"The Magistrate suffers a fatal stress-induced heart attack right after signing the papers."
The silence that followed the Magistrate’s final, ragged breath was heavier than any sound Richter had ever heard. It was the absolute, frozen stillness of a system that had just lost its heartbeat. Richter stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the man whose grip on the golden fountain pen had loosened, letting it clatter onto the pristine marble floor. There was no remorse in Richter’s heart, only the cool, clinical satisfaction of a complex calculation finally resolving into its intended result. The Magistrate had been a stubborn obstacle, a man who believed his lineage and his gold could shield him from the inevitable gravity of the new order. Now, he was nothing more than an inconvenient
