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Paul RootersScalp
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Novels by Paul RootersScalp

Karma Debt System: Payback Time

Karma Debt System: Payback Time

​Arlan Mahendra was born a "mistake"—an illegitimate son destined to be trampled by his elite half-brother and the ruthless Mahendra family. Beaten, bankrupt, and left to die in a rainy alleyway while his mother lies on her deathbed, Arlan screams for justice. ​The Universe answers. Not with a guardian angel, but with a cold, digital ledger. ​[System Activated: Karma Debt Collection] [Target: Julian Mahendra] [Debt Status: Unpaid. Penalty: Seizure of Lifespan and Luck.] ​Armed with a system that turns every insult, bruise, and betrayal into "Debt Points," Arlan rises from the gutter. He discovers he can forcibly collect "payments" from those who wrong him—stripping away their health, their talents, and even their remaining years of life. ​He doesn't want an apology. He doesn't want peace. He wants to audit the world. ​From stealing the vitality of arrogance billionaires to seizing the luck of corrupt geniuses, Arlan becomes the world's most terrifying creditor. ​They say revenge is a dish best served cold. For Arlan, it is simply a transaction. And everyone is about to pay up.
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Chapter: Hour Thirty-Six: The Sovereign's Audit
To the human eye, the medical wing of The Citadel was a ruined, blistering catastrophe of melted plastic, shattered tiles, and dried blood. But Arlan Mahendra was no longer looking through human eyes. As he stepped off the stainless-steel surgical table, his bare feet touching the superheated floor, his perception of reality fundamentally shifted. The Tier 5 Ascension had not merely upgraded his kinetic output; it had rewritten his cerebral cortex to process the universe at a sub-atomic level. He didn't just see the walls; he saw the vibrating atomic bonds holding the volcanic rock together. He didn't just feel the stifling one-hundred-and-thirty-degree heat; he saw the chaotic, rapid oscillation of oxygen molecules desperately colliding in the confined space. And beyond the heavy, ruined titanium blast doors, he didn't just sense the Siberian Anomaly. He saw a towering, grotesque nexus of stolen thermodynamic energy, a parasitic gl
Last Updated: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Hour Thirty-Six: The Avalanche
Endurance is not a virtue. It is a biological currency, and every living creature has a finite account. When the reserves are drained, the mind begins to hallucinate, the muscles cannibalize themselves, and the primal instinct to simply lie down and die becomes overwhelmingly seductive. Thirty-six hours had passed since Arlan Mahendra’s heart stopped beating. The subterranean medical wing of The Citadel was no longer a hospital. It was a purgatory of blistering heat and the cloying, metallic stench of dried blood. The temperature had stabilized at an agonizing one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. The air scrubbers had failed twelve hours ago, their internal filters melted by the radiant cosmic energy leaking from the surgical table. Dr. Elena Rostova sat on the pristine white tiles, her back pressed against the humming base of the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. She was unrecognizable from the fiercely composed surgeon who had initiated
Last Updated: 2026-04-18
Chapter: Hour Three: Blood and Sisters
Gravity is an entirely impartial executioner. It does not care about your royal bloodline, your tactical training, or the fanatical devotion burning in your chest. When a human body falls fifty feet and strikes solid, frozen concrete, physics demands a catastrophic toll. Katarina Volkov hit the floor of the abandoned meatpacking plant with a sound that belonged in an abattoir. It was a wet, sickening, heavy crunch that echoed over the howling wind tearing through the gaping hole in the roof above her. The hyper-concentrated combat stimulant pumping through her veins—the proprietary synthetic adrenaline Dr. Elena Rostova had injected into her thigh—was the only reason her brain did not immediately shut off. It violently violently intercepted the massive pain signals screaming from her shattered body, keeping her hovering agonizingly on the precipice of consciousness. She lay on her back, staring up at the stormy, dark sky. The snow f
Last Updated: 2026-04-17
Chapter: Hour Two: The Broken Blade
The human brain is hardwired for survival. When faced with an apex predator, the amygdala floods the nervous system with a desperate, singular command: flee. But the synthetic, hyper-concentrated combat stimulant pumping through Katarina Volkov’s veins did not allow for fear. It brutally severed the neural pathways of self-preservation, replacing them with a blinding, euphoric aggression. The agonizing frostbite consuming her useless left arm was muted to a dull, distant throb. The world slowed down. The howling Siberian blizzard swirling across the ruined factory roof felt perfectly still. She stood twenty feet away from the Siberian Anomaly, a seven-foot leviathan of jagged, pale-blue ice and cosmic kinetic power. She held a nine-inch titanium combat knife in a reverse grip. It was a pathetic weapon against a creature that could freeze supersonic bullets in mid-air. But Katarina didn't care about the math. She cared about the man bleeding o
Last Updated: 2026-04-16
Chapter: Hour Two: The Snow and the Slaughter
The ascent to the surface was a journey between two conflicting hells. Behind them, the medical wing was a boiling, suffocating oven of one hundred and thirty degrees, harboring the mutating, cosmic chrysalis of a god. Above them, the ruined elevator shaft was a vertical tunnel of absolute, biting zero. Katarina Volkov and Viper climbed the emergency maintenance ladder bolted to the frozen concrete wall of the shaft. They moved with terrifying, unnatural speed. The hyper-concentrated combat stimulants coursing through their veins had entirely overridden their biological limiters. For Katarina, the agonizing, necrotic frostbite eating at her left arm was completely muted, replaced by a violent, buzzing electrical static in her brain. Her vision was razor-sharp. Her heart hammered against her ribs at one hundred and sixty beats per minute, pumping synthetic adrenaline and hyper-oxygenated blood into her augmented Spetsnaz muscles. She
Last Updated: 2026-04-15
Chapter: Hour Two: The Frozen Crown
The ascent up the ruined elevator shaft was an agonizing, humiliating retreat for an apex predator. The Siberian Anomaly hauled his massive, seven-foot frame up the sheer concrete walls, using his remaining left hand to drive jagged spikes of hyper-dense ice deep into the bedrock for leverage. He didn't climb with the fluid grace of an assassin. He climbed with the brutal, jerking desperation of a wounded animal. His entire right side was a smoking, cauterized ruin. The golden pulse of the Sovereign’s domain had not simply severed his arm; it had erased the matter from existence. The flesh at his shoulder socket was seared flat, the nerve endings screaming with a phantom, cosmic friction that his localized absolute zero field could not soothe. When he finally reached the surface, hauling himself over the shattered, ten-ton iron doors of the abandoned meatpacking plant, he collapsed onto the frozen asphalt. The freezing coastal rain
Last Updated: 2026-04-14
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