Golden light still pulsed behind Jake's eyelids as Syndicate guards yanked him upright. Blood dripped from his nose, staining the grimy floor of the Chrono-Wheel chamber.
The pit boss' rancid breath hit Jake's face as he leaned in. "Know what's funny, maggot?" Hector's voice trembled with barely contained rage.
"Green wheel's jackpot odds are one in ten thousand. But you? First spin."
Jake spat red.
"Feeling lucky."
A guard's baton slammed into his kidneys. Jake crumpled, biting back a scream as electric current seared his nerves.
Hector crouched, dangling the pill like a dog treat. "Here's how this works. You're nine years in debt. Your last spin, along with your 100-year lifespan increase, all belonged to the Syndicate."
Laughter erupted from the guards. Jake's stolen century meant nothing here. The rules hadn't changed—only his leverage.
Wrong.
The memory flickered in his pounding skull: that split-second moment when the wheel obeyed his will. Not luck. Not chance. Control. His nosebleed worsened.
Hector rose, boots clicking toward the exit. "Throw him back to the—"
"I'll spin again."
The chamber froze. Even the ever-present hum of the Chrono-Wheel seemed to stutter. Laney, dragged in as a "witness," mouthed what the hell from the corner.
Hector turned slowly. "You don't get to decide, worm."
"Green tier costs ten per spin." Jake forced himself upright, every muscle screaming. "I've got ninety-one."
A guard snorted. "You're in debt, not loaded. The Syndicate owns your—"
"Section 14-B of the Parasite Code." The words tumbled out automatically, dredged from late-night contract reviews in another life. "Debtors retain spinning rights proportional to their remaining lifespan, regardless of outstanding obligations."
For once, Chris' mockery proved useful—Jake had heard him quote Syndicate bylaws while tormenting new arrivals.
Hector's eye twitched. The guards exchanged uneasy glances. Laney's sharp inhale echoed in the sudden silence.
Hector spat, but pulled out a cracked tablet. Holograms flickered—a life-debt contract signed in Jake's own trembling hand weeks ago. The pit boss scrolled, veins bulging, until he froze at Clause 14-B.
Jake's bloodied smile widened.
"Fine." Hector flung the tablet aside. "Spin your worthless life away. But when you land on rat poison?" He drew a serrated knife from his belt. "I'm carving the debt from your flesh."
The guards shoved Jake toward the console. His reflection in the green-tinted glass looked corpse-pale, eyes burning with stolen fire. The wheel's hologram snapped back to life:
1. MOLDY BREAD LOAF
2. RAT POISON
3. FESTERING BANDAGE
4.100-YEAR LIFESPAN
5. FURY BEAST
Identical to last time. A rigged system—unless you could cheat reality itself.
"Begin spin!" Hector barked.
The wheel blurred into emerald vertigo. Jake's skull split anew—phantom claws raking his brain as he focused. Blood dripped onto the console.
There.
The golden #6 flickered. Not a fixed reward, but a sliding scale. Jake's stolen power ripped through the wheel's fractal code, synapses burning as he wrestled probability itself.
Not the pill. Higher. Better.
The wheel stuttered—a glitch in the Syndicate's prized machine. Laney gasped as the hologram fragmented, numbers melting and reforming:
6. INFECTED BANDAGECURSED BLADE (TIER-3)
7. MEMORY WIPE
…
10.RUSTED LOCKET
The guards stirred nervously. "Boss, the wheel's—"
"Shut it!" Hector's knife pressed against Jake's jugular. "Finish. Now."
Jake didn't hear him. The blade on slot #2 called like a lover's whisper—a jagged obsidian shard in his mind's eye, edges drinking the light. His power surged.
That. Give me THAT.
The wheel stopped.
CURSED BLADE (TIER-3) flared crimson. Air rippled as the weapon materialized—a foot-long dagger forged from blackened bone, its surface etched with pulsing veins of gold. It clattered to the floor, and the chamber temperature plummeted.
"No shot." Hector stumbled back. "Green tier doesn't drop tier-3s!"
Jake grabbed the blade. Cold fire exploded up his arm as alien text seared his vision:
[ VORPAL EDGE ]
Type: Cursed Relic (Soul-Bound)
Effect: Cuts through dimensional barriers. Drains 1 year per minute.
Warning: Cannot be unequipped until death.
Laney screamed first. Jake followed her gaze to his left hand—the one clutching the blade. His fingers were withering, skin cracking like parchment as years peeled away.
The dagger fused to his decaying flesh, gold veins snaking up his arm. His lifespan counter flickered wildly.
"Drop it!" Hector roared.
Jake couldn't. Wouldn't.
The Vorpal Edge drank Jake's years like a parched god.
One minute. Two. Three.
His lifespan counter flickered in his vision like a death clock—88 YEARS…87…86—as gold veins devoured his arm. The blade hummed, its edge rippling with fractal distortions that made the air scream.
"Kill him!" Hector roared.
Pulse rifles whined to life. Jake moved on instinct, the dagger dragging him into a spin as blue plasma bolts shredded the air where he'd stood. The Vorpal Edge sliced through a guard's armored chestplate like rice paper, leaving a gaping wound that didn't bleed—it festered, flesh blackening as the man collapsed mid-scream.
"Move!" Laney ducked a stray bolt, her chains shattered by a wild swing of Jake's blade. The cut links didn't just break—they unmade themselves, rust blooming across the floor in an instant.
Hector lunged, serrated knife aimed for Jake's throat. The Vorpal Edge met steel—and the Syndicate blade shattered, shards embedding in Hector's face. The pit boss howled, clutching his ruined eye as Jake kicked him into the spinning Chrono-Wheel. The machine sparked, fractal patterns warping as Hector's body phased halfway through the hologram, legs kicking from another dimension.
"Storage room!" Jake grabbed Laney's wrist, her skin already blistering where the dagger's aura brushed her. "Where?"
"North corridor, but—"
83 YEARS.
The chamber door exploded inward. Syndicate enforcers in full combat armor flooded the room, their rifles humming with overloaded charge. Jake didn't think—he pulled.
The Vorpal Edge tore reality itself.
A vertical slit appeared in the air, edges bleeding black ichor. Beyond it lay the garage's main chamber, visible through the dimensional rip. Jake shoved Laney through just as plasma fire engulfed their former position.
They tumbled into chaos.
Parasites scattered as alarms blared. Chris stood atop a looted food cart, his stolen pulse pistol smoking. "Yi's gone rogue! Twenty credits to whoever brings me his—"
Jake's dagger met Chris's pistol.
The gun didn't break—it aged. Polished metal rotted to dust in milliseconds, leaving Chris clutching rust. The Vorpal Edge continued its arc, carving a hairline fracture across Chris's designer jacket. The fabric unraveled, threads disintegrating until Chris stood shirtless and seething.
"You're dead, Yi!"
"Tried that." Jake slammed the dagger's pommel into Chris's jaw. Bone cracked, but Chris laughed through bloodied teeth.
"Think you're special?" Chris spat a molar. "Elena's waiting. She'll peel that toy from your corpse."
The name ignited something primal. Jake's dagger hovered at Chris's throat, its edge thirsting—
79 YEARS.
Laney's scream snapped him back. Three enforcers had her pinned, a shock collar snapping around her neck. Jake swung the blade in a wide arc, its tip grazing concrete.
The floor unfolded.
A jagged chasm split the garage, walls groaning as foundation layers peeled apart like an onion. Enforcers plummeted into the abyss, their screams fading through dimensions. Laney scrambled back as the shock collar rusted to powder.
"The blade's killing you," she gasped, eyeing Jake's decaying arm.
"Faster than starving." Jake hauled her up. Parasites were stampeding toward sealed exits, trampling each other in the panic. "Storage room—now."
"Why? What's there?"
"Everything."
Memories guided him—future knowledge flickering like a frayed film reel. The Syndicate's vaults. Rows of Chrono-Wheels humming with stolen time. And deeper still, the Black Tier core where the first Elixir had been forged.
A plasma bolt grazed Jake's shoulder. He spun, dagger cleaving the air. The bolt reversed trajectory, punching through the shooter's chest. Time debt? No—the Vorpal Edge had bent causality.
"There!" Laney pointed.
North corridor blast doors loomed, reinforced with fractal-patterned steel. Six enforcers barred the path, their armor glowing with blue-tier shields. Behind them, the vault wheeled—a mammoth structure of spinning gears and prismatic light.
Jake's blade pulsed hungrily.
75 YEARS.
"Shields block dimensional tears," warned Laney. "Syndicate tech."
"Then we go through." Jake raised the Vorpal Edge—and plunged it into his own chest.
Laney screamed. No pain—just ice spreading through his veins as the blade drank deeper. 70 YEARS. The dagger's gold veins lit up like a supernova.
Reality screamed.
A portal ripped open, not in space—in concept. The enforcers' shields flared, then dimmed as the blade's edge cut through the very idea of "barriers." Jake charged, dragging Laney into a place where walls were mere suggestions.
They phased through the blast doors.
The storage room.