The rain in the Under-Market didn't wash away the filth; it only made it slick.
Silas moved through the winding, neon-lit alleys with a predatory grace he had never possessed in his past life. The fifty units of liquidated mana still thrummed in his veins. His muscles felt coiled, dense, and hyper-responsive.
Every shadow cast by the flickering magi-lamps looked like a doorway.
He tested his new acquisition. He locked his eyes on a patch of darkness across the street, pushed ten points of mana into his core, and willed it.
Shadow-Step.
The world blurred into a streak of grayscale. There was no wind resistance, no sound. In the blink of an eye, he materialized perfectly in the dark alleyway across the street.
"Incredible," Silas whispered, clenching his fist.
On Earth, money was the ultimate leverage. It bought speed, silence, and violence. But here? Magic was the currency. And Silas was starting to realize just how wealthy he could become.
He navigated the labyrinthine slums using the fragmented memories of the original Silas Vance. The boy had been a disgraced noble, cast out of the Azure Empire's floating citadels and left to rot in the grime below.
His destination was the Vance Estate—a dilapidated, crumbling manor located on the absolute fringe of the Under-Market. It was the last remaining asset to his name.
Ten minutes later, Silas crouched on the rusted iron fence overlooking his property.
His eyes narrowed.
The front courtyard was illuminated by harsh, glaring magi-torches. A heavy, reinforced wooden wagon was parked right on the dead grass of his front lawn.
The heavy oak doors of his manor had been kicked wide open.
"Careful with that, you idiots! The boss wants the debt settled in full. If you scratch the mahogany, it comes out of your pay!"
A burly man with a shaved head and a crude iron chestplate stood on the porch, barking orders. He gnawed on a cheap cigar, a glowing red gauntlet equipped on his right hand.
Five other men—all thick-necked thugs wearing the leather colors of a local syndicate—were hauling furniture, paintings, and silverware out of the manor and tossing them into the wagon.
Silas recognized them instantly from his inherited memories.
Debt collectors.
The original Silas had borrowed heavily from the local underworld just to afford basic food and medicine after his family exiled him. The interest rates were predatory. Impossible to pay back.
"The Vance kid hasn't been seen in two days," one of the thugs grunted, carrying a heavy silver candelabra out the door. "Think the poison got him?"
"Who cares?" the bald leader scoffed, spitting a wad of tobacco onto the marble steps. "Dead or alive, his debt belongs to us. Strip the copper wiring from the walls if you have to. Leave nothing but the foundation."
Silas watched from his perch on the fence.
In his past life, he had been the one ordering the ransacking of homes. He knew the mentality. These men didn't view him as a person; they viewed him as a delinquent account. To them, this was just business.
"Business," Silas murmured, a cold smile touching his lips. "Let's see what kind of business."
He focused his gaze on the bald leader and activated his System.
"System. [Appraise]."
A translucent blue window snapped into existence above the man's head.
[Target: Brutus][Rank: Iron-Tier Brawler][Net Worth: 85 Stat Points][Cosmic Debt: 14,200 Karma Points (Multiple counts of extortion, arson, and possession of a stolen D-Rank Fire Gauntlet)]
Silas's eyes shifted to the thugs hauling the furniture. He appraised them in rapid succession.
[Target: Syndicate Thug][Net Worth: 30 Stat Points][Cosmic Debt: 4,500 Karma Points]
[Target: Syndicate Thug][Net Worth: 35 Stat Points][Cosmic Debt: 5,100 Karma Points]
Every single one of them was operating heavily in the red. Their karmic debt dwarfed their actual net worth by thousands of points.
Silas didn't see six dangerous men destroying his home.
He saw a goldmine. Unregistered assets just waiting to be seized.
"If I run, I lose my only shelter," Silas calculated, his eyes tracking the patrol patterns of the two thugs guarding the wagon. "If I fight, I'm outnumbered six to one. My stats are only at fifteen."
But stats were just the baseline. Leverage was everything.
The original Silas would have cowered in the rain, crying as his last connection to his family was stripped away to pay a syndicate boss.
The new Silas dropped silently from the fence into the tall, overgrown grass.
"Let's balance the books," he whispered.
He waited for a loud crash of breaking glass from inside the manor to mask his movement. Then, he activated [Shadow-Step].
He bypassed the two thugs outside completely, teleporting directly into the deep shadow cast by the open front doors.
Silas slipped inside his own home.
The grand foyer was a mess. The expensive rugs had been rolled up. Portraits had been ripped from the walls, leaving pale squares on the faded wallpaper.
Brutus, the bald leader, was standing in the center of the foyer, inspecting a silver pocket watch. Three thugs were busy prying a crystal chandelier from the ceiling in the adjacent dining room.
None of them noticed the shadow detaching itself from the wall near the entrance.
Silas stepped fully into the foyer.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't shout a battle cry.
Instead, he calmly reached out and grabbed the heavy brass handles of the massive oak double doors.
He pulled them shut.
SLAM.
The heavy sound echoed like a gunshot through the empty, ransacked manor.
The three thugs in the dining room froze. Brutus dropped the silver pocket watch, his hand instantly flying to the hilt of a rusted broadsword at his waist.
"Who the hell is there?!" Brutus barked, raising his glowing red gauntlet to illuminate the dark foyer.
The crimson light fell upon Silas.
He stood perfectly calm in front of the closed doors. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy iron key from the original host's memories, slid it into the lock, and turned it.
Click.
He pulled the key out and casually tossed it into the darkness of the hallway.
Brutus's eyes went wide. He recognized the face, but the aura was completely wrong. This wasn't the trembling, pathetic noble brat who had begged for an extension last week.
"Vance?" Brutus sneered, recovering his bravado. He drew his sword, the metal scraping loudly in the quiet room. "You've got some nerve showing your face here, kid. You're late on your payments. We're repossessing the house."
The three other thugs stepped out of the dining room, drawing iron clubs and crude daggers, grinning wickedly as they surrounded him.
"You're right," Silas said, his voice smooth, echoing with unnatural, icy authority. "Someone is late on their payments. And a repossession is happening tonight."
Silas raised his head, his eyes igniting with a blinding, neon-blue light that bathed the entire foyer in the glow of the Absolute Debt System.
He looked at the four armed men, his smile predatory and absolute.
"But you're not the creditors," Silas whispered. "You're the collateral."