System Crash

The gates of Nuoding Primary Soul Master Academy stood open.

The two gate guards dragged Yu Xiaogang all the way outside, then flung him away as if he were a sack of rancid slops.

"Get lost! If you dare come within ten feet of the academy again, we'll beat you every time we see you!" one guard snarled before slamming the heavy gates shut.

Yu Xiaogang traced a miserable arc through the air and crashed hard onto the dusty street.

The rough gravel scraped the skin on his cheeks and arms, drawing thin threads of blood.

Dust instantly coated his soaked body, mixing with the dried soap suds until they formed a thick layer of mud.

Even the beggars by the roadside would have shaken their heads at the sight of him.

The street was bustling with people, and the sudden commotion immediately drew the attention of passersby.

"Good heavens, where did they throw this beggar out from? Why is he so badly beaten?" A woman carrying a basket of vegetables jumped in fright and hurriedly sidestepped.

"Are you blind? He was obviously thrown out of a Soul Master Academy. Look at those shifty eyes of his. He must've been caught stealing or causing trouble inside." A burly passerby spoke with contempt.

The pedestrians pointed at Yu Xiaogang, who lay sprawled on the ground like a dead dog, and mocked and scorned him to his face.

People skirted around him as if he carried the plague, afraid they might catch some of his bad luck.

Yu Xiaogang lay in the dirt, gritting his teeth as he tried to get up.

Just then, the dark red System Panel above his head—visible only to Su Yu—underwent a violent change.

The panel, which had been relatively stable, now flickered wildly with blinding red light, like a screen shorting out.

The red glow carried an air of destruction and despair, turning Yu Xiaogang's face deathly pale.

Then a cold, mechanical system notification, devoid of all emotion, exploded in Yu Xiaogang's mind.

The voice no longer held the calm tone it had used when issuing missions. Instead, it sounded like a death sentence:

[Assessment: Host is socially dead. Luck plunder mission has failed completely! Penalty sequence initiating. Countdown: 3, 2, 1!]

At the string of verdicts, Yu Xiaogang's pupils contracted to pinpoints.

Terror clamped around his heart.

"No! System! You can't do this to me! I'm your host! Give me one more chance!" Yu Xiaogang shrieked and pleaded frantically in his mind, trying to stop the penalty from descending.

But the system gave no response, and the countdown mercilessly reached zero.

The instant it ended, excruciating pain swept through Yu Xiaogang's entire body.

This was no ordinary physical pain. It was a devastating blow that came from the depths of his soul.

He felt as if every meridian and blood vessel in his body were being hacked apart by countless rusted blades.

The agony of his flesh being ground to pieces inch by inch made even his breathing stop.

Worse still, it felt as if an invisible giant hand were tearing his soul in two.

"Ah!"

Yu Xiaogang let out a shriek like a dying beast as he lay on the dusty street.

His body arched like a giant shrimp, and he rolled wildly across the ground.

He clawed desperately at the dirt and stones, gripping so hard that his fingernails split and tore away, leaving his hands slick with blood. Yet he seemed unable to feel the pain in his fingers.

He slammed his head against the ground, hoping to ease the torment inside him by any means.

The passersby recoiled in fright at his sudden frenzy. Gasps rippled through the crowd, and no one dared come within ten feet of him.

The system's punishment was more than physical torment. It was forcibly draining his vitality to make up for the enormous losses caused by the failed mission and its own corrupted logic.

Right before everyone's eyes, Yu Xiaogang's body underwent a horrifying transformation.

His face, which had still looked relatively young after he possessed his current body, now resembled a withered tree stripped of its moisture.

The hair on his head, which had only been somewhat gray, lost all its black in a few short breaths and turned white and brittle as dead grass.

The skin on his face rapidly sagged and loosened, deep wrinkles carving across his forehead and around his eyes like knife marks.

His once-solid frame shriveled like a punctured ball, and his back hunched sharply.

It was as if all his vitality and vigor had been drained away in an instant, leaving him ten years older.

He no longer looked like a Soul Master in his prime, but a shriveled old man with one foot in the grave, radiating the deathly air of decay.

At that moment, beside a window on the second floor of Nuoding Academy,

Su Yu stood quietly on the windowsill, looking down at Yu Xiaogang as he rolled around outside the gates like a stray dog.

Golden light flowed slowly in the depths of Su Yu's eyes.

With the Eye of Truth fully activated, he watched the red panel above Yu Xiaogang's head, now on the verge of collapse.

Through the Eye of Truth, he saw that the data on the panel had turned into complete gibberish. Its red light flickered at a furious pace, and fine cracks had begun to appear along its edges.

Su Yu folded his arms across his chest, his gaze deep.

He knew that after the Conceptual Eraser had altered its underlying logic, its mission had failed completely, and it had now forcibly drained its host's vitality. The Luck Plunder System was at the end of its rope.

The system's core code had fallen into complete disarray. It would soon crash from logical failure and collapse entirely.

Once the system collapsed, it would drop a precious Origin Fragment.

That was exactly what Su Yu wanted: to deal with a possessor without lifting a finger and claim the spoils as well.

Out on the street, the agonizing pain of the penalty finally receded like the tide.

Yu Xiaogang lay sprawled like a heap of mud, gasping for breath. Each breath rattled like a broken bellows.

He struggled to push himself up, scrambling and rolling as he did.

Overwhelmed by pain and terror, his mind was completely blank.

He couldn't even tell which way he was facing. Acting purely on instinct, he staggered around.

He didn't dare spend another second in Nuoding City. He was afraid of the passersby's stares and of the academy's people coming out to beat him again.

Like a headless fly, he dragged his withered, hunched body toward the wilderness beyond Nuoding City.

All he wanted was to get away—to flee the place where he had been utterly disgraced, as far as he could.

His hunched, pitiful figure soon disappeared at the end of the street amid the passersby's pointing fingers.

Watching the direction Yu Xiaogang had gone, Su Yu slowly withdrew his gaze.

His eyes were calm as still water, without the slightest ripple.

Getting rid of a parasite who had tried to drain someone else's luck was no more than brushing away a speck of dust to him.

Su Yu turned and looked into the room.

Tang Wu and Xiao Wu were there, obediently packing their belongings.

Tang Wu folded several changes of clothes neatly and carefully placed them in a bundle.

Xiao Wu helped count the provisions and leather water flasks filled with clean water. The rabbit ears atop her head bobbed up and down.

Seeing the two girls' lively figures, Su Yu's lips curved into a faint smile.

They had already obtained the pass to the Soul Hunting Forest. Their journey to acquire their First Soul Ring had officially begun.