The night wind scraped arsenic frost across Zhang Xiaonian's skin as he faced the gymnasium—a cancerous growth of brick and shadow. Distant lights flickered like dying debt-candles, swallowed by the tumor's pulsing indigo glow.
*"Ready to settle your account?"*
The blood-robed woman's voice crystallized the air, her silhouette oozing from cracks in the wall. "Interest accrues by the second."
Zhang's fists clenched. Vertebrae crunched into abacus beads as his eyes blazed:
"This ends tonight."
Spiritual pressure slammed like a ledger slamming shut. Oxygen curdled into rust and rotting lychees.
*SHHHK—*
A shadow-limb speared from the darkness, tipped with revolving gold teeth engraved:
ZHANG XIAONIAN ■ SOUL-WEIGHT DEFICIT: -3.00g
He twisted sideways. The tumor detonated cobalt light, blasting the attacker—
*CLANG!*
The limb shattered, revealing bone-abacus rods beneath.
"Qiankun Sac's power?" The woman's laugh sprouted fingernails on concrete. "No..."
Her robes ripped open, exposing rib-cages stacked like safety deposit boxes.
"...it's just your first installment."
Zhang gasped. Strength flooded his veins as molten cinnabar—
乾坤袋 • 活符箓 (Qiankun Sac • Living Talisman)
—scorched through his shirt. Seven golden pupils split across the tumor, projecting drowned faces onto the gymnasium wall:
■ Lin Xue's frozen scream ■ Hundred students with coin-slot eyes
*CRACK!*
The ground splintered into flesh-pulp. Bronze debt-scale beams erupted, pinning the woman's shadow.
"Soul duel?" Zhang stepped forward, asphalt bleeding mercury.
"This is foreclosure."