wasn't there yet.

He had six trillion. So what?

He wasn't the richest.

Not yet.

He breathed in, smiled faintly.

It would be so easy to rest here. To call this enough. To pretend he'd won.nBut Parker wasn't built for enough. His hunger had no ceiling. His greed wasn't rooted in wealth—it was in dominion. The need to surpass. To outpace. To make the richest tremble and say:

"He came from nowhere… and now we answer to him."

He stood up.

Shook the grass off.

Smiled.

"I've got work to do."