2026-04-06 19:40:40Lin Feng's POV
The invisible edge didn't just cut, it erased. The beast’s head fell to the left, its body to the right, the cauterized wound puffing out a cloud of black ash instead of blood. [Kill Confirmed: Gravel-Dog (Tier 0).] [Reward: 50 Agony Points.] The other two dogs paused, their primal instincts screaming at them that something was wrong. But the smell of my rotting flesh was too enticing. They charged together. I didn't move with the grace of a warrior. I moved with the desperation of a man who had already died once. I swung the Phantom Rib in a wide, clumsy arc. The blade sliced through stone and bone alike. In seconds, the tunnel was silent again, save for the sound of my own heavy breathing and the steady drip-drip of the pus from my shoulder hitting the floor. I slumped against the wall, the invisible blade dissolving back into my skeleton. I needed to eat. I looked at the carcasses, my stomach churning. "Well, well. The rat has a sting." A flicker of torchlight illuminated the far end of the tunnel. A man stepped forward, clad in the leather armor of the High-Talent Guard. It was Kenan, one of Young Master Shen’s personal dogs. He held a heavy mace that hummed with Tier-2 Earth mana. "Master Shen was worried the dogs would be too quick," Kenan sneered, his eyes scanning my broken form. He didn't see the Phantom Rib, he only saw a dying boy and three dead mutts. “He wanted me to make sure you felt every minute of your final hour. Commoners shouldn't have the dignity of a quick death." He stepped over the bisected remains of the Gravel-Dogs, his mace glowing a deep, heavy brown. "Look at you," Kenan laughed, raising the weapon. "Starving, bleeding, and marked. You really thought you could be something, didn't you?" I didn't answer. I stayed on the ground, my head bowed. I could have drawn the blade again. I could have tried to gut him as he approached. But 50 points per dog wouldn't get me through the Extermination Trials. I needed a catalyst. I needed the "Hunter" to provide the "Prey" with a reason to ascend. "What's the matter, Lin Feng? No clever words left?" Kenan brought the mace down, not at my head, but at my outstretched arm. CRACK. The sound of my radius and ulna snapping echoed through the cavern like a gunshot. I let out a scream that was only half-faked. The pain was a white-hot spear that traveled straight to my brain. [HEAVY TRAUMA DETECTED: FRACTURED RADIUS/ULNA.] [BONUS MULTIPLIER: 'SADISTIC OVERFLOW' DETECTED.] [Points Harvested: 8,000.] "That’s one," Kenan grinned, his face twisting with a sick, voyeuristic pleasure. "Let’s see how many snaps it takes to make you beg for the finish." He raised the mace again, aiming for my ribs. Spin, I commanded the void in my mind. Give me the price for this arm. The blood-red Gacha wheel appeared, spinning with such violence that the weeping eyes on the interface began to bleed. The needle blurred past 'Iron Skin' and 'Stone-Wall Parry.' It was hunting for something darker, something that matched the malice in Kael’s eyes. [TOTAL POINTS EXPENDED: 10,000.] [EXECUTING 'DESPAIR-GRADE' PULL...] The wheel stopped dead on a black-and-violet icon depicting a hand crushing a glowing heart. [CONGRATULATIONS!] [You have obtained the 5-Star Skill: "Soul-Devouring Counter".] [Type: Reactionary Passive (Level 1).] [Description: When a killing blow or heavy strike is delivered, you may sacrifice the energy of the impact to momentarily paralyze the attacker’s soul. Duration: 7 seconds. Cost: 5% Vitality.] Kenan swung. The mace whistled through the air, aimed directly at my charred chest, backed by the full weight of a Tier-2 Earth-Elementalist. I didn't dodge. I leaned into it. The mace connected with my sternum. I felt the air leave my lungs, felt my vision go black at the edges as my ribs groaned under the pressure. But instead of being crushed, the kinetic energy hit a wall of dark, violet mist that erupted from my skin. The mace stopped mid-swing. Kenan's eyes went wide. His pupils shrunk to pinpricks, his body suddenly locking into a rigid, trembling statue. [SOUL-DEVOURING COUNTER ACTIVATED.] [Target: Kenan (Tier 2) - Paralyzed.] I looked up. My broken arm hung limply at my side, and blood was leaking from my mouth, but the grin I gave him was the most terrifying thing in that tunnel. "You're right, Kenan," I whispered, my voice thick with the iron taste of my own blood. "Commoners shouldn't have a quick death." I reached into my chest, the Phantom Rib emerging with a low, predatory hum. "So I'm going to take my time with yours." Behind Kenan, the shadows of the tunnel seemed to lengthen, the Tablet in my pocket pulsing with a hunger that was no longer just mine. It was the Tablet's first real meal. [TARGET ACQUIRED: TIER-2 SOUL.] [ESTIMATED HARVEST: LEGENDARY.]
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Chapter 115: The First Law Of The Gutter
Lin Feng's POVThe soot from Junjie’s final, violent combustion had finally settled into the crevices of the flagstones.Standing over the empty courtyard where the high-tier elder's ash was scattered, I didn't feel the standard rush of administrative triumph that usually accompanied a 100% sector conquest. My left violet eye tracked the slow, lazy drift of gray flakes as they dissolved into the muddy puddles left behind by the recent regional rainfall. The High-Spires were mine, yes, but they were currently listed as a bankrupt database. The foundations were cracked, the slave-collars were piled in a rusted heap beneath the northern granaries, and the local network latency was fluctuating by nearly thirty percent as the server’s passive logic tried to reconcile an empire without subjects.With a twitch of my left thumb, I pulled upward on the empty air, opening the fully unlocked Gacha interface.The screen didn't display the standard golden lottery banners or the flashy, premium-
Chapter 114: The Reclaimed Disrupted Node
Yue's POV Armed with the thirty-day stay of execution, I did not waste a single millisecond celebrating my temporary survival. The silver glyph on my left palm was already warm, a localized fever that radiated through the meat of my hand and sent micro-shocks of pure imperial data up my forearm. Thirty days was a lifetime in a standard skirmish, but to completely reverse a total structural regression across an entire province? It was a razor-thin margin. I needed assets, not raw commoner muscle or the broken, un-enchanted dregs that Lin Feng was currently coddling in the valley, but certified administrative minds who understood the architecture of the old ledger.The upper capital’s asylum sanctuaries were designed specifically for this purpose, repository vaults for the living dead.When a high-tier academy fell or a provincial house was liquidated for systemic errors, those elite disciples who weren't turned into fertilizer were stripped of their primary attributes and stored wi
Chapter 113: The Citadel Of Iron Laws
Yue's POVNahh, I couldn't let that happen. The cold beyond the provincial border did not merely bite, it audited.Leaving the smoking ruins of the Academy behind, I forced my remaining silver light-wings to expand, the feathers whistling like jagged glass against the high-altitude pressure gradients.Every vertical mile I climbed away from the High-Spires felt like tearing old silk from an unhealed ulcer. The soot of Lin Feng’s newly stabilized [Weeping Domain] still clung to the filigree of my chest piece, a gray, greasy film that refused to dissolve even under the friction of the jet stream. I didn't look back. I couldn't afford to let my internal navigation array log the orientation of the graveyard he was building.Below me, the world flattened into a sterile, white sheet of iron-rimmed tundra, the frost-bitten northern wastes that guarded the approach to the capital. My wings flickered, their luminescent silver lumens dropping by seven percent every three hundred leagues as
Chapter 112: The Wicked Brew
Yun Qian’s POV The blood dripping from my mangled left shoulder had slowed to a thick, molasses-like crawl, staining the ruined velvet of my tattered gown into a deep, bruised purple.I didn't stay atop the carriage to watch the final calculations of the ledger. The moment the silver lattice of [The Weeping God’s Tear] shattered into fine white dust, the exact second the terminal kinetic force of the Tier-5 core was gagged and smothered by the administrator's miracle pull, I let my body slide effortlessly off the silver-trimmed roof. My bare feet touched the stones without a single vibration, my acoustic parameters perfectly synchronized with the deep, structural groaning of the mountain's shifting foundation.I moved away from the light. I stepped backward, melting into the long, monstrous shadows cast by the burning pillars of the library ruins, watching the unfolding tragedy from the safety of the heavy, oil-slick fog.My eyes were wide, dancing with a beautiful, frantic, and ent
Chapter 111: The Brother's Secret
Lin Chen's POVThe violent, silver-threaded silence that followed the collapse of the alchemical dome suffocated the courtyard of the spires. I fell to my knees in the gray slush, my hands trembling so hard they sank deep into the wet charcoal dust. The heavy, freezing iron fragments of my broken slave-collar were scattered around my boots, but the raw skin of my throat wasn't cooling down. Instead, the phantom weight of the lineage was burning hotter, a sharp, white-hot sting radiating from the precise spot where our father’s hidden inscription had been carved into the metal."Junjie..." I choked out, the name catching in my raw, steam-blistered lungs. He'd grown to be everyone's favorite over the last few weeks. Across the ruined plaza, Lin Feng didn't move. He sat like an iron statue beneath the frozen, monument-like chassis of the scavenger golem, his fingers clutched tightly around the charred, crumbling husk of the apprentice. His solitary violet eye was completely wide, un
Chapter 110: The Blood Bond Bonus
Lin Feng's POV “ahhh!!! Shit! Shit!”The blue interface of the Gacha Tablet exploded into a blinding, multi-layered waterfall of extremely toxic purple data lines that completely filled the socket of my solitary eye. I don't know how to explain it, but the pain echoed in my skull. "Junjie!" I screamed, the raw, un-administrative force of my voice tearing the vocal cords in my throat until the hot taste of copper filled my mouth.I lunged forward, the heavy iron links remaining on my wrists snapping through the purple smoke like striking vipers. But unfortunately, I was already too late, the horizontal geometry of the trap had achieved its total, terminal alignment.The clumsy junk-merchant’s apprentice didn't wait for my calculation. He didn't wait for a server bypass line or a diagnostic patch. With that final, soot-stained smile still fixed onto his face, Junjie completely relaxed his spirit-channels, allowing his core to collapse inward, and threw the entire weight of his body
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