The Core Ledger was not a place of fire or brimstone, nor was it a cold void. It was a masterpiece of corporate minimalism.
Han Jue and Han Ling stood on a floor of polished obsidian that stretched toward a horizon of scrolling green and gold light. The "walls" were infinite stacks of glowing white cabinets, each labeled with the name of a galaxy. The air didn't smell like magic; it smelled like expensive stationery, old leather, and the faint, sterile scent of an air-conditioned server room.
In the center of this infinite office sat a desk made of solidified starlight. And behind that desk sat a man who looked exactly like Han Jue—but without the scars, without the white streak in his hair, and without the weight of the universe on his shoulders. This was Han Jue as he might have been if the Rifts had never opened: a man of pure, untainted potential.
[Entity: The Master Creditor]
[Level: NULL]
[Class: THE ARCHITECT]
[Status: Solvent]
"You're staring, Han Jue," the Mirror-Jue said, his voice a perfect, haunting echo of Han Jue's own. He didn't look up from the document he was signing with a pen made of a pulsar's core. "It's a common reaction. Most beings expect a monster. They don't expect to see the person they were before they started losing things."
Han Jue gripped the Auditor's Gavel, the violet light of his Sovereign authority pushing back against the oppressive "solvency" of the room. "I've audited the heavens, the deep, and the laws of physics. I stopped looking for monsters a long time ago. I only look for the person holding the pen."
"And here I am," the Mirror-Jue said, finally setting his pen down. He leaned back, his eyes—identical to Han Jue's—sparkling with a terrifying, youthful curiosity. "So, Auditor. Do you want to settle the account, or do you want to know why the account exists in the first place?"
The First Investment
Han Ling stepped forward, her Chancellor of the Abyss robes billowing in a wind that shouldn't exist. "We know why it exists. You're a parasite. You've been farming the 'Potential' of civilizations to keep yourself eternal."
"A parasite?" The Mirror-Jue chuckled, a sound of genuine amusement. "Chancellor, you're thinking too small. I didn't steal your potential. I invested in it. Before the System arrived, humanity was a 'Stagnant Asset.' You were five hundred years away from destroying your own climate and a thousand years away from leaving your solar system. I provided the venture capital—the mana, the rifts, the urgency—to force you to evolve."
He waved a hand, and a massive holographic graph appeared in the air.
$$E_{evolution} = \int_{t=0}^{T} (Potential \cdot Chaos) \, dt - \text{Management Fee}$$
"The 'Management Fee' was the debt," the Mirror-Jue explained. "I gave you the tools to become gods. All I asked for in return was the interest on your growth. If you had succeeded, you would have paid the debt and joined the Galactic Exchange as partners. But humanity... you were different. You didn't just grow; you started Auditing the Banker."
The Sovereign's Rebuttal
"Your 'Investment' was a predatory loan," Han Jue said, walking toward the desk. Every step felt like he was pushing through waist-deep water. "You didn't give us tools; you gave us an addiction. You made it so that we couldn't survive without the levels you provided, and then you charged us our memories and our souls just to stay in the game."
Han Jue slammed the Auditor's Gavel onto the starlight desk.
"AUDIT: THE ORIGINAL SEED!"
The Core Ledger shook. The cabinets along the walls began to fly open, their files turning into a storm of data that swirled around the two versions of Han Jue.
"You want to know why I look like you?" the Mirror-Jue shouted over the roar of the data-storm. "Because I am you! Or rather, I am the 'Ideal Asset' that the System was designed to create. You were the prototype, Han Jue. The one who was supposed to manage the planet for me. But you broke the script. You chose to be a scavenger instead of a CEO."
[System Warning: Identity Paradox Detected!]
[Your 'Authority' is being contested by the Source!]
"I didn't choose to be a scavenger," Han Jue hissed, his face inches from his mirror self. "I was forced into the dirt by your system. And in the dirt, I learned something you'll never understand in this sterile office."
"And what's that?"
"The value of a thing isn't what someone is willing to pay for it," Han Jue said, raising the Gavel. "It's what it costs to keep it."
The Seventh Key: Identity
Han Jue didn't strike the Mirror-Jue. He struck the Desk.
The starlight shattered, and beneath it lay the Seventh Key. It wasn't made of gold or shadow; it was made of Glass. In its reflection, you didn't see yourself—you saw the person you would become if you gave up.
[You have recovered the Seventh 'Asset of the Source'.]
[The Key of Identity (The Mirror's End).]
[Current Key Progress: 7/12]
As the key touched Han Jue, the Mirror-Jue began to age. His perfect skin wrinkled, his hair turned white, and the scars of Han Jue's many battles began to bloom across his body like dark flowers.
"You're... killing yourself..." the Mirror-Jue rasped, falling back into his chair.
"I'm not killing myself," Han Jue said, his voice heavy with a grim satisfaction. "I'm Consolidating the Debt. You can't be the 'Ideal Asset' anymore, because I've accepted the reality of the scavenger. I am the Auditor of the Spilled Blood. And blood... is the one thing you can't put on a spreadsheet."
The Truth of the Spilled Blood
The Mirror-Jue dissolved into a cloud of white ink, leaving only a single, glowing scroll on the floor.
Han Ling picked it up, her violet eyes scanning the text. Her face went deathly pale. "Jue... the 'Spilled Blood' in the title... it wasn't about the monsters we killed."
"What is it, Ling-er?"
"It's a Life-Insurance Policy," she whispered. "The Master Creditor didn't want the mana. He wanted the Grief. In the higher dimensions, 'Sorrow' is the most stable form of energy. The Rifts were designed to maximize the death of loved ones because the 'Emotional Interest' generated by the survivors is what powers the Core Ledger."
Han Jue looked at the infinite cabinets. Every file wasn't a transaction. It was a tragedy.
"So, every time Kael abandoned a teammate... every time I saw a scavenger die in the mud... it was just a dividend for this office," Han Jue said, his voice dangerously quiet.
Suddenly, the cabinets began to glow a violent, bleeding red.
[Warning: The 'CEO' has been alerted.]
[The Final Five Keys are manifesting.]
[The 'Harvest of Memory' on Earth has reached 99%.]
"Jue! Look!" Han Ling pointed to the horizon of the Core Ledger.
A massive, golden harp—identical to the one Julian was using on Earth—appeared in the sky. But this one was a billion times larger. It was the Harp of the Primordial Debt. Its strings were made of the heartstrings of every civilization the System had ever destroyed.
"The audit is failing, Han Jue," a new voice boomed—this one older, deeper, and coming from the very floor beneath them. "You've taken the Key of Identity, but you have no 'Collateral' left to stop the music. The Harvest is complete. Humanity has forgotten you. And a forgotten Auditor has no power."
Han Jue felt his body beginning to fade. His hands were becoming translucent. The Auditor's Gavel was slipping through his fingers.
"They forgot me," Han Jue whispered. "The Golden Harvest worked."
"They didn't forget you, Brother!" Han Ling screamed, grabbing his hand. "I remember! And I'm the Chancellor! I am the one who holds the Ledger of the People!"
She slammed her spectral ledgers onto the floor.
"CHANCELLOR'S DECREE: PUBLIC MEMORY!"
A pillar of violet light erupted from Han Ling, piercing through the ceiling of the Core Ledger and reaching all the way back to Earth.
The Resistance of the Scavengers
Back on Earth, in the streets of Rome, the people who had been dazed and hollowed by Julian's golden light suddenly stopped.
They didn't remember Han Jue's face. They didn't remember his name.
But they remembered the feeling of the debt being cleared. They remembered the day the blue screens died. They remembered the scavenger who told them they didn't owe the world anything.
[Condition Met: The Collective Will has rejected the Forgetting.]
[Identity Restored!]
Han Jue's body snapped back into focus, more solid than it had ever been. He caught the Auditor's Gavel mid-air and struck the floor with the force of a supernova.
"AUDIT: THE UNPAID GRIEF!"
The violet light of the Sovereign clashed with the red light of the Core. The cabinets began to explode, releasing the "Sorrow" back into the universe. It didn't destroy; it healed.
[You have recovered the Eighth Key: The Key of Tears.]
[Current Key Progress: 8/12]
"Eight keys," Han Jue said, standing in the middle of the wreckage of the office. He looked at the sky where the golden harp was beginning to crack. "Four to go. And I think it's time we met the person who actually owns the chair."