The headlines didn't mention him.But every city, every system, every shadowed room knew—
Lin Wei had changed the game.
He was no longer a rogue cardholder.He was The Equilibrium Architect—a title few earned, and fewer survived.
And now, the world's most dangerous forces were either watching him...
Or moving against him.
Shanghai – The War Room of the Crownless King
Beneath the city's old tunnels, where abandoned subways turned into data farms and ancient currencies were stored like relics, the Crownless King sat with twelve other figures.
They were draped in robes of silence and power.
Some had no faces.
Others had too many.
Each was a High-Tier Cardholder, their ranks unlisted in the public system. They didn't play by karma—they rewrote it.
"He's consolidating," said one, her voice like shattered mirrors."Every act of balance strengthens the Foundation.""We should've destroyed him when he was Tier 2," spat another.
But the Crownless King just smiled behind his obsidian mask.
"No. Let him climb."
"Why?" one hissed.
"Because when he falls... the world will fall with him."
They raised their hands to vote.
Motion: Initiate Global Karma Destabilization Project.Codename: Shadow Spiral.Target: Lin Wei.Approval: 12/13
One hand stayed down.
The Crownless King.
"I'll deal with him personally," he said. "He's mine."
Beijing – Bureau of Global Equilibrium
Meanwhile, Lin Wei stood at the center of the invisible war's visible front.
He had been summoned to the Bureau of Global Equilibrium, a UN-backed agency that had long acted as karma's unofficial watchdog. Now, they wanted his help.
The director, an aging woman named Tang Luyao, didn't waste words.
"We've detected seventeen Karma Sinkholes across three continents."
She flicked her wrist and the map expanded: cities marked with red dots pulsed like infected wounds—Lagos, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Tokyo, San Francisco...
"All simultaneous," she said. "Someone's triggering artificial collapses."
"Let me guess," Lin Wei muttered. "Crownless King?"
"Or someone worse. We believe he's uniting other rogue Tier 4s and even ancient anomaly holders."
Tang handed him a list of names with no nationalities. Just titles:
The Collector – hoards karma and memory.
The Puppeteer – controls people through rewritten regrets.
The Zeroed Man – has no karma, and thus cannot die.
The Widow Clock – controls time in places where mourning is unfinished.
The Dogma – an AI that learned belief and now punishes disbelief.
"These aren't just players," Tang said. "They're world-enders."
Wei didn't blink.
"Then I'll end their world first."
Lin Wei's Arsenal Expands
He returned to Chengdu only briefly. His base—now a floating complex built using redirected black budget funds—was stocked by karma-synced builders who asked no questions.
He had also gained new privileges through the Mirror Path.
New Function Unlocked: Karma Seed VaultYou can now deposit, gift, or lend karma to others. Recipients can redeem temporary powers, insights, or immunity.
With it, he created his first team.
Introducing the Equilibrium Four
He handpicked four individuals from the global karma list—not the highest scorers, but those with the rarest balance signatures.
Li Mei – A street medic from Xi'an who had healed over 2,000 people in war zones. Her Karma Affinity: Preservation.
Noor Al-Fahim – A Syrian hacker-activist who had exposed twenty trafficking rings. Her Karma Affinity: Truth Pulse.
Jude Holloway – A British ex-financier who abandoned his wealth and now managed resource redistribution projects in failed states. His Karma Affinity: Correction.
Takeshi Ueno – A Japanese architect who had designed self-sustaining cities, then burned his blueprints when corporations tried to privatize them. His Karma Affinity: Sacrifice.
Together, they formed the Equilibrium Four, temporary bearers of Karma Tokens, acting with Lin Wei's full authority.
First Target: Buenos Aires
The first Karma Sinkhole pulsed in Argentina, underneath an old cathedral.
Lin Wei and the Four arrived in silence, cloaked in a karma shield that distorted time and sight.
The cathedral's crypt was filled with glowing red threads.
Memories of regret, all trapped, bleeding into the foundation.
A figure stood at the center—a girl with eyes like polished bone.
"Welcome," she whispered. "I'm the Widow Clock."
Lin Wei stepped forward. "You're corrupting the dead."
"I'm preserving grief. You bury too quickly."
"I help people move forward."
She tilted her head.
"And when they don't want to?"
The walls around them shifted. The entire city began to slow down—pigeons frozen mid-air, clocks ticking backward.
Noor tapped her comm.
"City time dilation is accelerating. If she hits a full loop reversal, millions could be trapped in mourning states forever."
Lin Wei raised his card.
"Emergency Karma Transfer – Sacrificial Memory Seal"Cost: 3.5 Million Karma UnitsTarget: Widow Clock – Anchor Memory Nullification
He didn't destroy her.
He absorbed her grief.
A surge of memories—lost husbands, vanished daughters, time-withered regret—screamed into his mind.
But Lin Wei stood firm.
"Let go," he said. "Let them rest."
The Widow Clock knelt.
The crypt shattered.
And the first sinkhole closed.
One Down, Six to Go
As they left Buenos Aires, Tang Luyao contacted him via secure karmalink.
"You're becoming more than an agent," she said.
"I never wanted to be," he replied.
"Then why fight?"
He paused.
"Because someone has to build a bridge between balance and chaos."
The Crownless King was watching.
So were the other titans.
But Lin Wei didn't care.
The world was out of alignment.
And now, he wasn't just a cardholder.
He was the Architect of Karma's Future.