White-hot pain exploded across the back of her skull. The world fractured into a kaleidoscope of spinning leaves and a bruised twilight sky. The coppery taste of blood flooded her mouth where her teeth had cut into her cheek.
Bang.
That sound. That specific, sickening thud of a rifle butt against bone. It was a key turning in a lock deep within her soul, opening a door to a nightmare she had already lived.
Tang Xiya's bloodshot eyes flew open in shock her heart beating wildly in her chest.
A choked sob, half-hysterical laughter, half-unbearable pain, caught in her throat.
This pain… it was real. It was alive!
She was alive!
It wasn't the dull, constant thrum of decay in that lab. This was acute, brilliant, and screamingly present. It was the pain of a body that could still feel, and the paradox of that—that agony could be a gift—nearly broke her mind.
Her dark eyes still blurry swept around the area. She was on the ground. Cold soil beneath her hands. The smell of pine and sea spray. Real. All of it, real.
Ghost Island!
The thought was a fragile, impossible thing. She was here. She was here! The system hadn't lied. The deal was real. A second chance wasn't a hope; it was dirt under her fingernails and blood on her tongue.
A wave of emotion, so violent it was a physical force, slammed into her. It was a tsunami of joy so profound it was agony, of hatred so pure it crystallized in her veins, of a resentment that burned brighter than any star. Hot tears, clean and salty, mingled with the blood on her face. She was crying for the woman who had rotted in a lab, for the princess who had fallen from grace, and for this broken girl on the ground. All of them were her, and all of them were finally fighting back.
"Stupid bitch, think you can run from us?" a gruff voice snarled. A boot connected with her ribs, and a familiar, sickening crack echoed in her ears. The same rib. The same boot. The same man.
Memory superimposed over reality. This was the beating that would leave her with a permanent limp and a scar that would steal the last of her confidence. The ghost of that future pain, a phantom limb of suffering, screamed in her nerves.
No. Not this time! Never again.
Tang Xiya's eyes turned black and penetrating, her heart engulfed with deep hatred, anger, resentment and vengeance. Her fists were clenched so tight that her knuckles turned white.
The man, a hulking brute with a pockmarked face, leaned down to grab her hair. "We'll break your legs, see how far you get then—"
Tang Xiya moved.
It wasn't a conscious thought. Her body, weak and malnourished, simply, reacted. But it wasn't the reaction of a timid heiress.
It was the fluid, lethal grace of a survivor from a zombie apocalypse—the muscle memory of her first calibration world. A knowledge that wasn't hers, a gift from the deal, surged through her limbs. It felt like slipping into a familiar, bloodstained glove.
Her hand snapped up, fingers rigid, and drove into the soft hollow of the man's throat.
He gagged, his eyes bulging in shock and utter disbelief, releasing her instantly. She scrambled back, her body screaming in protest, every old-and-new injury alight with fire. The triumph was a fleeting, fierce spark in the darkness of her pain.
"You little—" the second man, thinner but with cruel, quick eyes, drew a long, curved knife. "I'll carve you up for that!"
He lunged. The blade flashed in the dim light. In her previous life, this slash had opened her cheek from lip to ear, a mark of shame she had hidden for years.
Tang Xiya didn't dodge. She flowed into the movement, her body twisting in a way that should have been impossible. The knife grazed her shoulder instead, slicing through fabric and skin, a line of searing cold followed by hot blood. But it wasn't the disfiguring wound of before. It was a trade she would make a thousand times over.
She cried out, the pain a sharp, clarifying tonic. She was still weak. Terribly weak. This body had never fought. The borrowed skill was there, but the vessel was fragile glass. The brutal reality of her limitation crashed down upon her.
The first man recovered, drawing his own knife, his face a mask of rage. "I'll kill you!"
They came at her together. It was a whirlwind of violence. Tang Xiya was overpowered in seconds. A fist slammed into her jaw. A kick buckled her knee. She was a ragdoll between them, each blow a testament to her physical weakness. But her will was a diamond, forged in the darkness of a rotting basement and an apocalyptic wasteland. She embraced the pain. It was a reminder that she was here, fighting, not passively waiting for death.
She took a slash across her forearm blocking a stab meant for her heart. She took a punch to the gut that stole her breath, but used the momentum to roll, coming up with a thick, heavy branch.
She fought not to win, but to survive. She fought dirty. She kicked dirt into their eyes, she screamed not in fear but in raw, undiluted fury. She saw an opening. The thinner man, off-balance, stumbled near the edge of the cliff.
With a strength born of pure desperation, she dropped the branch and threw herself at him, not to push, but to cling and spin. They teetered on the edge for a heart-stopping second, his knife scraping against her ribs. She met his wide, surprised eyes, and in hers, he saw not a frightened girl, but the cold, patient hatred of a revenant that had crawled out of its own grave.
"My regards to hell," she whispered, her voice a bloody rasp.
And then she let her own weight carry them both over.
But at the last possible second, her fingers, slick with blood, found a jutting root. She held on, her body slamming against the cliff face as the man's scream was swallowed by the waves below. The strain on her arms was excruciating, a final, brutal demand from a body pushed far beyond its limits.
Gasping, every muscle shrieking, she hauled herself back over the edge, collapsing onto the rocky ground. She was bleeding from a dozen wounds, her vision graying at the edges. The metallic taste of blood was a constant.
A shadow fell over her.
The first man, his throat already purpling, stood there, his knife raised for a final, killing plunge. "You're dead!"
Tang Xiya's hand felt and closed around the only weapon left. A heavy, jagged stone. It felt like the weight of all her past failures and future hopes condensed into one object.
As he lunged, she didn't try to move away. She moved into him, meeting his charge, accepting the knife as it plunged deep into the meat of her side.
The pain was apocalyptic. It was everything. It was the lab, the betrayal, the fall of a nation, and the death of a president. It condensed into a single, white-hot point of agony.
But it was not as bad as the maggots. Nothing would ever be as bad as the maggots.
With a final, silent scream that contained all the torment of her first death, she brought the rock up and around with every ounce of life she had left and smashed it into the side of his head.
There was a wet, crunching sound. His eyes went blank. He collapsed like a sack of stones onto her, motionless.
Silence, except for the wind in the trees and the ragged, wet sound of her own breathing. The sound of victory.
She shoved the dead weight off her. The knife was still in her side. She dared not pull it out. Blood was everywhere, a warm, sticky pool beneath her.
She was dying. Again.
But as she lay there, staring up at the emerging stars through the canopy, a bloody, broken smile stretched across her ashen face. The stars were beautiful. She hadn't noticed that last time.
Her leg was whole. Her face was cut, but not deeply scarred. The timeline had been changed. She had wrestled with fate and, for the first time, drawn blood.
A broken, gurgling laugh escaped her lips, mingling with tears of triumph and pain.
Suddenly, a familiar mechanical voice!
**[Preliminary survival objective complete. Host's vital signs critical.
Dispensing 'S. Soul Pill' (Grade: Mortal Miracle). Cost: 500 System Points.
Insufficient points. Placing in debt.]**
A pill, glowing with a soft internal light, materialized above her lips. It dissolved into light and flowed into her mouth.
The effect was instantaneous. Liquid sunlight poured through her veins. The fire in her side extinguished, the deep gash knitting itself together from the inside out. The broken rib snapped audibly back into alignment. The slash on her arm faded to a pink line, then to smooth, unblemished skin. It was a miracle that felt suspiciously like a transaction.
She took a deep, shuddering breath—a clean, full breath. The air had never tasted so sweet.
The System's voice returned, calm and explanatory.
**[This one is an agent of cosmic balance. A curator of karmic debt. You were a soul wronged, your potential extinguished in a manner that created a rift. This one offers a conduit for resolution. You will be transported to worlds where similar souls have suffered similar injustices, their deepest wishes unfulfilled. You will inhabit their forms and live the lives they were denied. You will fulfill their wishes and settle their karmic debts.]**
Tang Xiya listened, pushing herself up onto her elbows. She was alive. She was whole. She was in debt.
**[In return, you earn System Points. They are a currency of fate. They can be used for skills, knowledge, items. And they can, eventually, purchase your ultimate desire: the means to return to your world of origin, to that very moment, with the power to exact the revenge you crave.]**
Tang Xiya slowly got to her feet. She looked at her hands—clean, capable hands. Tools for a purpose.
**[Preliminary Mission: Shepherd the Lost. The other captives remain in the traffickers' camp. Their fate is intertwined with the rift that drew this system to your soul. Ensure their safe passage to the incoming military vessel.
Reward: Reduction of negative debt.]**
The other victims. In her previous life, she had been too broken to even think of them. Now, the System's words painted them clearly in her mind. Not just faceless others, but souls whose suffering had somehow called out to the same cosmic justice that had saved her. Their fear was a tangible thing in the air, a scent she could now recognize.
A cold, pragmatic part of her whispered that it was a distraction. Every second was a second not spent on her revenge.
But a deeper, older part—the part that had rotted in a basement, utterly forgotten—understood what it meant to be abandoned. She had been given a weapon. It would be a poor sort of vengeance to become the very kind of monster she sought to destroy.
"Where is the camp?" she asked, her voice low and steady, already scanning the treeline for a path she remembered from a lifetime ago.