Xia Rou's true name in her previous life was irrelevant; no one had ever used it.
She was Orphan No. 472 in the state facility, died at nineteen from untreated infection after a beating, and opened her eyes again in a body that was eight years old, lying on a thin mat in a leaking shack on the outskirts of Lanzhou Fringe Zone, year 2036 of the Calamity Calendar.
In this life she had a mother who smelled of cheap soap and steamed buns.
She had a big sister, Xia Qing, seventeen, who worked double shifts in the crystal-refining plant so Rou could go to school.
They were poor—three people sharing one bowl of synthetic rice some nights—but they laughed. Real laughter. The kind Xia Rou had never known existed.
That laughter ended on the night of July 14, 2039.
A maximum-security transport carrying five death-row awakened criminals was attacked by an unregistered guild. All five escaped. One of them, a C-rank spatial awakener nicknamed "Doorbreaker," could tear holes in walls and locks alike.
They needed a place to hide while the city-wide manhunt cooled.
They picked the poorest district, the one with no surveillance arrays.
They picked Xia Rou's house.
Mother saw the five men force the door and reached for the emergency communicator.
The leader—a scarred man with B-rank "Brutal Strength"—backhanded her so hard the communicator shattered against the wall.
He smiled when he realized there were three females and no men in the house.
"No witnesses," he said. "But first… entertainment."
They locked the door from the inside.
They laughed about drawing lots.
Xia Qing tried to fight first. She was only Level 11, no combat talent, just a D-rank "Endurance" from factory work.
They broke her arms like chopsticks, then took turns holding her down while the first man raped her on the living-room floor.
Mother screamed and clawed; they punched her unconscious and dragged her to the bedroom.
Eight-year-old Xia Rou (no, fifteen in soul-age) was frozen in the corner, too terrified to move, too hateful to cry.
They saved the "little one" for last because "virgins fetch extra on the black market if unbroken."
They were wrong about her being unbroken.
They stripped her while she was still paralyzed with shock.
The one with spatial talent opened a small void pocket and pulled out restraints meant for monster capture—ether-steel cables that burned skin on contact.
They tied her wrists to the table legs.
They argued over who got to "open" her first.
The first man forced her legs apart.
She felt the tear, the burn, the wet slap of flesh on flesh, the animal grunts above her.
The second flipped her over and took her from behind while the third forced himself into her mouth until she choked on blood and bile.
The fourth and fifth waited their turn, drinking cheap alcohol, laughing about how tight children were.
They went through all three of them multiple times, rotating, competing to see who could make them scream loudest.
Mother woke up halfway through and tried to crawl to her daughters; they kicked her teeth in and continued on her daughters right in front of her broken body.
When they were finally sated, they doused the shack in industrial accelerant stolen from the refinery.
Mother and Xia Qing were already dead—necks snapped to stop the screaming.
Xia Rou was unconscious, bleeding from everywhere, left for dead under the table.
The fire woke her.
She crawled through flames on broken fingers, lungs full of smoke, skin blistering.
By the time she reached the street, the shack was a pyre.
She never saw their faces again—only the orange glow that swallowed the only two people who had ever loved her.
Rescue teams found a feral child screaming at the sky, covered in third-degree burns and someone else's blood.
They sedated her.
They logged her as "sole survivor, psychological trauma extreme."
In the hospital, the hate settled in her marrow like lead.
This world let monsters wear human skins.
This world let little girls burn.
She would burn it back.
Weeks later, when the sedatives wore off and the nightmares became a constant waking roar, the crack in space opened beside her bed.
Zhou Ling stepped out—no longer the gentle sister from the history holos, but the Devil Queen in full regal horror: thirteen wings folded like a cloak of midnight, eyes inverted burning crosses, voice layered with thirteen ancient devils.
She looked at the bandaged child who had clawed her own wounds open just to feel something other than memory.
"I know what they did to you," the Devil Queen said softly. "I know the taste."
Xia Rou's voice was rust and ashes. "Can you make them feel it? Every second?"
"I can make you strong enough to do it yourself."
"Cost?"
Zhou Ling extended a hand on which living contracts of blood writhed.
"One condition. When you are strong enough… eradicate the Zhao bloodline. Every branch, every bastard child, every distant cousin hiding behind guild names. Salt their graves so thoroughly the earth forgets their names."
Xia Rou stared at the hand.
She remembered her mother's smile over a shared half-bun.
She remembered Xia Qing braiding her hair and promising they would all awaken strong one day.
She took the hand.
Black fire poured into her veins.
The hospital monitors flatlined.
When the nurses burst in, the bed was empty, only a single line burned into the wall in letters of devil-script:
THE CONTRACT IS SEALED.
In the academy records years later, Xia Rou would be listed as "orphan, parents deceased (monster attack)."
A convenient lie.
The truth was simpler.
She was born twice.
The first time, she died alone.
The second time, she was forged in rape, fire, and the promise of genocide.
And tomorrow, when the monolith asks what she desires…
…she will answer with the only truth left in her soul.
Destroy everything.