Chapter 1702: Death Transaction

Pain...

My head feels like it's about to split.

"What is this..."

"Did I pass out..."

I don't know how long it's been.

When Lin An opened his eyes again, he felt as if his brain were about to explode, the pain making his face turn somewhat pale.

He hurriedly got up from the ground, saw the familiar system light sphere above his head, and the quiet exchange hall around him, and Lin An suddenly realized that he seemed to have survived.

How long has it been!?

He instinctively looked up at the system timer, and after seeing the numbers, Lin An finally let out a great sigh of relief.

Fortunately, his unconscious time wasn't long—about less than fifteen minutes.

He was afraid that if he remained unconscious too long, Hei Di and the others would notice the problem and burst in.

With some effort, he rubbed his brow, then yanked off his mask, finally able to think about what had happened to him.

His memory felt like it had suffered a fault.

Whether it was the burned past or the fractured present, he felt his memory had tangled into a mess, with no idea what had happened.

"Let's start from after the battle ended..."

"The burning cost of the Time Flame is too great..."

"After I forced myself back, I kept looking for a way to replenish my soul. By then, my memory was already fuzzy."

"But finding a way to replenish the soul seems difficult..."

His eyes flickered as Lin An struggled to recall what had happened before.

He vaguely remembered hearing many voices of failed queries.

"What happened to me after that?"

"Did the system find a solution after I passed out?"

"Did I instinctively exchange something, or did the system do it automatically?"

Frowning tightly, speaking kindly, he had passed out; if he weren't still alive now, Lin An would actually feel that the moment he passed out was essentially death.

He had burned too much time, or rather, the price needed to kill a Star-Destroying Level being was far more than he had imagined!

"Was it me who exchanged it?"

"What did I exchange?"

He looked blankly at the light sphere, then at his own hand.

A person in a coma has instinctive reactions.

Although Lin An knows that in that state he likely couldn't do anything—he had lost consciousness, making it unlikely he could himself exchange something to save his life.

But...

Perhaps his will was strong, like a vegetative person who can actually move.

His will to survive controlled his body, exchanging something in an almost instinctive way—this isn't impossible?

If the system found something within a few seconds after he passed out, he might still have retained some consciousness then—he just can't remember.

His brows were tightly furrowed.

After a long time of trying, no matter how hard Lin An tried to recall, he only felt that period of memory was a blank.

After a while, Lin An could only helplessly give up, simply assuming it was as he had guessed.

How he exchanged it back then no longer matters; what matters is what he exchanged and what he must do next!

"Never mind... anyway, it was me who did it."

"It couldn't be that Hei Di burst in and secretly helped me exchange something, could it?"

He gave a self‑mocking smile, Lin An's expression turned solemn, and he directly checked his system panel.

He had nothing in his hands.

There was nothing inside his ring either.

The double collapse of soul and time couldn't be recovered even a bit by point restoration.

This means his way of surviving wasn't exchanging some prop, but directly altering his body.

Lin An was curious about what he had actually exchanged.

If he remembers correctly, the system initially offered him things that could save him, each sounding more impressive than the last.

He searched quickly, and finally, in the system's exchange prompt, Lin An instantly found how he had survived.

Two seconds later.

"Necromancer Curse?"

"Curse?"

After looking over the exchange information several times, Lin An was stunned to discover that he had actually survived by means of a curse.

Unbelievable..

Looking at the description on the system panel, he felt his scalp go numb.

Damn it, he basically isn't considered alive now!

One piece of good news, one piece of strange news.

The good news is he can now speak, jump, kill—there's hardly any difference from being alive.

The bad news is.

He is merely hardly different from being alive.

"Necromancer Curse: special, curse-type product."

Prop effect: After use, launch a curse attack on the target, cursing it to never undergo reincarnation. After the effect takes effect, targets below Seventh Stage receive a locking effect. Those who are cursed and die will inevitably enter the Underworld, unable to be revived, reversed, read/written, or overwritten by any ability...

Under the curse effect, the target's soul after death will be forcibly gathered, ignoring soul splitting and soul cutting abilities.

This effect can pull the target's soul from any point in past or future timelines.

Note: Those cursed who enter the Underworld will become sacrifices to???. If you hate someone, use this item on them...

He will still suffer after death, and no one can resist before???.

Note: After using this item on a target, due to the soul-gathering special effect, it will grant the target a basic soul-strengthening effect after use.

Player name: Lin An

Current status: Soul decomposition

Warning: Part of your soul has already entered the Underworld. Under the curse effect, at intervals, your soul will disintegrate once, scattering more fragments into the Underworld.

Warning: Your soul no longer belongs to you, so you cannot recover your soul.

Warning: Current soul integrity %, for every 3% drop in soul integrity, all your abilities are affected. When soul integrity falls below 50%, you will lose your sense of self.

Warning: When your physique drops below 1000 points, you will immediately lose control over your soul, and your soul will rapidly disintegrate. Current physique (1001)

These two pieces of information need to be considered together.

Looking at the description of the curse item and his current condition, Lin An struggled to analyze for several seconds before realizing what had happened to him.

This really is... too absurd...

A bitter laugh.

In such a situation, Lin An felt both incredulous and yet it seemed only natural.

He actually had no possibility of surviving.

Fourth Stage killing Fifth Stage, or even killing a Star-Destroying being—such a heaven-defying record simply should not exist.

Then naturally, such a terrifying miracle naturally requires an unimaginable price.

Putting it bluntly, for Lin An to trade one life for another is already extremely absurd. If the ancient red demon Gul Hong Mo could still speak, he would surely curse the system's unfairness!

He, a Star-Destroying being, his life is worth thousands of times more than Lin An's!! Even if Lin An paid with his life, what would that amount to!?

It's like an ordinary person committing suicide to exchange for a Fourth Stage—this is truly unfair.

Put simply, after I burn out my time, I not only have to die, but die leaving nothing behind, and even owe a bunch of things... Just because I'm dead, I can't even pay this price.

In this situation, for me to restore my soul, it's equivalent to having to spend the price of buying a Star-Destroying life to be able to recover.

It's like I used a life-consuming strike to kill the target, my HP dropped to -9999; to recover HP, naturally I'd need to buy a potion that restores 9999 points to break even.

Obviously, I can't afford it, so the system keeps failing to find what I need.

A hint of bitterness rose at the corner of his mouth.

Lin An looked at the warning that his soul no longer belonged to him, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

This is a very long, very complex, and also very bizarre logic.

Yes, he cannot restore his own soul, nor save his own life.

So how is he still alive now?

The answer is simple.

Under the curse.

He sold his life to death.

Then he played a trick and refused to sell.