The echo of the slap lingered in the air like the smell of ozone before a storm. Manager Zhang lay sprawled against the shattered conference table, clutching a jaw that felt as though it had been struck by a falling mountain. Beside him, Wang Meili was paralyzed, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she stared at the man she thought she had destroyed.
Mo Jue didn't look back. He simply picked up his cardboard box and walked toward the elevator. His gaze, cold and indifferent, passed over the cowering staff members like a scythe through wheat. To him, Zhang and Meili were no longer enemies; they were merely stains on the floor he had already stepped over.
As the elevator dived toward the ground floor, a shrill, rhythmic chiming erupted from Mo Jue's pocket. He reached in and pulled out the sleek, black rectangle of the smartphone—a device he had initially treated with extreme suspicion.
When he had first awakened in this world, the phone had vibrated in his hand, and Mo Jue had nearly crushed it, thinking it was a Soul-Triggered Detonation Trinket sent by an assassin. He had braced his internal energy to weather an explosion, only to find a glowing screen and a tiny, tinny voice emerging from the glass.
It is a miracle of the mundane, he mused, tapping the screen with a cautious finger.
In his past life, "Communication Talismans" required vast amounts of spiritual energy and were limited to a few hundred miles. Even the Heaven-Spanning Mirrors used by the Sovereigns required blood sacrifices and specific lunar alignments. Yet this small slab of metal and silicon could connect two souls across a continent instantly, powered by nothing more than the "electricity" that flowed like stagnant qi through the walls of the city. To the Demon King, the phone was a masterwork of "Artifice" that made the legendary tools of his world look like crude toys.
He swiped the screen to answer.
"Li Tian! You're forty minutes late for your first day," a sharp, icy voice barked through the speaker. It was Song Ruo. "My father might think you're a god, but in this company, you're an employee. If you aren't at Horizon Tech in fifteen minutes, don't bother coming at all."
Mo Jue held the phone away from his ear, a faint, amused curl on his lip. This mortal woman had no idea she was speaking to a being who had erased entire civilizations for lesser tones.
"I am delayed by garbage," Mo Jue replied calmly. "I will arrive when the path is clear."
Before she could scream another demand, he tapped the red icon, severing the connection. He didn't care about the job, but he needed the "materials" her father had promised.
Back on the executive floor, the shock was curdling into a poisonous rage. Wang Meili helped Zhang to his feet, her eyes narrowed into slits of pure, dark malice. She wasn't just angry; she was terrified. If Li Tian had truly changed, he was a threat to everything she had built.
"He... he did this to me," Zhang spat, spitting a tooth onto the carpet. "I want him dead, Meili. I don't care about the money anymore."
"Dead is too easy," Meili whispered, her voice trembling with a different kind of hunger. "He still owes the Black Vulture Syndicate three hundred thousand yuan. Money I made him borrow for my 'business start-up' last year."
She pulled out her own phone, her fingers flying across the screen. Meili was a woman who navigated the underworld of the city as easily as the corporate world. She had used Li Tian's credit to curry favor with high-interest loan sharks, playing the role of the "innocent girlfriend" while leading him into a financial abyss.
"I'll tell Brother Qiang that Li Tian is trying to skip town with a box full of stolen company cash," she hissed. "By the time they catch him, a broken jaw will be the least of his worries. They'll take his organs to pay the interest, and I'll make sure his little sister is sold to the 'Red House' to cover the rest."
She felt a surge of adrenaline. To her, people were just resources to be mined. If Li Tian wouldn't be her slave, he would be her profit.