"The blood crystal ore made from thirty thousand cultivators is worth less than a mouthful of foul grain in my coffin."
As icy coffin liquid floods his lungs, Lu Xuan feels the Ruin Ash Demon Mark pulsing in his palm.
It can devour the world's most tainted karmic energy, but the price is becoming the God of Wealth's hunting dog.
His Dao companion, Su Li, traded their three-lifetime bond for a hundred days of survival, unaware that:
The "Void Refining path" she staked is now listed by Heaven's Law as an asset awaiting harvest;
The husband whose heart she cut out to save is chewing on Netherworld ore tailings as he calculates his risk exposure;
And the Spirit-Eroding Nail that pierced his Dao foundation is, in the demon mark's eyes, a prime target for the first round of short selling!
[Pawnshop Betting Table]
I consume: karmic fire's foul grain / mighty cultivators' malice / forbidden contracts (demon mark hunger ↑)
I short: enemies' Dao foundations / sect fortunes / chosen ones' golden fingers (profit-and-loss limit warning)
The house: The God of Wealth smiles and hands over the next "Bone-Eroding Fine"
The stake: the last thirty percent of Su Li's potential on the Dao path
With the hundred-day countdown dripping blood above him, Lu Xuan licks the rotten ore residue from his lips and grins:
"Alliance Leader of the Sun-Eroding Sect, you're mortgaging three spirit mines to take me down?"
"Well, as it happens, I just shorted eighty percent of your blood crystal ore futures."
The demon mark flares in his palm. The half-dead body crawling out of the coffin fixes its gaze on the clouds.
"God of Wealth, what if I drag Heaven's Law under with me and split the profits before I go bankrupt..."
"Do you dare take this coffin-leverage deal?"
