The sky over Rome—and indeed, over the entire world—was no longer a physical thing. It had become a transparent ledger, a shimmering grid of golden lines and white data points that mapped every soul currently breathing on Earth. The sun was eclipsed not by a celestial body, but by the Master Creditor's Hand, a structure of concentrated cosmic law that spanned the horizon, its fingers reaching down into the atmosphere like the pillars of a temple.
The System, which had been the constant companion of humanity for decades, was screaming. Every Hunter on the planet saw the same flickering error message on their retinas:
[CRITICAL ERROR: ASSET RECLAMATION IN PROGRESS] [SYSTEM DECOMMISSIONING...] [FINAL BILL GENERATED: HUMANITY]
Han Jue stood atop the ruins of St. Peter's Basilica, his Sovereign of the Ledger suit rippling with a dark, defiant energy. He looked up at the Hand. Through his Audit of the Divine, he didn't see a god. He saw the ultimate landlord.
"Brother," Han Ling whispered, her voice amplified by her Chancellor of the Abyss aura. She stood beside him, her spectral ledgers turning so fast they blurred. "The points... the 170 million we've collected... it's being pulled. The System is trying to use our own liquidity to fund its departure."
"Let it pull," Han Jue said, his eyes glowing with a cold, white fire. He gripped the Sovereign's Quill and the Gavel of the Void. "I've spent my whole life being told I owe someone. My sister's life, my work, my soul. Today, we look at the fine print."
The Arrival of The Origin
A sound like a trillion crystal bells shattered the silence. The Hand descended, and from its center, a single figure manifested.
It was not a man, nor a spirit. It was a silhouette of pure, blinding information. Its "skin" was composed of shifting equations, and its eyes were two voids where the concept of 'Zero' resided. This was The Origin—the entity that had introduced the System to Earth as a "loan" to save the planet from extinction.
"HAN JUE," The Origin spoke. The voice didn't travel through air; it was a fundamental shift in reality. "YOU HAVE ACCUMULATED THE WEALTH OF A GALAXY IN THE BODY OF A MITE. YOU HAVE AUDITED MY AGENTS AND SEIZED MY TERRITORIES. BUT YOU FORGET THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF FINANCE."
Han Jue stepped forward, his boots crushing the white-gold fragments of Julian's armor. "And what's that?"
"YOU CANNOT SETTLE A DEBT WITH THE CURRENCY OF THE CREDITOR."
The Origin raised its hand. The 170 million Soul Points Han Jue held—the result of every boss kill, every guild takeover, and every audit—began to evaporate. The blue and gold light flowed out of Han Jue's chest, heading toward The Origin like a river returning to the sea.
[Current Balance: 150,000,000...] [Current Balance: 80,000,000...] [Current Balance: 0.]
Han Jue's level, which had reached a peak of 75, began to plummet.
[Level: 50... 30... 10... 1...]
"Jue!" Elena Sol screamed from the deck of the tower, her own silver aura fading into nothingness. Across the world, billions of Hunters fell to their knees as their power vanished. The 'Gift' of the System was being retracted.
Han Jue felt the crushing weight of mortality return. His muscles grew heavy, his vision blurred, and the streak of white in his hair felt like a brand of old age. He was back to being the "Trash-man" scavenger of Chapter 1.
The Origin looked down at him with an indifference that was colder than any abyss. "THE LOAN HAS BEEN CALLED. EARTH IS DECLARED BANKRUPT. THE SOULS OF THIS SECTOR WILL BE LIQUIDATED TO OFFSET THE DEFICIT. THE EXPERIMENT IS OVER."
The Scavenger's Secret
Han Jue slumped to one knee. He looked at his hands—calloused, shaking, and devoid of mana. He looked at Han Ling, who was also losing her violet light, her eyes wide with terror as her sickness began to return.
But then, Han Jue started to laugh.
It was a dry, raspy laugh that grew into a full, defiant roar.
"You're a great accountant, Origin," Han Jue wheezed, pushing himself back up to his feet. "But you're a terrible scavenger."
The Origin paused, the cosmic equations on its skin flickering. "EXPLAIN."
"You took back the Soul Points," Han Jue said, gesturing to the empty air. "You took back the levels. You even took back the mana. But you made a mistake. You treated Soul Points like currency. But I've been auditing the Master Ledger Fragment for weeks."
Han Jue reached into his coat—not the magical suit, but the physical rags he had kept beneath the armor. He pulled out the dark vellum of the Ledger.
"Soul Points aren't mana, are they?" Han Jue asked. "They're Potential. They're the bits of human ingenuity, willpower, and evolution that you've been 'harvesting' every time we used your System. You didn't give us power; you put our own power behind a paywall and charged us interest to use it."
Han Jue gripped the Ledger fragment and slammed it against the ground.
"I don't need your currency to settle the debt," Han Jue roared. "I'm initiating a Class Action Suit on behalf of the entire human race! We're not paying you in Soul Points. We're paying you in Truth!"
The Final Audit: Humanity vs. The Origin
Han Jue activated the final, hidden function of the Gavel of the Void. It was a move he had been saving since the Sahara.
"Sovereign Skill: THE ULTIMATE LIQUIDATION!"
He didn't target The Origin. He targeted the System itself.
Throughout the world, the billions of humans who had been "Debtors" suddenly felt a different kind of connection. Han Jue wasn't giving them mana; he was giving them Memory. He showed them the 98% default rate of the Sovereign of Light. He showed them the siphoned veins of the Pacific. He showed them that the "Monsters" were just garbage-collection programs sent by The Origin to clean up "Low-Value Assets."
[Planetary Awareness: 100%] [Collective Will: UNYIELDING]
The equations on The Origin's skin began to break. The golden grid in the sky started to crack—not from mana, but from the sheer weight of a billion people refusing to acknowledge the debt.
"In every contract," Han Jue said, his voice now supported by the collective roar of humanity, "there is a clause for Fraudulent Inducement. You sold us survival, but you were actually farming us for entropy. The contract is void, Origin. We don't owe you our lives. You owe us for the last fifty years of stolen time!"
[AUDIT RESULT: THE CREDITOR IS IN DEFAULT.] [TOTAL INTEREST OWED TO HUMANITY: INFINITE.]
The Settlement
The Origin shrieked—a sound of screeching metal and dying stars. Its blinding form began to dissolve. The equations were being overwritten by a new code: the code of human autonomy.
"THIS... IS... IMPOSSIBLE," The Origin echoed, its voice fading. "THE LEDGER... CANNOT BE... REWRITTEN."
"I'm a Sovereign of the Ledger," Han Jue said, stepping into the light of the dissolving entity. "And I just declared you bankrupt."
He swung the Sovereign's Quill one last time. He didn't cut The Origin; he signed the final page of the book.
[DEBT SETTLED.] [THE SYSTEM IS DELETED.]
The World After
A wave of white light washed over the planet. It didn't burn. it felt like a heavy blanket being lifted off the shoulders of the world.
When the light faded, the golden grid was gone. The 'Angels' were gone. The status screens and the level-ups were gone.
Han Jue stood in the middle of a silent St. Peter's Square. He was Level 0. He had no stats. He was just a man in a tattered coat.
He looked at his hands. They were still calloused, but they were his. He looked at Han Ling. She was standing on her own two feet. She wasn't an S-Rank Chancellor anymore, but she wasn't sick. The "Icarus Project" that had drained her was gone, and her body was healthy, fueled by her own natural vitality.
"It's over," she whispered, looking at the blue sky—the real blue sky, without data points. "We're... we're just us again."
Elena Sol walked over, her silver rapier now just a piece of decorative steel. She looked at Han Jue with a smile that was both relieved and a little sad. "The Association is gone, Jue. The Sovereigns are just people now. Garrick is back to being a mechanic. Selas is probably going to be a meteorologist."
"And the monsters?" Han Jue asked.
"Most of them vanished with the System," Elena said. "The ones that are left... well, we'll have to handle them the old-fashioned way. With courage, not stats."
Epilogue: The Auditor's Legacy
One year later.
In the rebuilt sector of District 7, a small office stood on a quiet corner. It didn't have a glowing spire or a mechanical dragon. It had a simple wooden sign: HAN & ASSOCIATES: FINANCIAL CONSULTANTS.
Han Jue sat behind a desk made of recycled oak. He was wearing a simple suit, his hair now fully white, but his eyes still held that sharp, witty spark.
A knock came at the door. A young man, looking nervous and holding a stack of papers, walked in.
"Mr. Han? I heard... I heard you're the best at finding hidden clauses. My neighborhood is being squeezed by a new land developer, and the contracts look... wrong."
Han Jue smiled, gesturing to the chair. "Sit down, kid. Let's take a look at your books."
He reached into his drawer and pulled out a fountain pen—an ordinary one, but he held it with the same precision he had once held the Sovereign's Quill.
"Because remember," Han Jue said, as he opened the first page of the ledger. "The world might not have a System anymore, but there's one thing that never changes."
The young man leaned in. "What's that, Mr. Han?"
"Someone is always trying to make you pay for something you already own," Han Jue said. "And I'm the one who makes sure they don't get away with it."
As they began to work, a small violet-gold butterfly—the last fading spark of the Chancellor's mana—fluttered past the window, out into a world that was finally, truly, out of debt.