When I was thirteen, the world cracked like thin ice under a boot.

“Qingxing! Run! It’s dangerous here!” My father’s voice trembled like a torn drum in a storm.

He shoved me aside with all his strength, a wave-born shock loosening a stone slab from the shattered wall.

Boom—the slab fell like a mountain, crushing the man who’d walked beside me for thirteen winters.

“Dad… Dad!” Panic flared in me like wildfire racing up dry grass, and my hair—still black as midnight ink—stung my eyes.

I threw myself at him, heart pounding like a trapped sparrow, anger hot as iron in a forge.

My arms were useless twigs; even a full grocery bag defeated me on normal days.

Still, I clawed at the slab, trying to lift a hill with broken hands.

Blood ran like a red stream from my sliced palms, warm as a summer rain that wouldn’t stop.

Back then, even a scrape would make me cry till dusk.

Not now. I couldn’t stop.

Dad was waiting in the dark like a lantern I had to reach.

“Damn it…” Minutes passed like years. My strength was smoke.

I collapsed beside the stone, breath ragged as wind in broken reeds.

“Dad… I can’t save you…” Tears finally burst like a swollen cloud, hot and bitter.

My hands were a lattice of cuts, each one a little crimson mouth.

“Mom’s gone. Dad… are you going to leave me too?” I wiped my eyes with hands smeared in rust-red.

“Who did this?!”

The ruins answered with dust and silence.

“The Mammoth Syndicate really went all-out today. Even the city center’s wrecked like a floodplain,” a few men drifted through the rubble like crows.

“Good thing Brother Paohui was here. We netted them clean,” one said, pride sharp as a blade.

“Of course. Our Ouyang Clan’s Brother Paohui ranks thirty-five among the organization’s fighters,” a rainbow-haired punk chimed in, voice sweet as spoiled fruit.

“Those Mammoth losers can kick twice, then keel over. Who’d dare stand against us?”

Paohui snorted, cold as frost on steel. “Lucky I came. Otherwise you clowns would’ve botched it and shamed the Ouyang Clan.”

He glanced at the broken skyline, a weary wolf in a ruined forest.

“I hit too hard. Buildings snapped like brittle stalks. Cleanup crews will have plenty to do.”

“Finishing the mission is what matters. Civilians die, they die,” the rainbow-haired punk said, nudging a corpse with casual cruelty.

“You killed my parents!!!”

I rose from the rubble like a ghost from a winter grave, the world boiling white with rage.

One thought burned in my skull—kill them all, grind their bones to dust.

Something in me unfolded, a hidden sky opening with cold stars.

My fingers closed around a long, sword-shaped shard of stone, sharp as a moonlit fang.

I slashed at the line of men, breath steady as a hunter in snow.

“Dimensional Slash!”

“You… all deserve to die!”

A sudden pressure flooded the air like a tidal wave.

The rainbow-haired punk’s head slid from his neck, clean as silk.

Blood erupted like a red fountain, painting the shattered street.

Only Ouyang Paohui twisted aside with animal instinct, losing an arm to the invisible blade.

The others dropped like wheat under a scythe, heads rolling into dust.

“What the hell is that?!” Paohui spun, eyes wild, seeing his team cut into neat halves.

Pain hammered him where his arm used to be, mind fogging like breath on glass.

“Damn it, a transparent blade—what powerhouse can do this?!”

“Dad, Mom… your daughter avenged you.”

My voice trembled like a bell at midnight, but inside I felt solid as stone.

Power surged through me, silver lightning running along my spine.

My black hair spilled forward, then turned silver as moonlight on water.

The change felt strange, yet it fit me like winter fitting the north.

That slash had drained me, a tide pulling back from the shore.

But I still had enough strength to finish him.

I gripped the stone shard and went for the fallen beast.

“Aero Pulse!” Ouyang Paohui saw a silver-haired girl sprinting at him like a storm.

He didn’t hesitate—his remaining arm erupted with a blast of air, a cannon of wind and force.

I was faster now, my body tuned like a bow at full draw.

Right as the shard was about to kiss his skull, the air surged like a hurricane.

The blast hurled me across the ruins, a leaf caught in a sudden gale.

Thud—I slammed into a mound of stones, pain blooming everywhere like frostbite in a blizzard.

Before today, that impact would have snapped me like a twig.

I shook off dust with trembling hands and forced myself upright, a sapling in harsh wind.

My torn skin knit itself slowly, threads of pale light stitching me closed.

Even the old cuts faded, leaving only thin ghosts on my palms.

“Die!!!”

Paohui had just pushed himself up when a rock came flying, a hawk diving for his skull.

“Aero Pulse!” He blasted the rock aside, air roaring like a river in flood.

The silver-haired girl—me—charged again, mad as lightning, relentless as summer heat.

“Hey, beauty, what’s this about? Did we offend you?” His grin was rotten fruit.

He’d already decided I was the one who launched that invisible blade, and fear gnawed him like rats in the dark.

One more slash, and he’d drop into the night forever.

“Die.” The word fell like a winter decree.

I didn’t hear anything else. I only saw a mouth that wouldn’t shut, begging to be turned to pulp.

I took one Aero Pulse straight on, teeth clenched, ribs singing with pain.

Then I drove the stone through his heart, clean as a needle through silk.

“You’ll regret—” Paohui’s eyes went wide, then glassy.

His abnormal body kept him breathing for a few heartbeats, a candle guttering in wind.

He sucked in air to spit one last curse.

A fist-sized stone ended his sentence, crashing down like judgment.

“Hahaha! Dad, Mom—your daughter did it.” Blood slid from the corner of my mouth, slow as oil.

I dropped what used to be his body—no, just meat now—and turned to the other corpses.

“How could I let you die looking so pretty?”

I picked up a stone, walked on with quiet steps, and the ruins breathed cold.

A while later, a squad of ability-users arrived, drawn by Ouyang Paohui’s distress signal like moths to a dying flame.

“Ugh… what is this?!” Some gagged on sight, stomachs turning to water.

What lay before them was too vile to describe, a nightmare gate yawning open.

“Hah… hah…” I was exhausted, a runner at the end of the road, but a dark satisfaction warmed me like tea in winter.

I laughed, a ragged sound like a broken violin. “Hahahahaha…”

“Kill the girl. She must’ve murdered Paohui!” one of them shouted, finger pointing at me like a spear.

“Take her down!” Colors flared in their hands, bright as festival lanterns, power surging like rain-swollen rivers.

“Stop!” A young voice cut through the chaos, clean as a blade.

“Lin Fan?” The Ouyang Clan members froze mid-gesture, turning toward the black-haired boy standing a short distance away.

“This girl killed Ouyang Paohui. You gonna stand in our way?” the leader barked, voice thick as smoke.

“Bring her back,” said the old butler behind Lin Fan, voice even as still water.

Lin Fan didn’t fully understand his counsel, but the butler’s guidance was a lantern in fog.

He accepted it without fuss, like taking shelter under a roof during rain.

“We’re under orders to take her back for examination, not gut her on the spot like you lot,” Lin Fan said, calm as a mountain.

“If you have a problem, report it.”

He nodded once. The old butler moved like wind along stone, swift and sure.

He scooped me up, arms steady as a bridge, and pulled back from the battlefield.

“Are these people… good?” I looked at the elder holding me, thoughts drifting like leaves in a slow stream.

I couldn’t sort it out, but it felt better than the earlier crowd who wanted me dead.

Whatever. I let the world carry me like a boat on night waters.

“A space-affinity talent. A fine seedling,” the old butler thought aloud, eyes on the silver-haired girl over his shoulder, praise soft as morning light.