The whistle was halfway to the officer's lips. To Nars, the world slowed down, the [Sovereign's Appraisal] painting every movement in cold, calculated numbers.
Target: Debt Collector (Drax) Action: Blowing Whistle (Signal for Reinforcements) Cost to Silence: 12 Hours of Vitality.
Nars didn't hesitate. He couldn't afford to. He reached out into the air, mentally "grasping" the concept of sound around the man.
[Vitality Deducted: 12 Hours]
Drax blew. He blew with all the strength in his lungs, but no sound emerged. The air simply sat still, dead and heavy. The officer's eyes bugged out, his face turning a frantic shade of purple as he realized his "Noise" currency was being swallowed by a void it couldn't comprehend.
Nars moved. He didn't feel like a boy anymore; he felt like a machine made of ice. He stepped over the broken shapes of his parents and placed a hand on each officer's chest.
"My parents gave everything," Nars whispered, his voice cracking. "Now, you give the rest."
[Vitality Harvested: 42 Years, 2 Months] [Current Balance: 104y: 6m: 11d]
The two men withered in an instant, their uniforms collapsing over bones that turned to dust before they even hit the floor. Nars didn't feel stronger. He felt heavy—as if the weight of 104 years was pressing down on his soul, threatening to crush him.
The Cleanup
He looked at the room. The blood on the ceiling, the husks on the floor. If the Iron Ledger found this, they wouldn't just hunt him; they would trace his bloodline, find his distant relatives, and liquidate them all to settle the "unauthorized harvest" debt.
He looked at the stove, then at the piles of old newspapers in the corner.
Enactment: Combustion. Cost to Ignite Room: 1 Day of Vitality.
"Do it," he rasped.
[Vitality Deducted: 1 Day]
The air in the basement reached a flashpoint. Blue, Primordial flames erupted from the floorboards, hungry and violent. But Nars had never controlled fire before. He was a "Vitality" user, not a Pyromancer. He didn't understand that the "Weight" of his magic would make the fire twice as hot and twice as fast.
As he turned to run toward the coal chute, a support beam, weakened by the sudden, intense heat, snapped.
"Gah!"
The flaming timber slammed across his back, pinning him to the scorched floor for a second. The smell of his own burning flesh filled his nostrils. The pain was white-hot, different from the dull ache of the Rot. This was a Physical Injury—something his Vitality could heal, but at a massive cost.
He rolled, screaming as he wrenched himself free. His shirt was fused to his skin, and his left arm was a map of blisters.
[Injury Detected: 3rd Degree Burns] [Automatic Repair Initiated...] [Cost to Heal: 3 Months of Vitality]
"No! Stop!" Nars yelled at his own ledger. "Save it! I need to go!"
He forced the healing to halt, leaving the wound raw and weeping. He scrambled up the coal chute, his lungs burning with smoke. He tumbled out into the rain-slicked alleyway just as the basement windows shattered, vomiting blue fire into the night.
Into the Shadows
Nars didn't look back. He ran, clutching his charred arm to his chest. He stayed off the main roads, sticking to the "Blind Spots"—the narrow gaps between the Cattle-Cities where the Siren's "Noise" didn't reach.
He found a rusted drainage pipe that led into the Lower Gutters, a place where even the Debt Collectors hesitated to go. It was a labyrinth of filth, home to the "Nulls" and the broken.
He collapsed in the dark, his back against cold, damp iron. His balance was over a century old, but he felt like a beggar. He had traded his parents, his home, and his identity for a handful of years.
Nars looked at the glowing numbers in the dark.
[Current Balance: 104y: 6m: 10d]
He closed his eyes, the image of his parents hit the ceiling burned into his mind forever. He wasn't a boy anymore. He was a Sovereign in hiding.