There was once a god who did not kneel.
Not to the Heavens. Not to the other gods. Not even to the cries of ten billion dying voices.
They called her by many names; Sovereign of the Soul Flame, Jade-Born Calamity, The Red Silence. But to the System, she was simply:
[Designation: Subject 413]
[Status: Divine-Class Entity | Condemned]
[Crime: Soul Massacre (10,387,221,940 confirmed deaths)]
[Judgment: Fragmentation, Forced Emotional Rehabilitation, Eternal Punishment Cycle]
Her soul had been too pure. Too powerful. Refined through aeons of rebirth, it had begun to crystallize. Those who tasted even a sliver of it gained unimaginable strength. Kingdoms were built around her jade fragments. Armies marched for a whisper of her essence.
So they came. Friends, lovers, disciples. One by one, they betrayed her. Dug into her body. Hollowed her out piece by piece.
She smiled through it all. And then she killed them.
All of them.
The Heavens could not destroy her. So they scattered her soul across the Veil and gave the fragments to the System - cold, mechanical, unfeeling - to tame her.
She woke once, in chains forged from forgotten names, floating in the black between worlds.
[Cycle 000: Begin Punishment Protocol.]
[Memory Seal Applied.]
[Name Erased.]
[Facial Mark: Engraved.]
[Purpose: Reawaken emotional integrity through mortal lives.]
[Restoration upon completion: Denied.]
She did not beg.
Across the glassy space, she saw him, her only equal. Her first blade. Her last comfort.
He had burned through space to save her. Tore apart his own foundation to send her soul away before the gods could annihilate it. He used every drop of his strength not to fight, but to hide her.
He had not smiled since.
"You will forget me," he said, his voice cracking through the cold. "But I will remember."
Then he was dragged below. Bound. Locked in the Void of Silence.
His punishment was stillness.
Hers was never stopping.
And so the cycles began.
She woke again and again, in the bodies of those whose lives ended in tragedy. Girls wronged by fate, by family, by cruel men. She would live for them, feel for them, redeem them. Only then would she be permitted to move on.
Each success earned her a soul token, a flicker of her former self sealed in jade.
And each time she moved between lives, she stood in a place of silence.
No time. No weight. A small glowing corridor lit only by white jade pillars. There, the System replayed the tokens she'd earned, showing her what they felt. What they hoped for. What she still could not understand.
"You were not destroyed because you were evil," the System once told her.
"You are being punished because you did not feel."
"You did not regret."
"You did not kneel."
In that corridor, a mirror sometimes flickered.
Sometimes it showed her face, expressionless with a cinnabar teardrop beneath her left eye - the only piece of her the gods had not taken.
Other times, it showed a man behind her, pale hair, sharp eyes, gaze steady even as the world burned behind him.
She did not recognize him.
Not yet.
[Cycle 001: Prepare Body - Bai Ningwei.]
[Location: Southern State, Bai Family Residence]
[Status of host: Dead | Reputation: Ruined]
[Task Conditions: Correct injustice. Earn soul token. Survive 9 days minimum.]
[Transfer in 3… 2… 1…]
And then, as always, the fall.
A sudden plummet through silence.
The taste of cold rice.
A weak, broken body breathing for the first time again.
The System buzzed in her ears.
The world waited with cruel eyes.
And Subject 413 opened them.