She was born from the collective essence of all living creatures.
In the primordial chaos of the ancient world, She was awakened by the very first roar.
Amidst the dependence and reverence of countless lives, She ascended to godhood.
Later, She departed from Her world of origin, stepping into the sea of stars to journey across the myriad realms.
She had once reached out to brush the warm antlers of a spirit deer, letting forests unfurl like green waves beneath their hooves.
She had once descended into the abyss of the deep sea to cradle a suffocating leviathan, lifting it back to the sapphire depths.
In every world, She did only one thing—ensure the happiness of animals.
That happiness transformed into a gentle radiance, flowing into Her godhead and making Her ever stronger.
Until one day, She sensed an unusual and violent torrent of negative emotions within the sea of stars, leading Her to a planet known as the Blue Planet.
In that moment, the starlight came to a halt beneath Her feet.
This planet was no longer a sapphire gem; it was a rotting heart, swollen with pus, blood, and wailing. It felt like a rising tide, like a scream, like torn souls echoing repeatedly through the darkness.
She saw, deep within iron cages, pairs of eyes clouded by extreme terror.
She saw scalpels slicing through warm fur, drawing out a string of trembling whimpers that were ruthlessly stifled.
In the shadows of what was called "civilization", life was folded, priced, and discarded like refuse in the freezing night.
At that moment, Her godhead let out a desolate, cracking sound.
It was not a depletion of power, but rather that the wails carried by this planet were too heavy; even the spine of the Goddess felt that piercing, raw humility belonging to the living creatures.
"…Why so?" She asked softly.
No one answered; humanity could not hear Her. But the animals—those dead, those dying, and those about to die—they heard.
Countless fragments of consciousness converged—fear, despair, grievance, rage... and a tiny, flickering spark of longing.
She closed Her eyes, and when She opened them again, the sea of stars ebbed and flowed within Her gaze.
"I grant thee a choice," Her voice carried a chill for the first time.
"— To barter thy lives, one for the other."
The world seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
She reached out Her hand toward those souls: "Art thou willing to exchange thy bodies, thy stations, and thy very all with the mortals who didst wrong thee?"
Silence reigned, yet She knew that they understood. As the Goddess, Her words carried the power of universal comprehension—once spoken, clarity was theirs.
Then, a tiny voice spoke up. It was a white mouse that had spent its entire life trapped in a glass box: [...Is it possible?]
She nodded. "I so promise; it is done."
Like a spark catching fire, more and more voices gathered:
[I want to live just once... without being cut open.]
[I want to see the sky...]
[I want to know... what it feels like to be treated with gentleness.]
[I don't want it to hurt anymore...]
But there were also voices—faint, yet resolute.
There was an old yellow dog, its ribs clearly visible, its rough tongue mechanically licking the puppy in its arms—the last bit of warmth it had protected with its life.
It looked up at the Goddess. There was no hate in its eyes, only a dull, stubborn persistence:
[I don't want to become them... even if they are wicked, I do not wish to become such a being.]
She fell silent for a moment, then whispered: "Thou mayest choose to refrain. I shall not compel thee"
She raised Her hand, and the power of the starlight transformed into shimmering seals of covenant.
"Change their forms; trade their lives." She lowered Her eyelids.
"Since they didst crave this game, let them enter the cage themselves to spend the remnant of their days. For those who wish not for the trade, I have another place prepared."
In that instant, the laws of Blue Planet were quietly rewritten. No one noticed, yet no one could escape.
On the first day, save for a tiny few, no one realized the world had changed.
On the second day, people began to have nightmares.
On the third day—the tremors arrived.
A researcher woke up in his laboratory. He looked down and saw not his own hands, but a tiny body pinned to a metal rack.
An icy needle-tip pierced his spine without mercy—the very act he had performed on countless living beings.
In that instant, a heart-tearing, searing pain raced along his narrow nerves, crashing through his tiny frame.
He tried to scream in fury, but what came out was a shrill, brief, and absurdly high-pitched—
"Squeak—!"
It was a frequency that made even his bones shudder.
At the other end of the city—
A white mouse, once a test subject, stood before a mirror.
"She" reached out, touching the world for the first time with a "human" form.
Standing by the window, watching the skyscrapers and the flow of traffic, watching the light slide off the glass, "she" personally experienced the strangeness, the noise, and the coldness of the human world.
Those eyes, once clouded, were now piercingly clear. There was no ecstasy of revenge—only a long, heavy exhaustion soaked into the marrow by suffering.
"She" could finally walk upright, yet she did not know where to go.
The transformation began to spread. Not to everyone, but—to enough.
Those who once inflicted pain began to "understand" it.
Not through logic or morality, but through personal experience.
Some collapsed, some went mad, some pleaded for forgiveness in despair, and others, in that final moment, finally understood what they had truly done to life.
Meanwhile, the souls who chose not to exchange were taken by Her. Crossing the sea of stars, they fell into another world.
There were no iron cages there, no man-made hierarchies, no domesticated fear.
The sky hung low and gentle, like a breathing azure; the grass grew naturally with the pace of life, unconfined; the water ran clear and free, reflecting all things in their original form.
Predation still existed, but it followed only the most primal laws—no mockery, no sadistic slaughter, no unnecessary agony.
It was a world without "human rules"—the paradise closest to Nature itself.
She stood beyond Blue Planet, watching the chaos and restructuring of the world.
Upon Her godhead, the crack closed slowly, yet it did not vanish. Instead, it condensed into a cold, hard scar like a glacier.
It was not a loss of power, but a mark of doubt. She had once believed that life would trend toward gentleness, but Blue Planet had shattered that faith.
That scar was the mark She left for Blue Planet—She no longer tried to embrace the planet with open arms. Instead, She retracted Her wings, watching coldly from the clouds.
It was no longer pure mercy, but a silence heavy with judgment.
"Is this truly thy will?" She whispered.
Blue Planet did not respond.
But one day, beside a pile of ruins, a child carefully picked up a stray cat covered in blood and filth. Her touch was light, as if touching a fragile, priceless treasure.
"Don't be afraid... I won't hurt you."
In that moment, amidst a night thick with malice, a wisp of warm light—so faint it seemed the wind would blow it away—rose from the ravaged planet.
She saw it.
After a long silence, She gently raised Her hand.
She did not descend with further judgment, but with a Blessing. A wisp of destiny, as light as the wind, fell upon that child, and upon all those who chose to treat life with tenderness.
Her wish had never changed, only Her methods—if kindness was scarce, then kindness would be amplified; if gentleness was rare, then gentleness would find an echo.
In the next instant, Her divine power radiated outward again, covering the entire Blue Planet. It was silent, yet irresistible.
The massive screens in neon-lit malls, the computers in office buildings, even the burning-hot phones in the hands of passersby—all faded into silence in the same second.
Static flickered briefly, followed by red text on a black background. Like a red-hot branding iron, it seared itself directly into the retinas of all humanity.
Every device on Blue Planet capable of receiving information lit up simultaneously. There was no source signal, no trace of intrusion, yet they could not be turned off.
Upon the screens, a line of text slowly emerged:
[Fate Exchange: Live Broadcast of the Abusers]
After a brief pause, more lines appeared:
[What you have given shall be personally endured by you.]
[What you have ignored shall be reenacted upon you.]
[The pain you deemed insignificant—shall become your entire world.]
It was not just the screens. In deep mountains where electricity could not reach, on isolated islands where signals were cut off—
All birds tucked their wings at once; all wild beasts bowed their heads.
The low growls of the myriad beasts converged into a tide, vibrating the syllables of an oracle into the air.
The murky well water reflected a sun as red as blood, the words floating upon the surface:
[The choice has never ended.]
This night, the world did not sleep.