“Really? Got it.” The message from the Organization came like a stone into still water. I left my temporary den without looking back.

A year and a half had drifted by since I butchered that Ouyang squad. The fallout hung like a winter fog between the Ouyang Clan and the Lin Clan, thick but not yet a blizzard. They wouldn’t tear the veil over a single team’s death. I moved into the Lin Clan and started systematic training in abilities. With nowhere else to go, this quiet courtyard was as good as any harbor. Maybe here, I could keep rowing toward revenge for my parents.

I lifted my chin to the mirror. Silver hair poured to my waist like moonlight over a blade, obviously long past a trim. The black trench made my skin look like paper under ink. My tee was tucked at the waist, a flash of fishnet beneath like a net dragged from dark water. Black denim hugged my hips; the left leg was cut high from the root, a pale limb drawn like a stroke of chalk, while the right was wrapped tight, beauty caged in cloth. My features were fine as carved jade, but a cold, unearthly chill clung to them. My pupils were black, slit like a serpent’s.

I almost botched my first mission because of that silver hair. The moon kissed it, and it betrayed me. But that just gave me another excuse to hunt. Dismembering these noisy humanoid pests added some sparks to a gray life.

That job was simple on paper: infiltrate a terror cell and cut down their leader. I slid along shadow and brick, a ripple in night—until a goon spotted the moonlight on my hair. Pity for him, night took his warning before his tongue could shape it.

I drew my blade to part his head from his shoulders—then paused. A taste of play before the kill wouldn’t hurt. A crooked smile curled like smoke. I shifted the edge and flicked at his fingers instead. His scream rose, and my knee crashed into his gut to stamp the sound flat.

“Eat it.” I set his severed finger before him like a gift on an altar.

He shook his head like a rattle drum, eyes wide with the kind of fear that smells of iron. To him I was a demon crawling up from hell. Maybe I was. Losing my parents had frozen my river and cracked it cruel.

Whoosh. Another cut fell. This time his whole hand landed on the dirt like a dead fish. “No time to waste. Eat.” I drove the blade into his thigh; twin pains flooded him, reason swept away like footprints in surf.

When I raised my sword again, he panicked and shoved the finger into his mouth, chewing like a starving dog. “Oh? You could’ve skipped the suffering.” My edge kissed his throat, sliding slow as a cold wind. When he swallowed, I moved his head to a new home.

“That’s enough. Back to work.” Sated on my little vice, I ghosted to the leader’s room. He tasted the same vice and died with pain like a red sunset.

Back at base, the Inspector watched the execution footage and almost vomited, face green as old copper. He told me—twice—not to desecrate corpses like that. His words fell like rain on oil. I didn’t let them sink in.

I finally learned Huaguo’s strangest bureau from the inside. We trawled the civilian sea for new mutants, handled thorny incidents no army wanted in their teeth. Not every ability-user wore a halo; plenty bled for terror cells and underground rings. When regular troops hit a wall, we walked through it.

Civilians knew nothing. To them, powers only lived in paper and film. Inside, we ranked abilities: Novice, Low, Mid, High, Apex. Three branches: Mental, Elemental, Mutant—three rivers feeding the same ocean.

Novice: first awakening, a candle just lit. Low: past the wobble, a steadier hand. Mid: fluent, like breath synced to blade. High: ability woven into martial skill, thread and steel as one. Apex: seamless control, technique and power indistinguishable, a storm cupped in one palm.

Most members stalled at Novice or Low. Hit Mid, and you earned a name on the power rolls. High? Only a few dozen, their shadows printed across the top fifty. Apex stayed in the top ten, a rare constellation. The Three Great Clans filled most of the top hundred; the rest were our own finds, with a few lone wolves clawing their way up by grit.

When they tested me, the needles and graphs all said Apex potential in space manipulation. But after that one time, Dimensional Slash never came again. Now I could barely rip space to blink a short distance, the cost biting into muscle and mind. And even that wasn’t all I could do...

“Time to move.” I checked my gear and rode an Organization van to the rally point. Since joining, I’d never been put on a multi-person team. My methods—and my hobbies—made that a bad idea. This time, no choice. We were short on heavy hitters, and the mission mattered. They threw me into a squad like flint into tinder.

Three of them were from the Ouyang Clan. Not teammates—enemies. They saw me and didn’t even twitch. The Ouyang Clan had forgotten me. After that night, Lin Fan erased my footprints and peeled me from everyone’s sight. In the quiet hours, I liked to trail that black-haired boy and listen to his stories. Killing and carving gets dull; a voice by the window breaks the rain. By now, the only people I knew here were the old butler, the Inspector, and Lin Fan.

Besides the Ouyang men, the squad had a few non-clan ability-users. They knew each other. I didn’t bother with greetings. There were women, too, but next to me they were lanterns at noon.

The first half had nothing to do with me. Let them plod through the setup. The target needed to be captured alive, but he had a strong ability-user for a shield—too much for their hands. That’d be my stage.

“You people got guts!” the bodyguard barked as his skin turned into metal, a bronze statue drawing breath. “Needle Barrage!” Spikes exploded from him in ranks, a steel rain. One teammate froze a heartbeat too long and turned into a hedgehog.

“Silver-hair! Your turn!” They fell back, eyes on me. Their intel said I was the hammer for this nail.

I unhooked my tachi, Ghost Dance. Its long blade carried etched sakura, a river of petals in steel. The hilt was carved with care; they’d told me it was specially treated—razor-sharp, stubbornly tough.

“Drawn Slash—cutting the air.” I snapped a lightning-fast iaijutsu. Blade-qi shredded the incoming spikes, wave crashing against wave. The leftover force slapped the metal man and didn’t even make him sway.

“Haha! That won’t scratch me!” He laughed, a gong in a temple hall.

“...” I rushed in, breath cold, heart calm. “Iai Slash!” The strike bit—and rang like I’d hit an anvil. My small frame skidded back, light as a leaf in a gust. Tiny scratches laced his waist, no more than cat tracks on stone.

“Told you. Useless.” His metal fist swelled and crashed down. Midair, I raised Ghost Dance and caught the blow, sparks like fireflies.

The instant our gazes met, I opened the Eye of Fear. He saw something only nightmares remember. Panic ripped through him. The metal fell away like a shed skin.

“Flash Step.” I tore space and slipped behind him, a shadow stepping through a curtain. “Swallow Reversal.” The blade whispered. His head left his neck like a fruit from the stem.

“Interesting...” I quartered him in three neat cuts and sheathed the tachi. We’d lost one teammate. The others didn’t mind me venting on the corpse—at least, that’s what they told themselves.

Then, behind the target’s guards and murmurs, a name surfaced: Mammoth Organization. The word was a hammer. My thoughts detonated. “So it’s your Mammoth Organization that killed my parents.”

I drew to cut the target down. Hands blocked me. “Hey! We need him alive!”

“Shut up. Or you die too.” My vertical pupils narrowed, a blade’s edge in black.

“No way. Interfere again, and we treat you as hostile.” They set their stances, air tightening like a bowstring.

“Dimensional Slash.” The world hiccuped. My draw flashed. Like last time, they didn’t even blink before their bodies parted, clean as paper torn by wind. “I told you. Don’t get in my way.” I stepped over their dying heat and reached the target, still turning over how the Slash had answered me.

He died slowly. The mission died with him. I butchered a whole squad because they stood between me and the truth. I don’t regret it. For my parents, any price is a coin I’ll spend.