The elevator made of runes hummed as it descended, carrying Kai and his party deeper into the glowing abyss. Gold dust floated through the air like snow, catching the light from the ceiling's faint magical glow.
Kai slumped against the wall, sweat still dripping from his battle with the Vault Warden. "Okay… reminder to future me: if a dungeon mentions interest rates, I'm staying broke above ground."
Nyx flicked her tail from his shoulder, still looking singed from the earlier chaos. "You say that every dungeon. And then you see a sign that says 'Bonus Loot Event' and—bam—you're in debt again."
Kai groaned. "In my defense, I thought it said Free Entry!"
Selphine adjusted her glasses, her clipboard floating beside her. "You entered by signing a fifty-page magical contract written in Latin."
"Latin's a dead language! That should make it null and void!" he argued.
"Unfortunately," she said dryly, "so is your financial stability."
Lira laughed softly from the corner, brushing dust off her armor. "At least you're consistent."
The elevator chimed as it reached the next floor. The doors opened to reveal a vast hall made of marble and glowing glyphs, each wall covered in mirrors that reflected faint shadows moving independently of their owners.
Selphine's brow furrowed. "Careful. Reflective traps."
Kai stepped out first, stretching his neck. "Relax. After the last fight, I doubt this one's gonna be worse."
The moment he said it, the ceiling above them groaned.
A massive hourglass descended, its glass body filled with glowing red sand. The sand flowed upward instead of down, shimmering with strange energy. As it touched the floor, the mirrors began to ripple like liquid.
Then, the air froze.
A voice echoed through the hall — calm, cold, and smooth as polished metal.
"Welcome, Account Holder."
The reflections stepped out from their mirrors, one by one, until twelve perfect clones surrounded them — each shimmering like ghosts of gold and silver.
Nyx hissed. "Oh no. Not this again."
Selphine's eyes widened. "This isn't a mirror mimic spell… it's temporal debt projection."
Kai frowned. "Meaning…?"
"Meaning those are versions of us from alternate timelines," she said grimly. "Each one carrying the unpaid costs of choices we didn't make."
Lira's clone raised her staff, its eyes glowing with pale blue fire. "You should have walked away when you had the chance."
Kai's jaw dropped. "They even talk?! Oh come on! What next, emotional taxes?!"
A new figure appeared behind the clones — tall, spectral, and draped in robes woven from glowing contracts. Its face was a smooth mask of glass, showing fragments of everyone's reflections shifting across it.
"I am the Interest Spirit," it said, voice echoing like countless whispers overlapping.
"Guardian of lost time. Collector of forgotten value."
Selphine whispered under her breath, almost reverent. "A temporal auditor…"
The Spirit floated closer, the red sand from the hourglass flowing into its form like blood. "You have borrowed strength, rewritten your limits, and taken what you have not yet earned."
It turned its featureless face toward Kai. "The balance of time is due."
Kai's hand tightened on his sword. "Yeah? Well, I left my wallet in the last dungeon."
The Spirit tilted its head. "Then I shall collect… in years."
A chill swept the room. The sand from the hourglass scattered like a storm, surrounding them in a red haze. Kai's limbs grew heavier. His heartbeat slowed. His breath came out in white mist.
"Wha—what's happening…?" he gasped.
Selphine's eyes darted to her notes. "He's draining your future! Kai, he's converting your lifespan into interest payments!"
Lira immediately extended a healing seal, but the golden light flickered uselessly against the spectral sand. "It's not physical… it's metaphysical!"
Kai stumbled forward, the edge of his vision darkening. "No… no way some ghost banker's taking my years before I even hit thirty!"
Nyx leapt from his shoulder, claws glowing with psychic energy. "I got him!" She lunged for the Spirit — but her body passed right through, the impact sending her crashing into a mirror.
The reflection rippled, and a second Nyx stepped out — sharper, colder, and immediately ready to fight.
Selphine grimaced. "Every contact with the mirrors spawns another duplicate! We need to shut down the anchor—the hourglass!"
Kai's gaze snapped to the massive object overhead, still pulsing with reversed sand.
He took a deep breath, ignoring the tremors in his hands. "Alright… then we go big."
"Kai—don't you dare—" Selphine began.
He smirked, aura flickering blue. "Oh, I dare."
The Spirit's voice echoed again. "You cannot repay what you owe."
Kai raised his blade, the runes along its edge lighting up. "Watch me refinance it!"
With a roar, he launched upward, cutting through one of the spectral clones mid-air. The blade ignited with Limit Breaker energy, slicing through the red sand storm. He slammed into the hourglass, shattering part of its rim.
The Spirit screamed — the sound like a thousand clocks breaking at once. Red sand poured over the floor, forming glyphs that pulsed violently.
Selphine shouted, "He disrupted the temporal flow—!"
The mirrors cracked. The air bent. Everyone's reflections flickered between versions — older, younger, missing scars or weapons.
Lira gritted her teeth, shielding her eyes from the distortion. "Kai! If you break it completely—!"
He grinned, eyes wild. "Then maybe I'll finally stop getting charged for existing!"
With one last strike, the hourglass shattered, and the Spirit's form began to unravel. But instead of fading, it screamed one last phrase:
"Then pay… in future suffering!"
The world inverted.
The team vanished into light.
When Kai opened his eyes, the world was upside down.
Literally.
He hung from a ceiling by glowing red threads, his legs bound, his sword dangling a few feet below him. The air was cold and heavy, filled with whispers that didn't belong to anyone. It smelled faintly like burning coins and rain.
"Okay," he muttered, blinking blearily. "Either I died again, or the Spirit's got a weird sense of interior design."
He twisted his neck, trying to look around. The room was the same marble hall — but warped. The mirrors were shattered into floating shards, orbiting lazily through the air. Every reflection showed something different: him as a child, him old and grey, him covered in gold armor — and one version of him lying dead.
Kai swallowed. "Right… definitely option two."
A voice echoed from below. "You're awake."
He craned his head down to see Selphine kneeling beside a broken rune circle, her notes scattered. Her hair hung loose and her usual calm expression had hardened into something colder. Lira sat beside her, clutching her staff and whispering a low prayer. Nyx was pacing — or, rather, hovering — midair, her psychic aura flickering erratically.
Kai grinned weakly. "Good news: still broke, still breathing."
Nyx looked up sharply. "You idiot! You broke time!"
"Hey, it broke me first!"
Selphine shot him a glare sharp enough to peel wallpaper. "Kai, the Spirit of Interest wasn't destroyed — it fragmented. We're trapped inside one of its temporal loops."
He blinked. "Meaning…?"
"Meaning this isn't reality. It's a world created from unpaid timelines — everything we could've been."
Lira looked up from her spell, her voice soft but edged with unease. "This world runs on imbalance. It feeds on what's missing."
Kai frowned. "What's missing?"
Selphine hesitated before answering. "You."
He froze. "Huh?"
Nyx floated closer to one of the mirror shards. It showed the four of them — Selphine, Lira, Nyx… and no Kai. Just an empty space where he should've stood.
"This is a timeline where you never existed," she said quietly. "No reincarnation, no Limit Breaker, no debt. Just… nothing."
Kai tried to laugh, but it came out hollow. "Guess I finally found a world where I'm not behind on payments."
Selphine sighed. "That's not funny."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Didn't say it was."
Lira stepped closer, her reflection flickering between versions. "We need to restore the anchor. The Spirit's hourglass was holding this world together. Without it, everything's unraveling."
Kai's gaze flicked around. The marble walls were cracking, veins of red light pulsing through them like open wounds. The air shimmered, bending shapes and sounds. He could feel something — like the heartbeat of a dying god — pulsing just beneath the floor.
He forced a grin. "So we fix the hourglass, save the world, and get out before the bill hits? Easy."
Selphine gave him a dry look. "You just described the opposite of easy."
"Optimism is my brand," he said, tugging at the glowing threads holding him upside down. They snapped instantly. "See? Even the dungeon's giving me discounts."
He landed hard on his back. "Ow. Never mind. Full price."
Nyx rolled her eyes. "How did you even manage to get reincarnated with this level of luck?"
"I kicked a vending machine," he muttered, standing. "Fate's got a sense of humor."
They began to move cautiously through the distorted hall. The mirrors whispered as they passed, each reflection showing flickers of impossible futures — some glorious, some horrifying.
One showed Kai standing atop a golden throne, chains of light coiled around him like a crown. Another showed him kneeling, surrounded by darkness and corpses. The whispers from the shards grew louder with every step.
"You could've ruled."
"You could've fallen."
"You could've saved them."
Kai clenched his jaw. "I hate dungeons that talk."
Lira shivered. "They're not talking. They're remembering."
Then, a crack of thunder split the silence. From the end of the hall, a massive shadow stirred. It crawled along the walls, made of gold and blood and broken contracts. Its eyes were hollow vaults, and within them glowed red sands — the same from the hourglass.
Selphine's voice trembled. "That's… the Interest Spirit's remnant."
It spoke — dozens of voices layered as one.
"You owe what you took. Time… must be balanced."
The floor rippled as red sand poured from the cracks, forming humanoid shapes — each one wearing a mask made of coin fragments.
Kai cracked his neck and raised his sword. "Alright, ghost accountants. Let's settle my tab."
Selphine flipped open her ledger, runes blazing. "I'll focus on stabilizing the flow. Lira, defensive wards. Nyx, disrupt their minds!"
Nyx grinned wickedly. "With pleasure."
The shadows lunged. Kai met them head-on, his Limit Breaker flaring. Each swing of his sword dissolved the sandmen into glittering dust, but the Spirit's voice kept echoing.
"Every strike costs you. Every victory is borrowed."
He ignored it, teeth bared in defiance. "Then I'll pay when I'm dead!"
A blast of energy erupted from his blade, splitting the hall in two. Mirrors shattered in a storm of glass and gold. Lira's wards held just barely, Selphine's eyes glowing as she anchored time with glowing equations.
And as the Spirit's form began to crumble again, Kai shouted over the chaos:
"Tell your boss I'm switching banks!"
The Spirit's voice cracked and distorted, fragments echoing like broken radio static.
"Then your new creditor… will find you soon."
The red light burst — and everything went white again.