Chapter 2: The Audit of the Departed
The Nexus was not a place of peace. It was a cathedral of noise, a sprawling metropolis of floating limestone plazas and holographic leaderboards that hummed with the collective anxiety of billions. It was the waiting room for eternity, and the air tasted like ozone and old memories.
As Arthur stepped through the shimmering veil of the Trial 33 exit portal, the transition hit him like a physical blow. The jasmine scent of the medieval mountain was gone, replaced by the sterile, metallic chill of the Nexus Plaza.
But something was different. His heart wasn't just beating; it was thrumming.
He looked down at his hands. The liver spots were gone. The skin was taut, the muscle beneath it dense and revitalized. He was forty-three again. He felt the phantom weight of thirty-three years of his life already "processed" and filed away into the Scales.
Forty-three down, Arthur thought, his mind sharpening with his newfound youth. Thirty-three to go.
He remembered the day it started.
Death hadn't been a tunnel of light. It had been a heart attack in a high-rise office, the city of Hangzhou blurring into a smear of grey through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Then, a cold, mechanical voice had echoed in the dark:
[SUBJECT: ARTHUR WU. AGE AT DEATH: 76.]
[KARMIC FOOTPRINT: COMPLEX.]
[DESTINATION: THE AFTERVEIL.]
He had awakened in his 76-year-old body, frail and gasping, on a cold stone slab. Around him, thousands of others were waking up, some screaming, some weeping. They were all met by the Overseers—faceless, cloaked entities who explained the "The Audit."
The Afterveil was a filter. The universe didn't just let any soul move on to reincarnation; it demanded a reckoning. Each soul had to walk backward through their own timeline, facing a trial for every year they existed.
"The Scales do not lie," an Overseer had told the crowd of frightened souls. "If you were a saint in your 20th year, your 20th Trial will be a paradise. If you were a monster in your 40th year, your 40th Trial will be a slaughterhouse."
Arthur had watched as people vanished into portals. He had watched as the sky turned red three times—the signal of Soul Erasure. If you failed three trials, the Scales judged you "unfit for existence." You weren't sent to hell; you were simply deleted.
Arthur had struggled. His 70s were trials of sickness and grief; he had survived them by sheer willpower. His 60s were trials of corporate warfare and betrayal; he had survived them by outthinking the shades of his past.
But by the time he reached his 40s—the years where he had been most ambitious, most ruthless—he had already used two of his "strikes." He had been one mistake away from non-existence.
"Look! The leaderboard!" a voice shrieked, snapping Arthur back to the present.
The Nexus Plaza, usually a place of practiced indifference, was in a state of total upheaval. In the center of the square, a pillar of light shot from the Global Ranking Obelisk.
Arthur followed the gaze of the crowd.
At the very top of the Trial 33 records, a new name burned in a color that shouldn't have existed: Prismatic Gold.
[TRIAL 33 RECORD]
[Rank 1: Arthur Wu]
[Time: 00:12]
[Grade: SSS (Legendary)]
"Twelve seconds?" a warrior in heavy soul-armor gasped, dropping his practice sword. "That's a Mercy Year! It's 99% Good Karma! How do you even find enough conflict to get an SSS-rating in twelve seconds?"
"It's a glitch," another hissed. "Some Geron-soul found a hole in the logic. Look at him."
Arthur felt the weight of ten thousand stares. He stood at the edge of the portal, a man in a simple tunic, looking like a common merchant among a sea of "prodigies" who had died in their prime.
To the residents of the Nexus, someone who lived to 76 was a "stale soul." They believed that long lives led to diluted spirits. The most powerful elites were those who died at 20 or 25—souls at their peak intensity.
Arthur didn't care about their theories. He walked toward the Hierarchy Shop, his mind already calculating the value of the "Dragon-Skin Fortification" he had just earned.
"Arthur Wu!"
The voice was like a whip. A path cleared in the crowd as a young man stepped forward. He looked barely twenty, draped in silks that shimmered with the light of a hundred successful trials. On his chest sat a badge of a Tier-2 Gold Sovereign.
Prince Vex.
"You," Vex said, his eyes burning with a petty, dangerous fire. "You're the old man who just broke my record. I spent three months perfecting my path through Trial 33. I cleared it in three minutes of flawless combat."
Vex stepped into Arthur's personal space, his hand resting on the hilt of a glowing jade rapier. "Tell me how you cheated, or I'll test if that 'Dragon-Skin' works against a Prince's blade."
Arthur didn't flinch. He didn't even reach for a weapon. He simply looked at Vex with the tired, patient expression of a man who had dealt with thousands of entitled interns in his long life.
"Three minutes?" Arthur asked, his voice calm and terrifyingly steady. "You spent three minutes fighting a shadow? No wonder you're still stuck in the 30s, boy."
The crowd gasped. Vex's face turned a deep, bruised purple.
"You... you dare?"
"I dare," Arthur said, stepping closer until his chest almost touched Vex's blade. "I've lived through more wars than you have years. If you want to talk about records, go look at the board again. My name is on top. Yours is... where was it? Second? Third?"
Arthur smiled, a sharp, shark-like expression.
"In my world, second place is just the first person to lose. Now, get out of my way. I have a shopping list."