Wang Chen stared at the golden strands of fortune being siphoned into the egg, his expression growing darker by the second.

As his own fortune thinned, the egg visibly responded.

It wasn't subtle.

The shell pulsed with vitality, its surface brightening as faint runes shifted and rearranged themselves. Its size increased ever so slightly—yet unmistakably—with every heartbeat.

In just a single breath of time, Wang Chen finished his calculation.

"If this continues at this rate…" His pupils contracted. "Three days."

That was all he had.

Three days before his entire fortune was stripped clean.

"Three days…!" The words echoed in his mind like a death sentence. "That's barely enough time to do anything."

Panic clawed at the edges of his composure.

In the span of a heartbeat, Wang Chen attempted everything he could think of—suppressing the contract, sealing the soul-link, diverting fate flow, even forcefully stabilizing his own destiny with spiritual force.

Nothing worked.

The siphoning did not slow.

It did not resist.

It simply continued, indifferent and absolute, as if this outcome had already been written.

The process would not stop until either the egg was satisfied… or Wang Chen was completely drained.

His jaw clenched.

"If this were Li Mei or Lin Huang, it wouldn't even matter," he muttered bitterly. Those two had fortune so vast it was borderline absurd. Feeding the egg with their destiny would barely register as a loss.

But him?

His fortune was already stretched thin—barely enough to keep him alive in this damned world.

"In three days, I must find a way to increase my fortune… or else—"

He cut the thought short, not daring to follow it to its conclusion.

Forcing himself to calm down, Wang Chen inhaled deeply.

There was no time for despair.

His original plan—studying Zhao Yunfei's nature, understanding her fate-devouring ability, and creating a technique to replicate it—could no longer be postponed.

It had to happen now.

If he could succeed, if he could artificially cultivate fortune instead of merely preserving it, this problem would cease to exist.

No.

It would become an opportunity.

The moment that thought settled, Wang Chen's eyes sharpened, the hesitation vanishing completely. What replaced it was something colder, more precise—resolve.

Without another glance at the egg greedily draining his destiny, Wang Chen shifted his focus.

His gaze moved.

Locked.

Zhao Yunfei.

Young Master Yun.

Both of them remained blissfully unaware, continuing their lives as if nothing had changed—utterly ignorant of the fact that the master of Phoenix and Dragon Dojo had just marked them as the key to his survival.

Wang Chen observed in silence as Zhao Yufei unknowingly chipped away at Lin Huang's fortune.

The process was slow, almost gentle—like water wearing down stone—but even so, Lin Huang's fortune in Wang Chen's vision still blazed like a miniature sun. Vast, stubborn, and overflowing. No matter how much was siphoned away, it replenished itself naturally, radiating a vitality that refused to dim.

A true child of fortune.

Wang Chen's gaze then shifted.

The moment his vision fell upon Young Master Yun, a chill crept up his spine.

Unlike Lin Huang's blazing radiance, Yun was wrapped in a twisted, ink-black aura—an Aura of Calamity so dense it looked as though the world itself was rejecting his existence. It writhed unnaturally, like a mass of venomous insects clinging to his fate, gnawing at it endlessly.

The longer Wang Chen stared, the more disturbing the visions became.

Fragments of future possibilities flooded his mind.

Young Master Yun dying by the hands of his own fiancée's childhood friend.

Being hunted down by the lone survivor of a clan he had personally exterminated years ago.

Old ghosts rising from graves he believed long buried, returning one by one to carve vengeance into his flesh.

Every single ending was brutal.

Every single ending was inevitable.

And behind each of those figures, Wang Chen could sense something else—subtle, distant, yet unmistakable.

Manipulation.

As if some unseen entity lurking in the dark was deliberately nurturing these "variables," grooming them into executioners whose sole purpose was to erase this growing calamity before it could mature into something unmanageable.

The heavens did not tolerate excess.

Nor did they allow disasters to grow unchecked.

Wang Chen felt a faint pressure behind his eyes and tore his gaze away.

Now was not the time to pry further.

He had more urgent matters.

Inside his spiritual space, the surrounding qi trembled and condensed. Threads of light and shadow intertwined, gradually solidifying into two lifelike figures.

Zhao Yufei.

Young Master Yun.

Their forms were flawless, their auras identical to their real counterparts, down to the smallest fluctuation of fate and destiny.

Avatars.

Perfect simulations created for one purpose alone.

Wang Chen exhaled slowly.

While confined within the Tower of Infinite Enlightenment, it was impossible to monitor the real world continuously. If he wanted to make progress—real progress—he needed subjects he could dissect, analyze, and experiment on without restraint.

These avatars were the answer.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied them.

"Three days," he muttered under his breath.

If he wanted to survive, if he wanted to stop the egg from devouring his destiny whole, everything hinged on what he could extract from these two figures.

And failure… was not an option.

Wring!!

As Wang Chen contemplating, the rate at which the egg devoured his fortune increased again.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible—but to someone watching fate being peeled off his soul thread by thread, it was unmistakable.

His heart sank.

"…The speed increased."

A chill crawled up his spine.

"Is this little bastard getting familiar with my fortune?"

The realization hit like a hammer.

The egg wasn't merely consuming blindly anymore. It was learning. Adapting. Synchronizing itself with Wang Chen's fate signature. If it fully attuned itself, the siphoning speed wouldn't just increase—it would explode.

"Then I don't have as much time as I thought…"

His expression darkened, the usual lazy calm stripped away. This was no longer a distant problem. This was a countdown.

Three days had just turned into far less.

Wang Chen didn't hesitate anymore.

His consciousness plunged inward, crossing layers of perception until he arrived at the resting space of the Tower of Infinite Enlightenment.

A cold, mechanical voice echoed directly within his soul.

"Welcome back, Master.

What would you like to do today?

Challenge the third floor… or sweep the first and second floors again?"

Wang Chen didn't even consider the options.

Second floor? Third floor?

Meaningless.

He needed time, not challenge.

He needed to abuse the first floor's time dilation until fate itself cried unfair.

Without waiting another breath, he spoke:

"I would like to enter the first floor."

The tower responded instantly, without emotion.

"Command acknowledged.

Avatar prepared.

Descent in 3… 2--"

Before the countdown could finish, Wang Chen's perception violently shifted.

The world collapsed into darkness.

Then--

Cold.

Bone-piercing cold.

When his vision stabilized, he was already standing in a vast, desolate wasteland of endless snow. The ground beneath his feet was frozen solid, cracked like ancient scars. A howling wind swept across the plains, sharp as blades, stabbing into his skin with merciless precision.

This was the familiar barrne first floor.

A place where time stretched, suffering accumulated, and enlightenment was beaten into existence.

The tower's system notification faded into the background.

The wind did not.

Wang Chen narrowed his eyes, his resolve crystallizing like ice.

"Let's see," he muttered, voice swallowed by the storm,

"whether I evolve faster… or my fate gets eaten first."

This time, Wang Chen didn't bother checking his class like usual.

Instead, his gaze followed something far more important.

Fortune.

Threads of fate shimmered faintly in his perception as he observed their flow, watching with obsessive focus to see whether his precious destiny was still being siphoned away.

Only when he confirmed that the flow had apparently stopped did he finally release a slow, controlled breath.

But the relief didn't reach his eyes.

He wasn't stupid.

The fortune hadn't truly stopped flowing. It only looked that way because of the terrifying time dilation inside the Tower of Infinite Enlightenment. Compared to the outside world, time here crawled like a dying insect.

The moment he returned to reality, the drain would resume—and likely at an even worse rate.

"With this time difference…" Wang Chen muttered inwardly, eyes dark. "By the time I leave, the situation might already be on the verge of collapse."

He didn't allow himself to dwell on it.

Instead, he kicked aside the snow at his feet, icy shards scattering as the tower's recording timer began counting down toward zero.

"Breaking the record is out of the question," he thought calmly. "That was never my goal this time."

This run wasn't about glory.

It was about survival.

He needed to understand Zhao Yufei's nature and create a technique based on it—something capable of generating fortune instead of bleeding it dry. Without that, the egg would drain him hollow no matter how strong he became.

Just before the timer hit zero, Wang Chen finally checked his status.

[Class – Holy Knight (Epic Grade)]

"…Of course."

His lips twitched.

"Such a good class," he thought grimly, "and it shows up exactly when I don't want to speedrun the floor."

For a fleeting moment, temptation flared.

A Holy Knight class. Epic grade. Perfect synergy for a clean, brutal clear. He could almost feel the instinctive pull to abandon his original plan and carve through the floor like a hot blade through snow.

Almost.

Wang Chen clenched his fist and forcibly suppressed the urge.

"No," he reminded himself coldly. "These tower runs aren't unlimited."

Every entry was precious.

If he wasted this chance chasing records instead of crafting the technique he needed, he would regret it far more than any missed achievement.

While these thoughts churned in his mind, the tower's notification finally faded away.

The world grew quieter.

Too quiet.

From the edges of the barren wasteland, shadows began to stir.

One by one, figures emerged from the swirling snow—distorted silhouettes dragging themselves forward, mouths twisted into snarls, eyes glowing with feral hostility.

The hunt had begun.

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