The Underforge tunnels coiled like a debtor's intestines—dank, echoing with the drip of unpaid mana, walls slick with the residue of half-cashed favors. Dylan Voss moved with Elara Ketch at his flank, the crush-glove from Gritch's flip humming on his fist like a promise of broken knuckles. Auction yield still warmed his veins: 825 micro-favors liquid now (his 50/50 cut), enough to hedge a small apocalypse. But the syllabus whisper? It had compounded to 4%, draconic terms flickering half-readable in his periphery: *Flip the hunters, owe the hunt. Blood-debt decodes the scale-syllabus.* Cryptic bullshit. Dragons didn't write in plain text; they wrote in defaults.
Global rate at eight heartbeats—reality's pulse a wheeze, reeling from the Roost kill. Dylan's thirteen? A rebellion, recoil tax nipping 15% off his stride. Convert it: betrayal asset sharpened his senses, victory micro tasting the next flip. Syl the Seer first—path insight pinned her in the Spire's glimpse-vaults, weaving futures for Valerian scouts. Overdrawn on her own bets, bonds brittle as prophecy glass.
"She's a weaver," Elara murmured, shadow-rune on her palm casting faint trails. "C-rank, but slippery. Glimpses cost memories—hers or yours. Hits the vault in five. We corner her mid-bid."
Dylan nodded, cynical smirk etched. "Corner a seer? That's like auditing a god's alibi. Leverage her overdraw—frame the glimpse as default." The glove flexed, force-multiplier charged once: raw crush, tuned to bond-fracture. Allies compounded the loop, sure, but Elara's co-sign itched like fine print. Trust was just shared debt.
They emerged into the Spire's underlevels—a labyrinth of crystal vaults, each a node for future-trades. Air hummed with resonance threads, glimpses flickering like bad stock tickers: *Hunter yields up 3%... God-debt crash imminent.* Patrons—mid-tier brokers, aura-polished—haggled in alcoves, bartering tomorrows for today's edge. Syl's vault glowed at the end: arched door etched with eye-runes, wards pulsing against uninvited audits.
Elara's shadows coiled ahead, veils parting for a peek. Syl hunched inside: wiry, silver-haired, eyes milky with overused sight. She murmured to a hovering orb, Valerian crystal linked—bidding on Dylan's bounty futures: *Voss scalp at 60 favors, 80% kill-prob.* Her own ledger flickered visible: glimpses sold short, debts compounding at 12% from a botched god-prophecy.
"Showtime," Dylan said, shoving the door. Wards sparked—recoil tax 15%, stinging his skin. Convert: speed. He crossed the vault in three strides, glove raised. "Syl. Your futures look short. Valerian bid? Cute. But your bonds scream default."
The seer spun, milky eyes sharpening to knives. "Voss. F-rank fraud. Glimpse this: you die in tunnels, blood-debt choking." She wove threads—resonance strings snapping out, glimpses manifesting: illusory Dylans crumpling under wyrm-scales, Elara's shadow unraveling in void. Psychic tax hit: 15% of his focus shredded, memories fraying (rat-core bitterness, faded further). The vault's runes lit, neutral arbitration kicking in—truth enforced, no lies in the weave.
Elara flanked, shadows lashing: "Audit her orb. Overdraw exposed." The runner's rune slashed, veils stripping Syl's aura bare. Bonds spilled: 12% interest buried in prophecy shorts, Valerian contract cross-tied to a cracked god-loan. Glimpses faltered, illusions popping like bad checks.
Syl snarled, threads coiling for a counter-weave. "You owe the sight, rats! Future's mine—" Dylan lunged, glove smashing the orb—not crush, but tuned disrupt. Storm-residual from the Roost mingled with force-multiplier, syncing to her eight-beat pulse (global eight, irony). The orb shattered, futures evaporating in static. Her bonds fractured, Valerian charter defaulting mid-bid: bounty flipped, -80 micro-favors to the House.
Recoil peaked—30% tax, arm numb, vision spotting. But victory asset surged, compounding: Syl's glimpse-orb shards integrated, yielding *Future-Bet Fragment (1x, Yield: +5% Prediction Edge).* She crumpled, threads limp, milky eyes clearing to defeat. "The syllabus... it whispers your end. Blood-debt decodes nothing."
Dylan hauled her up, cuffing shadows. "End? That's my line. Flip complete—your cut's ours." System pinged soft.
**[YIELD: Hunter Default – Syl Contract Flipped.]**
**Assets Gained: 40 Micro-Favors (50/50 Share) + Glimpse-Fragment (1 Charge, Prediction Yield).**
**Debt Update: Syllabus Whisper (+4% – Terms Partial Decode: "Flip the sight, owe the seer. Blood-debt: Hunter's vein for draconic vein").**
**Warning: Vex Inbound – Ghost Path Converging. Betrayal Yield: 90%.**
Elara pocketed half the favors, scar twisting in a grin. "Two for two. Vex is the ghost—B-rank, echo-specialist. Slips realities, betrayal her bread. Tunnels fork ahead; she'll pinch us at the nexus."
Dylan flexed the glove, charge spent but shard humming. The partial decode itched: *Blood-debt: hunter's vein for draconic vein.* Wyrm-echo from Ch.18, syllabus sharpening. Public scalp had framed him dragonslayer, but this? Personal ledger. "Ghosts hate audits. Let's make her echo default."
The nexus waited—a cavernous junction where tunnels bled into the Academy's deep veins, mana-pipes groaning like overtaxed hearts. Resonance lanterns flickered, casting long shadows that danced like unpaid specters. Vex struck from the dark: not a lunge, but a slip—air rippling as she phased through a wall, form a blur of cloaked edges, B-rank aura a whisper of layered betrayals. Echoes spawned: three Vexes, each weaving contingencies—slash from left (blade-bond, 10% yield), whisper from right (betrayal asset steal), fade from center (reality-slip).
"Impressive," Dylan drawled, heartbeat thirteen against the global's stutter. "But echoes accrue interest. Yours?" Betrayal micro-asset—his oldest, from Ch.5–8 thunder-clap—flared, syncing to her layered pulses. Nine beats layered to eleven. Mismatch.
Elara's shadows exploded, veils thickening the nexus into a maze. "Pin the real—glimpse-fragment!" Dylan channeled the new shard: prediction edge +5%, futures branching. Left Vex: 20% real-prob. Right: 60%. Center: echo-fake. He dodged the blade-slash, glove—recharged off residual storm—crushing the right's shoulder. Real Vex hissed, phasing faltering, echoes popping in recoil tax (her 15%, converted poorly to smoke).
"Valerian pays triple for ghosts," Vex spat, blade reversing—betrayal yield spiking, latching Dylan's asset like a thief's hook. Pain lanced: his betrayal micro fraying, contingencies whispering doubts (*Ally? Elara's co-sign hides claws*). Recoil doubled—30%, memories slipping (Academy seal theft, now ghostly). Global rate dipped to seven; his thirteen roared defiance.
"Frame it," Elara called, shadows coiling Vex's legs. Rune-slash exposed the ghost's core: B-rank bonds, overleveraged on echo-loans from a shadow-god. Betrayals sold short, Valerian contract the anchor—compounding at 15%, cracking under the flip-weight.
Dylan pressed, prediction edge weaving his strike: palm to throat, storm-disrupt tuned low. Not kill—audit. Blue arc fractured her echo-bonds, realities snapping back. Vex solidified, blade dropping, her betrayal yield rebounding—*stolen asset returned, +10% his.* The contract defaulted, bounty flipping: -100 micro-favors, House audited live via her crystal link.
She gasped, phasing weak. "The syllabus... blood-debt calls. Your vein for the dragon's. Decode it in default." Echoes faded, leaving her bound in veils.
**[YIELD: Hunter Default – Vex Contract Flipped.]**
**Assets Gained: 50 Micro-Favors (50/50 Share) + Echo-Betrayal Amp (Yield: +10% Contingency Edge).**
**Debt Update: Syllabus Whisper (+6% – Terms Decode: "Ghost the betrayal, owe the ghost. Blood-debt: Vein-tap for scale-syllabus key").**
**New Notification: Retaliation Paused – House Valerian Audit (Clutch-Crack Exposed). Public Reveal: Dragonslayer Confirmed.**
The nexus quieted, pipes groaning approval. Elara released the hunters—bound for the Ledger, yields transferred. "Clean flips. 115 favors split, assets stacking. You're solvent-plus now, Voss. Public enemy to legend."
Dylan rubbed his throat, vein pulsing where the decode hinted: *vein-tap.* Wyrm-blood from Ch.18? Syllabus key in his own debt? "Legend's just a bigger target. House paused, but the dragon that wrote this? It's reading my fine print."
She chuckled, shadows receding. "Then audit faster. Next: your reveal—Volume 1 scalp auction, gods bidding."
Global rate steadied at seven. His thirteen whispered back: *Earn the decode. Leverage the vein. Survive the syllabus.* Hunters flipped, allies forged. But blood-debt? That compounded eternal.