68: Emperor America has arrived in his loyal New York!

New York, Manhattan.

Local time, 9:30 AM.

"Ding—!"

The opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange had just rung, announcing the start of a new day's financial gamble.

Traders in various colored vests immediately threw themselves into their intense work, as countless commands were sent through terminals, representing astronomical wealth surging through the data streams.

This is Wall Street.

Every second, capital worth hundreds of millions of dollars changes hands here, deciding the life and death of countless global enterprises and dominating the fates of hundreds of millions of families.

However, in the tenth second after the opening bell fell...

A sudden change occurred.

Right above the "Charging Bull" sculpture, which symbolizes "strength and courage" in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the space three meters up began to warp without warning.

The air seemed to turn into a viscous liquid, as invisible ripples undulated outward.

Immediately after, countless fine golden electric arcs appeared out of thin air, rapidly moving and converging within the distorted space, finally forming a slowly rotating giant energy vortex over five meters in diameter.

That pure gold color did not belong to any known physical phenomenon; it was sacred and majestic, carrying an unquestionable sense of pressure.

The next second.

Zzzzt—

All electronic equipment on Wall Street malfunctioned at the same moment.

The dense terminal screens in front of traders, the phones just raised by passersby, the giant billboards in Times Square that never rest... all screens were filled with dense golden static at the same instant.

The entire financial district fell into a dead silence, broken only by the cries and curses of traders whose equipment had failed.

Then, a gentle yet firm voice rang clearly throughout Manhattan via every interfered-with speaker, headphone, and broadcast.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

This famous quote, etched into the bones of every American, caused a brief pause in the chaos.

Countless people instinctively looked up toward the source of the voice, toward that ominous golden vortex.

Under the astonished gaze of tens of thousands, a figure slowly descended from the center of the vortex.

It was a man dressed in a 1930s vintage suit, sitting in an equally vintage wheelchair, with a confident smile on his face; he was the image of a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He finally landed on top of the Charging Bull sculpture.

The wheels of the wheelchair came to a steady stop on the cold bronze head of the bull, as if he were meant to sit there, overlooking this street paved with money and desire.

Every trader, police officer, and tourist on Wall Street stopped what they were doing.

People stared blankly at this scene, which seemed like a miracle descending, and the scene fell into an eerie silence.

Roosevelt, in his wheelchair, scanned the crowd below who were speechless from extreme shock; his smile remained unchanged, but his eyes held a hint of lion-like majesty.

He spoke again, his voice spreading through the ubiquitous broadcast system across the entire area.

"And now—let me become your fear."

The moment his voice fell, the giant electronic trading screen inside the New York Stock Exchange lit up again.

But the screen no longer displayed jumping stock codes or indices.

Instead, it was filled with scrolling, majestic golden words.

"I am Franklin Delano Roosevelt, summoned here. class: Archer."

The declaration ended.

The core trading system of the New York Stock Exchange, the supercomputer known as "The Engine," completely crashed after a piercing scream of electrical current.

The chain reaction of the global financial markets was ignited at this moment.

"Quick! Cordon off the area! Everyone back!"

"Call HQ! Call HQ! We need heavy support! The target's identity is unknown, but he possesses unknown EMP attack capabilities!"

Wall Street's private security forces and the New York Police Department's Emergency Service Unit (ESU) were the first to react.

They brandished their weapons, attempting to rush toward the Charging Bull sculpture to control the strange man.

However, an invisible force field blocked them.

Everyone who tried to approach within a hundred-meter radius of the Charging Bull sculpture felt as if they had hit an invisible wall, unable to advance even an inch.

Roosevelt, in his wheelchair, completely ignored the chaos on the ground.

He activated his innate skill, [Guide of the New Deal EX].

Roosevelt slowly raised his right hand and extended a finger, pointing from hundreds of meters away toward the nearby global headquarters of the financial giant, JPMorgan Chase.

In a calm tone, Roosevelt declared his first decree.

"In the name of the new deal, I hereby levy an 'Excess Wealth Tax'."

The declaration was law.

The moment his voice fell, an incredible phenomenon occurred in every global financial exchange that had not yet completely paralyzed.

JPMorgan Chase's stock code, "JPM," was forcibly erased from all quotation systems by an invisible force.

Its massive market capitalization dropped from nearly five hundred billion dollars to zero in just three seconds.

At the same time, its trillions of dollars in digital assets custodied in various servers around the world began to vanish out of thin air at a speed that defied all logic.

This vanishing wealth did not flow into any known bank accounts or digital wallets.

They were directly converted into the purest magical energy by Roosevelt's authority.

A massive torrent of golden energy, nearly solidifying in substance, was drawn from the top of the JPMorgan Chase headquarters building, crossing space to merge into Roosevelt's body.

He gathered this immense energy at his fingertip, and an invisible arrow composed entirely of golden light slowly took shape.

Then, Roosevelt gave a light flick toward the sky above New York.

The invisible arrow shot silently into the sky.

The next second, the golden arrow detonated with a bang in the sky a thousand meters up.

It made no sound, but turned into billions of tiny golden points of light, like the gentlest spring rain, falling precisely and purposefully toward the various slums of New York City.

In a dilapidated apartment in Brooklyn.

A single mother was looking at a final eviction notice for her rent, her brow furrowed in worry.

Her phone suddenly vibrated.

A bank deposit text message appeared on the screen.

"Your account ending in 7749 received a deposit on Nov 8 at 09:36 AM: $25,000.00."

Outside a homeless shelter in Queens.

A man who was homeless due to unemployment had only a few coins left in his pocket.

His old phone with a cracked screen also received a message.

Deposit amount: $8,800.00.

In Harlem, the Bronx... in these corners forgotten by prosperity, countless people from the lower classes who were worrying about their next meal, next month's rent, or their children's tuition, received bank deposit messages at almost the same moment.

The amounts ranged from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, like a gift from heaven.

An unprecedented "wealth redistribution," which ignored all logic and bypassed all laws and rules, was completed within just five minutes.

The total amount involved exceeded a hundred billion dollars.

The global financial world was plunged into the deepest panic and collapse because of this.

On Wall Street, atop the Charging Bull sculpture.

Having completed all this, Roosevelt looked down at the frantic financial elites and the police trying to attack the invisible barrier with weapons, offering only a gentle smile.

Then, his figure, along with the ancient wheelchair, turned into golden particles filling the sky and slowly dissipated into the air.

Leaving behind a completely paralyzed New York Stock Exchange, frenzied financial professionals, and on the other side of the city, countless ordinary people staring at their phone screens, unable to believe their eyes.