The sewers reeked like a morgue filled with rotting fish.
Ethan Su pressed his palm against the slick concrete wall, each step sending lightning bolts of agony through his nervous system. The damned side effect was kicking in—**Soul Hunger**.
The life force he'd drained from Wang Lie hadn't satisfied the void inside him. Instead, it was like pouring gasoline on dry kindling. His stomach felt like ten thousand fire ants were eating him alive from the inside out, while crimson system alerts strobed behind his eyeballs like emergency sirens.
**[WARNING: Hunger Level 15%! Host will begin self-digestion without immediate "feeding"!]**
"Shut up. I'm hunting," Ethan muttered through gritted teeth.
His vision shifted abruptly to stark black and white, with only the data streams glowing blood-red against the monochrome world. Everything became numbers, statistics, exploitable weaknesses.
Three pairs of emerald eyes materialized in the drainage pipe ahead. Mutant rats—normally newbie-killer level monsters that could shred an unprepared Awakened in seconds. But through Ethan's transformed perception, they were nothing more than walking "asset packages" waiting to be liquidated.
**[Target: Mutant Rat (Lv.3)]**
**[Violation: Illegal construction (teeth), malicious tax evasion]**
**[Collectible Assets: Minor agility enhancement, dental hardness coefficient]**
"Squeak!" The lead rat launched itself through the fetid air, razor fangs gleaming.
Ethan didn't flinch. Didn't even blink. He simply spoke one word, his voice carrying the weight of cosmic law:
"Confiscating criminal assets."
*Snap!*
Reality hiccupped.
The airborne rats suddenly went limp like punctured balloons, their battle cries transforming into pathetic whimpers. Their pride and joy—steel-hard fangs and scythe-like claws—**vanished into nothingness**. The weapons that had torn apart countless novice hunters simply ceased to exist.
Three streams of soft white light forced their way into Ethan's chest, carrying warmth and power.
**[Collection Successful! Agility +3, Credit Points +1]**
Only three helpless lumps of flesh remained writhing on the concrete, as harmless as newborn kittens. The gnawing hunger receded slightly, replaced by an intoxicating rush of absolute control. This feeling of rewriting reality's rules was more addictive than any drug.
*Thud. Thud. Thud.*
The sound of fists meeting flesh echoed from around the corner, followed by pained grunts and cruel laughter.
"Fat bastard, thought hiding down here would save your worthless hide? You dare default on Black Snake Gang debts?"
Ethan's footsteps faltered. That voice triggered a memory—and the mention of someone fat...
Around the corner, three punks with badly dyed hair had cornered a mountain of flesh in a dead-end alley. The victim was beaten bloody but clutched a plastic bag against his chest like it contained his soul.
"Please... don't touch the medicine..." Marcus "Fatty" Wang gasped between blows, blood trickling from his split lip. "This is for Ethan... if he's still alive, he needs this to survive..."
"Survive my ass! That waste got chopped into dog food hours ago!"
The blonde leader sneered, raising his iron pipe toward Fatty's already bruised arm. "I'll cripple you first as interest on what you owe!"
Ethan adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. The golden glow in his eyes crystallized into arctic ice, and the temperature in the tunnel seemed to drop ten degrees.
"According to Universal Tax Code Section 847."
His voice echoed through the enclosed space with metallic authority that made the very air vibrate with menace.
"Unauthorized violent debt collection constitutes aggravated financial fraud."
Everyone froze like deer in headlights. Flashlight beams swung wildly before settling on Ethan's face, illuminating features that seemed carved from marble.
"E-Ethan?!" Fatty's eyes went wide as dinner plates. For a moment he thought he was seeing a ghost, then explosive joy flooded his features. "Run! These bastards are Lv.8 Enhancement types! They'll tear you apart!"
"Run?" Ethan's tone was conversational, almost bored. His gaze swept over the three punks like an auditor reviewing fraudulent tax returns. "Interesting."
**[Target: Blonde Leader - "Razor" Chen]**
**[Balance Sheet: Severe deficit across all metrics]**
**[Critical Weakness: Left tibia stress fractures 99% (excessive borrowing against future earnings)]**
"Well, well. Ethan Su, still breathing?" Razor licked his lips like a predator scenting wounded prey. "Perfect timing. Live cargo always pays better than corpses..."
He hefted his iron pipe and charged with the confidence of someone who'd never lost a fight.
Ethan stood motionless, hands casually tucked in his pockets, voice calm as a judge reading a death sentence:
"Your left leg assets are insufficient to cover existing debts. I'm seizing them under emergency liquidation protocols."
**[Debt Collection: Execute!]**
No energy fluctuations. No warning signs. No dramatic buildup.
*CRACK!*
The sound of bone exploding echoed like a gunshot.
"AAAAHHH—!"
Razor's charging body lurched sideways as his left shin bent at an impossible ninety-degree angle. White bone pierced through flesh and fabric, painting the concrete with arterial spray. He collapsed like a broken marionette, writhing and screaming.
The other two punks stood paralyzed, their brains struggling to process what they'd witnessed.
This was the school's acknowledged waste case? The guy who couldn't even awaken properly? What the hell just happened? Reality manipulation?!
"D-demon magic!" one stammered. They exchanged terrified glances and bolted for the exit.
"Did I authorize your departure from this audit?"
Ethan's voice wasn't loud, but it struck their knees like sledgehammers. The soul-deep class suppression—the instinctive terror of lower-dimensional beings facing a higher predator—made both punks' legs buckle. They dropped to their knees with wet thuds, trembling like leaves in a hurricane.
Fatty's jaw nearly dislocated. "Bro... did you install cheat codes? Or get possessed by some ancient demon lord?"
Ethan stepped over the still-screaming Razor and approached the kneeling pair. Kill them? Too simple, and wasteful besides. The system had shown him **[Daily Tax Collection Quota]** limitations. Killing the golden goose was amateur thinking.
"Extend your hands. Palms up."
They tremblingly obeyed, tears streaming down their faces. Ethan pointed at empty air, and two streams of blood-red data instantly branded their hands, forming the vicious character for "Tax" in burning letters.
**[Installment Tax Agreement: Active]**
**[Automatic Deduction Rate: 10% of all future earnings]**
**[Penalty for Default: Severe bodily restructuring]**
"Listen carefully, because I don't repeat myself." Ethan looked down at them like examining livestock. "I don't kill garbage, because even garbage has residual value. From this moment forward, the system will automatically deduct ten percent of every experience point you earn. Consider it the interest on your continued existence."
He gestured casually at the broken-legged Razor, whose screams had devolved into whimpers. "Go hunt monsters. Work hard. Don't slack off. Because that—" he pointed at the spreading pool of blood, "—is what happens when you default on payments."
"Thank you, boss! Thank you for your mercy!"
The two punks scrambled to their feet, dragging their crippled leader between them as they fled into the darkness like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
Fatty struggled upright and circled Ethan three times, wanting to touch him but not quite daring. "Holy shit, Ethan. You didn't just awaken—you became a goddamn loan shark with reality-bending powers!"
"Resource optimization," Ethan corrected, brushing dirt off Fatty's torn jacket. His eyes lingered on the intact medicine bag, and something almost human flickered across his features. "Thanks for this, Marcus. I won't forget."
"We're brothers, no need to—wait." Fatty's face went deathly pale. "Do you hear that?"
*Bzzt—bzzt!*
The rusted sewer speakers suddenly shrieked to life with feedback that made everyone wince. Then a voice dripping with aristocratic arrogance cut through the static, echoing throughout the entire city's underground network.
"Public announcement regarding Class-A fugitive Ethan Su."
The Lv.40 Branch President. Ethan recognized that condescending tone immediately.
"I don't particularly care what dark arts you employed to escape our custody. However, if you fail to present yourself at City Central Hospital within the next ten minutes..."
The voice paused for dramatic effect, savoring each word like fine wine.
"We've located a young girl named Sophie Su in the intensive care unit. While disconnecting life support systems is admittedly inhumane, you really shouldn't have stolen guild property. Actions have consequences, after all."
The air crystallized into frozen silence.
Fatty watched in horror as every trace of warmth vanished from Ethan's face like snow melting in reverse. What replaced it was something that made the temperature plummet to arctic levels—a murderous cold that seemed to leach heat from the very stones.
Sophie Su's life was Ethan's final red line, the one thing in this world he still cared about.
Someone had just crossed it.
**[WARNING! Host emotional threshold catastrophically breached!]**
**[Detecting extreme rage levels... Initiating emergency system evolution!]**
**[New Function Unlocked: Conceptual Collection (Beta Version)]**
**[Environmental Assets Detected: Fear (extremely high concentration), Terror (premium grade), Desperation (available for immediate harvest)]**
Ethan slowly raised his head. The golden data streams in his pupils went haywire, fragmenting and reforming into the shape of a blood-dripping scythe that seemed to cut through reality itself.
"Ethan... that's the Branch President... he's Lv.40... we can't fight someone like that..." Fatty's entire body quivered like jelly.
Ethan didn't respond immediately. He simply reached into empty air as if grasping an invisible throat, his fingers closing around something only he could see.
"Threatening a tax official's family members?"
His lips curved into a smile that belonged in nightmares—the expression of a demon savoring its next meal.
"That constitutes... aggravated tax evasion with intent to defraud."
"Marcus." Ethan turned toward the tunnel exit, his shadow stretching impossibly long behind him. "We're leaving."
"Where to?"
"The hospital." Each word dropped like a tombstone. "To teach a false god how to kneel."
The promise hung in the air like a death sentence as Ethan disappeared into the light, leaving only the echo of his footsteps and the certainty that someone was about to learn the true meaning of fear.