Late night on a city block surrounded by the glow of towering skyscrapers, a shadowed figure hustled along the sidewalk eager to be home.

They say cities are alive, and yet their glow blocks out the stars and their grey concrete covers the earth.

The street was devoid of activity, but for this one pitiable human being named Shen Ling.

Shen Ling lived a worthless life with neither friends nor relatives nor a single soul of comfort. Her accomplishments were meager, and yet so too were her tribulations. She could not say she lived a harsh life nor had she encountered any great fortune. However, her misery was apparent to any who looked upon her plain and ordinary face.

The crisp evening air of the city held no remorse for a tired woman. Although Shen Ling didn’t actively crave the attentions of others, for she hardly knew of such compassion in her own life, she suffered silently from a malady of the spirit that any stranger could immediately identify as loneliness. If one were to total the sum of her 21 years on the earth, one could title this number; invisible. From the perspective of the heavens, Shen Ling was little more than a forgotten shadowy speck in the dirt, existing in a metropolis of opportunities missed.

A dull metallic gong echoed from an alleyway as she walked passed. Startled, Shen Ling paused to investigate the cause of the noise.

“Look boss. This one thinks it can escape.” A dark haired beauty in a torn white dress stumbled out of the alleyway, tripping and scraping her hands against the concrete.

“Help me. Please help me,” she begged at Shen Ling’s feet, her face a dreadful mask of tears and fear.

Three men casually stepped out from the darkness. Their clothing, while not exactly matching, appeared to be coordinated as a subtle type of uniform. An ill intent filled their wanton eyes. They held themselves upright with arrogance and viciousness, the imposing nature of a pack of starving wolves.

Formidable. Too formidable!

“What do you think you’re looking at? Scram!”

Shen Ling bowed her head to the ground, not daring to look upon these terrifying men. But in doing so, her eyes intersected with the beauty crawling desperately toward her.

“Please.” She reached her snow white trembling hand out to Shen Ling’s pant leg.

I can’t. Shen Ling stepped backward into the street. This was what was known as cowardice, having never encountered the true trauma of violence. She was only a simple manufacturing worker on her way home from a day like every other before it. Her mind reeled from the shock, barely able to process the situation unravelling before her eyes. This was none of her business.

“Smart choice tough guy.” The men began dragging the beauty back into the alley.

The beauty glared at Shen Ling with a savage depth of cold hatred. Her rage boiled over into action, and she poured it onto her captors, kicking, screaming, punching in utterly futile desperation.

The men took the beating with smirks and laughter. “So feisty. She’s going to be fun. I bet this one is going to last a while.”

It’s not my fault. Shen Ling had finally encountered a truly heinous tribulation. And like a newborn, she was powerless in every respect. In fact, as the men disappeared into the darkness with the beauty, Shen Ling felt relief; she felt safe. Secretly, she had always resented that due to her plain appearance and simple features, she was often mistaken for a man. But this night, for a brief moment, she was grateful.

A pair of headlights blared their blinding light. A horn sounded. Shen Ling stared down the lights like a stunned fawn in the face of a lion. The impact shattered her legs and crushed her torso sending her flying backward bouncing across the pavement. She died suffering, bleeding out on her back looking up at a sky without stars.

The world became an infinite grey mist. Words appeared and numbers scrolled inside Shen Ling’s consciousness to the tune of arcade tones.

Life Score

Good Deeds +66,666,666

Evil Acts -66,666,666

Total Karma 0

Karmic Verdict

Absolute Zero

Rebirth Rank

Beginner Level 1

It was impossible to know how long Shen Ling drifted through the mist as a bodiless spirit. Seconds and eons were comparable in this infinite space, but whether the former or the latter, at some point two circular gateways appeared amidst the grey mist. Shen Ling’s ghostly form drifted naturally between them. On the left was a black tunnel, while on the right was a white matching tunnel.

Which path is the right one?

In her ghostly form it was nearly impossible to concentrate. It was as if her mind had been truly detached from the universe and was only now awakened. After a short time of pondering, Shen Ling was beginning to favour the white path. Very slowly, as if in response to her heart's desire, her spirit form floated toward the white gateway.

An inch before she reached the faintly glowing threshold of the white tunnel, a tiny light flashed from the center of the black tunnel.

Huh? What was that?

The white sparkle drew her attention, focussing her mind. It twinkled again like a star in the night sky. Shen Ling floated toward the tiny star at the center of the black gateway, drawn toward the flickering light by a deep lingering desire to see the numinous night sky.

Shen Ling reached out with her ghostly arm, seemingly holding the star itself in her palm.

The threshold of the black gateway had been breached. The idle tunnel came to life before Shen Ling’s senses. A spinning vortex of black clouds laced with arcing red lightning bolts sucked her soul forward in a deadly vacuum.

Ding. (The oven timer)

In a clearing of blood red dirt surrounded by a forest of leafless grey trees, seven children all roughly twelve years of age materialized on top of a row of thirteen boulders. Six other identical flattened stones were left empty without children.

Dozens of people knelt before the rebirth boulders, praying for their offerings to be enough to spawn a child.

Shen Ling stood atop a large boulder carved with a glowing hexagram pattern of connecting foreign runes. The dense heat of the air drove her to sweat almost immediately.

Voracious laughter erupted from below! “Finally, my son is born! Welcome him. Welcome to the Netherworld!” barked a tall well built man with a shortly trimmed ruby beard, standing up next to a petite middle aged woman with azure hair. She smiled and clung to her husband’s side, the traces of tears forming around her dark smiling eyes. “Tell me my son, what are you called?”

Huh, what now?

Similar, if less boisterous, meetings took place on another six boulders throughout the clearing, while the last six groups retreated in failure toward the surrounding grey forest.

“Shen Ling,” she said with only minor hesitation.

“What a formidable name. It is definitely worthy of being the name of Shen Shudun’s son!” The burly man’s bravado filled the clearing. That the two had the same rare surname could not be coincidence.

“Oh Shudun, it looks like this year your meager offering to the heavens was finally accepted.” A lean man with a pointed black beard wearing a purple robe tied closed with jade rope strode out from a nearby crowd. Next to him was a twelve year old boy in the orange robes of new birth, which all the recently materialized children wore. “Your mouse droppings were finally successful.”

“Bellruse . . .” Shen Shudun growled. “Your offering was accepted as well, I see.” Lao Bellruse was the uncle of the chieftain of the tribe, and Shen Shudun had no choice but to bow his head and give the scoundrel face. Although they were both members of the Redwall tribe, the Lao clan was its main branch, while Shen Shudun and his wife were merely associates, not even branch members.

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“My son, Lao Dong, has four tier dual horns and is bound to be the next genius of my Lao clan.” Lao Bellruse slapped his newly reborn son on the back. “Tell us, what is the state of your boy’s potential?”

It was only after this uncle Lao mentioned horns that Shen Ling noticed all of the people around her had various types of horns protruding from just above their foreheads. Twelve year old Lao Dong’s pair of horns did indeed each have three narrow ridged tiers culminating in a forth pointed tier.

D-d-d-devils?! Shen Ling was electrified with shock.

“Let us see,” vouched Shen Shudun. He grabbed his son by the waist and lifted the struggling child down from the metre tall boulder. But no horns were readily apparent atop his boy’s head.

Evil laughter broke out from the entire group of Lao patrons. “One tier horns.”

“And they can’t even be seen through his hair.”

“What a trash.”

“Might as well kill himself.”

“No qi potential at all,” they jeered.

Shen Shudun ignored them, instead running his hand through Shen Ling’s black hair. He could not feel even the trace of the tiniest horn, not in the center of the forehead, nor upon any side. He even checked the back, where horns don’t grow. How was this possible?

The tiny family of three quietly left the clearing under a barrage of heckling whispers and arrogant stares.

To Shen Ling, her body was only that of a weak twelve year old, and she’d been mysteriously transported to a foreign land. The malicious stares from the crowd drove her into fearful silence. She quickly dismissed any thoughts of running away, after all, where would she go? She had no choice but to quietly follow the couple into the eerie dead forest.

“Where are you taking me?” Shen Ling hesitantly asked once they were truly alone.

“Shen Ling, it is best if you stay your questions until we get home.” The gentleness of the voice of the woman claiming to be her new mother took Shen Ling by surprise. Her voice was as light as a wind chime and as refreshing as an ocean breeze, and although she was not youthful, somehow she presented as a true specimen of ideal feminine beauty.

Shen Shudun took the lead. A two meter long wooden stave appeared in his hands from out of nowhere. He used it to crush the walls of dry thorny vines which often blocked their path. Only seconds after they passed through these vine walls, the plants suddenly came alive like snakes, regrowing across the path before hardening into razor sharp blockades once again.

To Shen Ling, this dead forest became a much more frightening place. But in her heart she thought the couple she followed had no ill intentions toward her, and so she could journey together with them without feeling overly anxious.

“Halt,” Shen Shudun ordered. “One . . . two Dire Rats. Wu Jia, keep moving along the road. I leave our son in your hands.”

Wu Jia was frantic with worry. “Shudun-”

“Go. I’ll catch up to you,” he insisted. Shen Shudun lept off the beaten path and into the brown brambles with ease, moving faster than an olympic athlete.

Wu Jia gripped her son’s hand tightly. “Don’t let go.” She extended her water elemental qi into an aura across her skin and extended it over that of Shen Ling as well. An azure liquid light covered their bodies.

“What’s this!” asked Shen Ling.

“It will keep you safe. Hold on tightly.” Wu Jia sprinted along the path at great speed, the vine walls parted for her as doors opened by servants for their master.

Shen Ling felt as if she were surfing on a wave, each step propelling her forward tens of metres.

After many kilometers, Wu Jia slid to a halt along the winding path. Blocking their road was a wild brown vermin as large as a tiger with menacing saw blade teeth and beady red demonic eyes.

Terrible. What poor luck they had to encounter not one or two, but three sin beasts!

Wu Jia drew a silver hairpin from the bun on her head releasing her long beautiful azure hair. The blue auras surrounding their bodies quickly faded.

“Flee. We should run,” Shen Ling said.

“It is faster than us,” explained Wu Jia in a steady voice.

Shen Ling was startled by Wu Jia’s complete state of calm. She could only watch her new mother’s back as the proud woman took a martial stance in front of her.

The wave dancer martial art was amongst the most powerful in the entire Demonic Netherworld, able to flow with the speed of a river and crash with the power of a waterfall.

Wu Jia poured her last drop of water elemental qi into the hairpin, preparing to meet the Dire Rat head on. A life for a life.

“Skreee!” The beast charged, baring its deadly maw of fangs.

Wu Jia’s body rippled forward as if dancing on water. ‘Tidal spear!’

The impact blew both opponents backward.

Shen Ling caught her new mother, bracing the unconscious Wu Jia from behind as they both skidded backwards in the red dirt, finally collapsing one atop the other.

The Dire Rat had a grievous bleeding wound on its neck, and it wailed even as it thumped and rolled to a stop. But the sin beast was only wounded and it quickly regained its footing, snarling at the human who’d injured it.

Shen Ling saw the glimmer of a silver hairpin lay strewn in the dirt near Wu Jia’s limp hand.

In its berserk rage the wounded sin beast sensed weakness and charged yet again, desperate to tear apart its prey.

Shen Ling felt for the second time in her life, mortal fear, the violent reality of the untamable world. An image of a desperate beauty in a torn white dress came to mind. The first true tribulation she faced, she had failed, and it had cost her her life. From the bottom of her heart, Shen Ling did not want this fate repeated for a second time. No one would be harmed again in front of her eyes due to her weakness. Gripping the hairpin with both hands, Shen Ling stood her ground as the Dire Rat barrelled toward her. At the very least, this time she would die with dignity.

In the last instant, a red and brown blur streaked to the fore. The burly man’s leather vest and pants were scarred and stained with blood, various wounds covering his body. He leaned heavily against his wooden stave.

Suddenly and with inhuman speed, the stave whipped through the air like a spear, ‘Meteor strike.’

Shen Ling could not even track the lightning fast movement with her eyes. The butt end of the stave crushed the Dire Rat’s skull, plunging its head into the ground leaving cracks in the earth.

Shen Ling let the hairpin drop from her quaking hands. She didn’t die. Thank the heavens!

“Made it in time.” Shen Shudun panted with groaning relief.

Only then did Shen Ling notice that her new father was missing his right leg from the knee down. The bloody stump was wrapped round and around with a tourniquet of thorny vines, piercing deeply into his flesh, covering the red dirt with splatters of fresh blood.

“Shen Ling, it’s time for father to bring you and your mother home.” Despite his serious injuries, the man had a giant frightening grin plastered on his face.

Remarkable.