My breath caught in my throat as my grip on Zhige’s hilt loosened for just a moment.

“Karma…?”

My words were barely more than a whisper. This wasn’t possible. Karma wasn’t a being. Karma was a system, a control variable. Karma stopped godly beings from overstepping. It was sheerly reactionary force.

And I was an older sister. How could I describe the feelings storming through my heart at this moment?

Karma gave me an eerie smile before she sat up and put the orange lollipop back in her mouth, swirling it around as if nothing in the world could bother her.

“Cat got your tongue?” She jokingly called out. “I don’t see why you’re so surprised. After all, you created me.”

“No…” I said softly, backing away from her. My feet tripped over themselves, but I quickly steadied myself. I wielded Zhige before me apprehensively.

She—no, it—knew who I really was. This was impossible. I never told anyone, even my party. At most, Yang had an inkling. But for Karma to have called me Jia Li like that?

Was it Socrates, then? Or Nipon23 that leaked my identity?

My breath came in rapid succession. I continued to shake my head, stepping back until my back pressed against the dark walls. I jolted forward, petrified by the thought of the smiley face returning to grab me from behind.

“You’re not real. I never created you!”

The haunting figure that looked just like me reached out to cup my cheek.

Zhige shot out from my hands as she approached—the blade pierced through her overwhelming aura and slashed a large X in her abdomen.

She remained still for a moment before blood sprayed out of her wound, and she stumbled backward, tripping over her feet before she stabilized herself on a sofa.

Even her movements mimicked mine.

“Ah, Haimo!” She exclaimed in a cheery tone, “It’s good to see you’re still alive! I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear the news.”

Zhige froze at the sound of its past name, or perhaps the mention of its past owner before it darted forward again with enhanced speed.

Steadying herself, Karma easily reached out a hand just before the tip of the blade. Zhige stabbed straight through her palm, but she easily pulled out Zhige and spun the tip on her fingertip like it was a basketball.

“It’s such a misfortune to see how weak you’ve become under Liu Peijin. You were very formidable before,” Karma said in a soft tone, one almost reminiscent of the one I had just spoken in. “She even gave you such a silly name, and you let her.”

“Weak?! The only thing stopping Zhige is your karmic restraints!”

Zhige thrashed, trying to break free of her grasp, but Karma held on tightly. “I’m not the one stopping Haimo. You are. Haimo has enough spiritual power to break through my aura even though it’s only at a percent of its power.”

She gave me a bright smile again and gently handed me the blade, holding onto the sharp edge herself and letting me grasp for the hilt. She was far more powerful than me, and we both knew that.

“I’m surprised Haimo liked you enough to let you become its new owner. You’re extraordinarily lucky, Liu Peijin.”

The irony of her words struck a chord as I shouted, rushing forward with Zhige held high above me. I tackled Karma to the ground—she restrained her aura, allowing me to even get near her. I knew I would’ve been blown away if she had used even an ounce of her power.

After all, karma controlled everything. Karma was god.

What a fool I’d been.

My hands wrapped around her throat. I strangled her thin neck in my teenage hands. I watched her white skin—my white skin—turn red under my fingertips.

“What the fuck have I done?! Nothing!” I shrieked, pressing down harder. My hand ran across the ground before I grabbed Zhige and plunged it straight into her chest, twisting the blade like the pin of a music box.

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But no matter how much Zhige struck her, she remained completely unphased. Even though blood gushed out of her, I knew no real wound was being left behind.

“Everything!” She cried out, ecstatic, “You’ve done everything, Liu Peijin! Even if you lived a billion years and only committed good deeds, you’d never be able to pay off your bad karma.”

My eyes widened with her words before they narrowed in rage, my pupils shrinking.

I knew her words were true. They weren’t exaggerations. After all, Karma didn’t need to lie.

“Fuck you, you bitch! If anything, you should be on my side!” I grabbed Zhige and stabbed her again, but she still smiled at me. “You knew about my past, my family, and you still fuck me over. How is that karma?!”

With a laugh filled with the same joy of a young child’s, she answered sweetly, “You know it’s what you deserve just as well as I do. That’s why you keep throwing yourself in the frontlines. You know your debt to this world.”

“That has nothing to do with karma!” I shrieked, tears threatening to break free from my eyes. “You don’t know anything about me! Stop using my face!”

[Scathing Reviewer is growing.]

“Ha ha ha, but Liu Peijin, I am you. I am everything—the hairs on your head, the floorboards in this house, this entire universe. I am Karma.”

She stuck her tongue out at me as blood dripped down her face in bold red streaks. It stained her precious skin, but she paid no mind to it. To her, the image of my body was nothing more than a vessel.

“You’re not karma,” I hissed before swallowing loudly, “This is torture! You’re the one who has fucked with the whole system, and karma doesn’t do that!”

Blinking up innocently at me, she furrowed her thin eyebrows. “And you, Jia Li, you’re not an anomaly? My very existence occurred because yours did. When you didn’t exist, did I?”

“Don’t call me that!” I pressed the side of Zhige against her mouth and pressed down as hard as I could in a futile attempt to crush her jaw.

Being in my fourteen-year-old body meant that one thing was much harder: I could barely hold back my tears.

The moment I let one tear fall, I knew smiley would be back. After all, anytime he was there when I was younger, I always cried. What else could a girl of only fourteen do?

But I knew one thing—fuck whatever karma thought I owed.

“I never asked for this. Do you think I wanted to be in this world? Even if I created it, I didn’t want it to become a reality!” My blood pounded in my ears, and I could feel myself slipping.

“But you love it all the same, Liu Peijin. You do. You want nothing more than to run back to your party right now and just exist with them there. You see bits of yourself in them, don’t you? If they don’t love you, how could you ever love yourself? You’re nothing without them.”

“Stop it. Please.”

“You need to pay for making this world, Liu Peijin. Don’t you get it? It’s your fault this exists.” Karma gingerly brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Even now, you wouldn’t change a thing. You wish to live happily with all of them, but you don’t wish for everyone’s old life to come back, do you?”

I dragged Zhige straight through her throat to sever her head. Blood bubbled all beneath her body and my hands, but she continued speaking—none of Zhige’s spiritual energy had a remote impact on her.

“You’re the reason Amelia’s parents died, but you picked her up right off the street and acted like her mother. How many other children have you orphaned? How many children have you murdered?

“And don’t forget about how you killed Wang Ting! You wrote her to try and make sense of why your mother left you. You wanted a character that was loyal and reliable because every day you hoped your mother would come back. And when she never did, you grew to hate Wang Ting’s character. Then, when you finally saw Wang Ting, your brain desperately justified leaving her behind for dead.”

Each breath that squeezed out of my lungs was a mixture of a growl and a pained cry while I completely mutilated my spitting image. “You’re wrong! I didn’t cause anything! How could I have? If I was always this powerful, I would’ve never... never—!”

I couldn’t finish the words through my sputtering lips. If I had been this powerful, nothing bad would have happened to me at fourteen. I would’ve wiped entire years of my life away, and Dad would be alive.

I would’ve apologized to him.

[Warning! Scathing Reviewer is growing!]

Karma’s gored flesh and mashed bones slowly reformed before a perfect, vital version of my face appeared once more. “Silly little girl.”

I finally pulled back. I dug my bloodied nails through the wooden floorboards, the sensation sending shivers down my spine. “If this is all my fault, then why am I still not the strongest disciple?”

“There are only two people above you,” she sat up, too, as her body perfectly reformed. She held up two fingers in a peace sign just before me. “Believe me, they will pay off for their crimes all the same. You’re not the only one being punished. You’re merely the worst, Liu Peijin.”

“But I have been wronged! You call this justice? How can this be fair if I never knew I’d cause the apocalypse?!”

I wasn’t going to deny it. Karma was right about one thing. I didn’t find myself craving the mundane life of a pest control worker or the weight of my failure as a person when I sat before my laptop every day, writing Surviving My First Run.

I was addicted to watching my star count go up, watching more observer messages flood in every day, and watching the gods’ fascination with me. In this moment, I wanted to murder the being before me and sprint back to the open arms of my party.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Had I finally admitted that to myself? And it only took such a circumstance.

[WARNING! SCATHING REVIEWER IS GROWING!]

“You may be the author, but you can’t change your fate, Liu Peijin. And I will adapt to whatever beast you become in this world.” Karma stood before me in a short red dress that was the same color as her blood.

She continued to speak in that childish voice. “Hear that? ‘Bang, bang, bang,’’ she mimicked, “Those are all your party members trying to rescue you. I wonder if you’ll keep our encounter secret from them, too.”

[Scathing Reviewer has taken over.]