The sky didn't just tear; it bled.
A hand, composed of dying stars and violet nebulae, gripped the edges of the rift. The sheer weight of its presence caused the nearby skyscrapers to groan, their steel skeletons warping under a gravity that shouldn't exist. This wasn't a monster. It was a cosmic anomaly.
[WARNING! WARNING!] [Target: The King of the Void (Projection - 1% Power)] [Level: 120 (S-Rank)] [Current Debt: NULL (Error: Debt exceeds System's local processing capacity)]
Han Jue felt the air turn into lead. His Dread Sovereign's Pressure, which had cowed the director and the Priest, was nothing more than a candle in a hurricane compared to this.
"A projection..." Han Jue whispered, blood beginning to leak from his ears. "Just one percent of its power, and the world is already ending."
Beside him, the Priest had collapsed. Her eyes were rolled back, her consciousness unable to process the divine-tier mana radiating from the rift.
[Condition Met: Facing an Unpayable Debt.] [The System has unlocked the 'Emergency Interest' Protocol.] [Would you like to 'Mortgage' your Lifespan for temporary Authority?]
"If I don't, I'll be erased in ten seconds anyway," Han Jue growled, his vision blurring. "Take ten years. Give me the power to kill a King."
[Mortgage Accepted.] [Current Lifespan: 64 Years → 54 Years.] [Temporary Buff: 'Eye of the Universal Auditor' Unlocked.] [Temporary Buff: All Stats increased by 500% for 3:00 Minutes.]
A pillar of black-and-gold energy erupted from Han Jue, piercing the violet fog. His Level 22 stats didn't just grow; they mutated.
Strength: 25 → 125 Agility: 12 → 60 Mana: 120 → 600
Han Jue looked up at the giant hand. Through the Eye of the Universal Auditor, the world changed. He no longer saw a monster. He saw a ledger. The King of the Void was a black hole in the cosmic balance, a creature that had consumed thousands of civilizations without paying the "tax" of entropy.
"You've been skipping your payments for a long time," Han Jue said, his voice now carrying a metallic, hollow resonance.
He didn't run. He stepped into the air, the Shadow Step now allowing him to walk on the very fabric of the void.
Five kilometers away, on the roof of the Hunter Association headquarters, a woman in a sharp white military coat lowered her binoculars. This was Elena Sol, the only S-Rank Investigator in the sector.
"Who is that?" she demanded. Her subordinates were frantic, but she remained unnervingly calm. "The Golden Dawn is dead or MIA. Kael is a cripple. So who is that scavenger-class hunter walking toward a Void King?"
"Ma'am, the mana readings... they're impossible," a technician yelled. "It's not Hunter mana. It's... it feels like the dungeon itself is bowing to him!"
Elena's eyes, glowing with a faint silver light, tracked the dark figure in the distance. "A scavenger who can command the Abyss... Record everything. If he survives, I want his name on my desk before the rift closes."
Han Jue reached the rift's edge. The King's face began to emerge—a faceless mask of shifting constellations. It raised a finger, and a beam of violet light, capable of erasing a city block, shot toward him.
[Skill Activated: Sovereign's Redirection (Rank D).] [Effect: 'Tax' the incoming damage. 40% of damage is converted into Soul Points.]
Han Jue took the hit. The explosion rattled his very soul, but the golden aura around him absorbed the brunt of it.
[Tax Collected!] [Received: 100,000 Soul Points (Environmental Overflow).] [Current Balance: -548,750 Soul Points.]
"My turn," Han Jue said.
He manifested the Heart-Seeker Dagger, but it was no longer a small blade. Fueled by his 600 Mana, it grew into a three-meter-long spear of condensed darkness.
"EXECUTIONER'S MARK: TOTAL AUDIT!"
The 'X' didn't appear on the King's body. It appeared on the Rift itself. Han Jue wasn't trying to kill a god; he was trying to evict it.
He drove the spear into the center of the rift.
"You're evicted! EXTRACT!"
The extraction wasn't silent. It sounded like the universe was being torn in half. The violet energy of the King was sucked into Han Jue's palm with such force that the surrounding buildings were pulled toward him like debris into a whirlpool.
The King let out a sound—a vibration that shattered every glass window in District 7. It didn't want to leave. It clawed at the air, its fingers leaving trails of burning nebula.
But Han Jue didn't stop. He poured the ten years of life he had mortgaged into the strike.
[DEBT SETTLED!] [The King of the Void (Projection) has been forcibly removed.] [Rift Closure Initiated.]
The violet light vanished. The sky snapped back to a bruised, twilight blue.
Han Jue fell. He hit the marble floor of the lobby with a bone-jarring thud, his 500% buff vanishing instantly. His skin was pale, and his hair had gained a streak of white from the sacrificed lifespan.
[Massive Harvest Successful!]
Collected: 500,000 Soul Points. Bonus: 'Crown of the Void' (Artifact - Rank S). Current Balance: -48,750 Soul Points.
He was almost in the black.
He heard footsteps. Heavy, disciplined footsteps. He looked up to see Elena Sol standing over him, her white coat fluttering in the wind. She looked at the crater he'd made, then at the terrified Priest, and finally at Han Jue.
"You're the scavenger from the morning reports," she said, her voice like ice. "Tell me your name before I decide whether to arrest you or recruit you."
Han Jue looked at her, a tired, predatory smile touching his lips. "The name is Han Jue. And before you do either... check your guild's insurance policy."
"Why?" Elena asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Because the Golden Dawn just went bankrupt," Han Jue said, holding up Kael's stolen guild badge, now cracked and lifeless. "And I'm the one who owns their assets now."