153: Chapter 154 Han Su killed the recorder, and the archive tower began to devour people.

"What this blade kills has never been just a chair."

In the communication feed, Inspector Han Su stood on the top floor of the Department of Education's Archives Tower.

A pitch-black long blade pierced through the [Record] Seat.

There was no blood on the blade.

Only the names, resumes, and work Records of countless people were flowing along the blade toward the abyss.

Inspector Han Su's left arm had already become transparent.

In the Archives Tower behind him, one figure after another was also disappearing.

Someone was organizing documents when their fingers suddenly passed through the paper.

Someone looking at an old group photo discovered that their own image in the photo had turned blank first.

There was also an elderly person who had been retired for many years; as they set down their teacup at home, a line of text inexplicably appeared on their chest.

[Previously held the Record position] [Erased along with the target]

The settlement numbers at the top of the Archives Tower were still increasing.

[Job-Killing Progress: 37%] [Number of people implicated: 3064]

Chen Ye widened his eyes.

"Over three thousand people?"

Inspector Han Su gripped the hilt of the blade tightly.

"The target I chose was the Record Seat."

"The contract states that after killing the position, anyone who has been carried by that position will be erased along with it."

"I thought it referred to the previous carriers of the Black Seat."

"But the Record Seat believes—"

"Everyone who has recorded, archived, or signed for it has carried it."

The abyss did not hide the price.

It simply used a word that was completely accurate, yet broad enough to devour people.

Who the position has carried.

The right of final interpretation is not in human hands.

In the control room, the [Record] valve suddenly rotated in reverse.

Rust and black blood sprayed out from the gaps in the valve simultaneously.

Cheng Du looked up abruptly.

"The Record Seat has been pierced, the maintenance pipe is backflowing!"

"This pipe leads directly to the Department of Education!"

Lin Jin had already grabbed the valve.

"Can we get through?"

"Yes."

Cheng Du glanced at the other five seats still slamming against the door outside.

"But the passage is maintained by the Record Seat."

"If it dies completely, the return path will be cut off."

"That's enough."

Lin Jin turned the valve open.

Black paper pages gushed out from the pipe, instantly forming a narrow path leading upwards.

Shen Tingxue, Zhou Heng, Chen Ye, Teacher Xu Wenzhou, and Thirteen followed closely behind.

Yu Xing stayed behind to help Cheng Du hold the maintenance core of The Six Seats.

Lin Shoushan propped himself up against the medical pod, trying to stand.

Lin Jin looked back at him.

"You stay here."

Lin Shoushan frowned.

"I have been to the old mechanical level of the Archives Tower."

"That's why you should stay even more."

Lin Jin pointed to Cheng Du's severed half-body.

"This place also needs a Repairman."

There were no rule prompts.

Nor were there any system commands.

It was just his own judgment.

Lin Shoushan was silent for two seconds before sitting back down in the medical pod.

"The negative second level of the Archives Tower."

"Look for the Off-Duty Registry."

"Don't just look for the register."

"There is also a mechanical release stamp."

The paper passage suddenly contracted.

The six people were sucked in directly.

The next second, Lin Jin tumbled out of the wall on the seventeenth floor of the Department of Education's Archives Tower.

Chen Ye landed with his shield up, catching Thirteen along the way.

Zhou Heng drove his Thunder Spear into the floor, stopping everyone from sliding further toward the stairwell.

The entire Archives Tower was becoming thin.

It was not collapsing.

Rather, certain floors were losing the Record of having "existed."

The walls of the sixteenth floor were the first to turn transparent.

Followed by the desks and chairs.

Finally, even the people standing inside began to disappear.

A middle-aged archivist clutched a filing cabinet tightly with both hands.

A black line was connected to his chest.

The other end of the line led to the Record Seat at the top of the tower.

"I only handled enrollment Records for three years."

He looked at his hands, which were becoming transparent, in terror.

"I resigned a long time ago."

Thirteen grabbed his wrist.

"State your name."

"Liang Shouyi."

"What do you do now?"

"I... I manage a warehouse at a logistics company."

The black line on his chest vibrated gently.

[Historical carrying relationship still exists]

Just confirming the name was useless.

The Job-Killer kills the history of the position.

As long as the past is still viewed by the Record Seat as part of itself, the person cannot escape.

Shen Tingxue wrapped her Ice Line around the black line on Liang Shouyi's chest.

"I can only freeze it."

"Three minutes at most."

Lin Jin looked up at the top of the tower.

[Job-Killing Progress: 44%]

"Zhou Heng, Thirteen, go to the negative second level and find the mechanical release stamp."

"Chen Ye, gather everyone who hasn't disappeared yet into the stairwell."

"Shen Tingxue, slow down all the black lines."

"Teacher Xu, come with me to the top floor."

No one asked why.

Everyone separated immediately.

Lin Jin and Teacher Xu Wenzhou rushed up the stairs.

The closer they got to the top floor, the faster things disappeared.

Some steps were there when they stepped on them, but only a void remained when they lifted their feet.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou used 002 to knock open an iron door that had lost its frame.

The two rushed into the top of the tower.

A massive Record Seat occupied half of the hall.

It was pieced together from filing cabinets, stamps, personnel resumes, and countless signatures.

Inspector Han Su stood in front of the back of the chair.

The black blade pierced through the center.

He could not let go.

Once he let go, the Record Seat would use the unfinished death settlement to take over the Job-Killer in reverse.

But if he kept holding it, over three thousand people would die along with it.

[Job-Killing Progress: 51%]

"Can the blade be pulled out?"

Lin Jin asked.

"Pulling it out equals canceling the kill."

Inspector Han Su replied.

"The Abyss profession will judge me as having breached the contract and immediately make me bear all the costs incurred."

"Will you die?"

"Not just me."

Inspector Han Su looked downstairs.

"Everyone already marked by the blade will still disappear."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou gripped 002 tightly.

"Cut off the relationship between the people and the position directly."

"There's no time to cut them one by one."

Lin Jin walked behind the Record Seat and peeled away layers of the shell covered in resumes.

After losing the Hand of Rules, he could not see which lines were faulty.

He could only feel them with his hands.

Some lines were ice-cold, representing people who had already retired.

Some lines were warm, connecting to current archivists.

There were also a large number of lines so thin they were almost imperceptible, connecting to people who had only ever copied a form or stamped a document for the Department of Education once.

The Record Seat did not treat them as employees.

Instead, it treated everything they had ever done as its own body.

"How were people who resigned in the past removed?"

Inspector Han Su's expression changed slightly.

"The old system had an off-duty release."

"Work Records remained in the Archives Tower, while the person exited the position-carrying chain."

"When was it canceled?"

"After the automated filing system went online."

Inspector Han Su looked at the Record Seat.

"The reason was to permanently retain accountability traceability."

Permanent accountability.

It sounded reasonable.

The result, however, was that as long as a person had once worked for the position, they would never completely belong to themselves again for the rest of their life.

Lin Jin pried open the metal plate at the very bottom of the back of the chair.

Sure enough, there was an empty gear slot inside.

The mechanical structure was still there.

What was missing was just the release gear.

Zhou Heng's voice came through the communicator.

"I found the register."

Immediately following was an explosion.

"But the negative second level is disappearing."

Thirteen's voice was closer.

"The mechanical stamp is locked in a cabinet."

"The cabinet door says it can only be opened by a Record position."

Chen Ye's roar came from the other end of the communication:

"What time is it now, and you're still worrying about who has the position!"

Boom!

The sound of a shield impact came through.

Thirteen said quickly:

"The cabinet is open."

"The release stamp is inside."

"But I can't get up."

Below the twelfth floor of the Archives Tower, the stairs had completely disappeared.

Only a hundred-meter-high empty shaft remained in the middle.

Zhou Heng could use his Thunder Spear to jump up.

Thirteen had no professional power.

Much less carry that heavy mechanical stamp across a hundred meters.

Lin Jin walked to the edge of the hall and looked down.

Thirteen stood on the remaining platform of the negative second level.

The floors above his head were turning transparent one by one.

Zhou Heng drove his Thunder Spear into the shaft wall.

"I'll send the stamp first."

"What about you?"

"I'll find another way."

Thirteen looked up at him.

"You can send the person and the stamp together."

Zhou Heng frowned.

"The weight will deviate from the landing point."

"Then let it deviate."

Thirteen grabbed the mechanical stamp and stepped directly onto the end of the Thunder Spear.

"Fix it if it goes wrong."

Zhou Heng glanced at him.

The next second, purple lightning erupted.

The Thunder Spear carried Thirteen straight up from the empty shaft.

It did not follow the optimal route.

Along the way, it smashed through eight floors and flipped half a turn while grazing a crossbeam.

Chen Ye saw them on the fourteenth floor and immediately threw his shield.

Thirteen stepped on the shield with his toe and leaped up again, borrowing the force.

Shen Tingxue's Ice Line hung down from the seventeenth floor and wrapped around his waist.

The three of them used the most non-standard way to send Thirteen and the mechanical stamp to the top of the tower.

Thirteen rolled three times when he landed.

But he didn't let go of the mechanical stamp in his hand.

"Catch!"

He threw the stamp to Lin Jin.

Lin Jin caught it.

At the bottom of the release stamp was a huge gear that could just fit into the empty slot behind the Record Seat.

But the gear was rusted shut.

It hadn't turned in twenty years.

Lin Jin inserted the rusty wrench into the side and slowly applied force.

It didn't budge at all.

[Job-Killing Progress: 73%]

Screams began to come from downstairs.

The first batch of marked people had already completely lost their legs.

Chen Ye used his shield to support them, but he could only prevent them from falling, not from their bodies disappearing.

"Lin Jin!"

"How much longer?"

Lin Jin did not answer.

He removed the gear cover.

It wasn't completely rusted shut inside.

Instead, it was jammed by a metal pin.

A line of text was engraved on the pin.

[Historical responsibility cannot be relieved]

It wasn't a malfunction.

It was a restriction someone had intentionally added later.

Lin Jin gripped the pin with pliers and pulled it outward.

The metal didn't budge.

Inspector Han Su suddenly freed one hand and pressed down on the handle of the pliers.

"Let me."

"You cannot let go of the blade."

"I haven't let go."

Inspector Han Su held the blade with one hand and gripped the pliers with the other.

His transparency had already spread to his shoulders.

The two applied force at the same time.

The pin moved outward bit by bit.

[Job-Killing Progress: 81%]

Teacher Xu Wenzhou stood on the other side of the Record Seat.

The projections of the five Black Seats began to emerge from the walls, attempting to protect the final Record relationships.

002 vibrated constantly.

Showing him the simplest solution.

Cut Inspector Han Su.

Kill the Job-Killer, and the kill will stop naturally.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou did not look at those prompts.

He raised 002 and smashed it toward the first chair leg extending from the Record Seat.

"This time—"

"Collateral evidence does not kill witnesses!"

Bang!

The chair leg was smashed askew.

Shen Tingxue arrived at the top of the tower, and an ice wall sealed the second seat.

Zhou Heng leaped out of the empty shaft and nailed the third seat to the ceiling with one shot.

Chen Ye rushed into the hall last, using his shoulder to prop up the filing door that was about to close.

The weight of over three thousand people downstairs seemed to be pressing down on his shield.

"Has it been pulled out yet!"

The web between Lin Jin's thumb and index finger on his left hand split open.

Inspector Han Su's transparent fingers could no longer grip the handle of the pliers.

The two applied force one last time.

Click!

The metal pin flew out.

The release gear roared into motion.

Lin Jin stuffed the Off-Duty Registry into the paper feed slot above the mechanical stamp.

The first page was pulled in.

[Liang Shouyi] [Previously: Enrollment Record Entry Clerk] [Current status: Logistics Warehouse Manager]

The mechanical stamp came down heavily.

Bang!

[Work Records retained] [Position carrying removed]

On the seventeenth floor, the black line on Liang Shouyi's chest snapped instantly.

His transparent legs reappeared.

Immediately following, the second page.

The third page.

Thousands of pages flipped rapidly through the gears.

Each time it stamped down, one person was released from the historical body of the Record Seat.

[Job-Killing Progress: 92%] [Number of people implicated: 2179] [1436] [702]

The Record Seat frantically tightened all the black lines.

It would rather drag everyone to their deaths together than admit that after work is completed, people can leave.

Chen Ye jammed his shield into the gears.

"Faster!"

Zhou Heng used lightning to forcibly supply power to the old machine.

Shen Tingxue froze the high-speed rotating bearings.

Thirteen crouched in front of the paper feed slot, smoothing out the jammed pages one by one.

When the last page entered, the Job-Killing progress had reached 99%.

The mechanical stamp was slow to come down.

The last name was Inspector Han Su.

[Previously: Department of Education Process Inspector] [Current status: Permissions frozen] [Whether to remove position carrying]

Inspector Han Su looked at his own name.

Once removed, he would no longer possess any protection provided by the history of positions at the Department of Education.

Nor would he have the possibility of restoring his inspector permissions.

He did not hesitate.

"Stamp."

Lin Jin pressed down the mechanical stamp.

Bang!

[Inspector Han Su] [Position carrying removed] [Person retained]

All black lines snapped simultaneously.

Inspector Han Su's left arm was restored.

The Abyss long blade piercing through the Record Seat also completed its settlement at this moment.

[Number of target carriers: 0] [Job-Killing complete]

The Record Seat split open from the center.

Over three thousand people did not disappear with it.

Only that huge black chair composed of countless files collapsed with a roar.

Paper fell like snow, filling the Archives Tower.

Inspector Han Su pulled out the Abyss long blade.

The blade still existed.

[Abyss profession: Job-Killer] [Positions killed: 1]

"The profession cannot be removed."

Inspector Han Su said.

"But I will decide whether or not to strike with the next blade."

Deep within the shattered Record Seat, a final saved list popped out.

It was the list of twelve Abyss profession recipients it had recorded before its death.

The first row was Inspector Han Su.

The second row had just lit up when Gu Changye's voice suddenly rang out throughout the entire Archives Tower.

"The abyss entrance on the east side of Jiangcheng is out of control."

"It is expected to swallow three residential areas in thirty seconds."

"I have no other choice."

The second row of the list fully unfolded.

[Recipient: Gu Changye] [Abyss profession: Final Handler] [Ability: Permanently close an abyss entrance] [Cost: A region of equivalent scale in reality will be judged as having been processed]

Lin Jin's expression changed drastically.

"Gu Changye, don't use it!"

There was no answer from the other end of the communication.

On the national map, the abyss entrance on the east side of Jiangcheng quickly extinguished.

At the same time.

The area where the Jiangcheng Combat Academy was located began to disappear from the map bit by bit.

The price Gu Changye had just paid appeared on the list.

[Substitute processing area: Jiangcheng Combat Academy] [Lives in the area: 12763] [Reality erasure countdown: ten minutes]