There was nothing left to be done.
The world had changed.
Too much had changed, so quickly that people had forgotten what the world used to be. Old stories became fragments of history. Myths became warnings. Fantasy became reality.
And then the world was rewritten.
Dungeons appeared.
Lives were lost, not because of war or crime or the laws people had built to keep themselves safe, but to beasts and beings that were never supposed to exist.
Humanity was forced backward into an age where carrying a weapon was no longer a choice.
It was survival.
Magic emerged.
So did enhanced strength, heightened senses, strange abilities that defied every law of science people thought they understood. Some could hear a dungeon breathing beneath the earth before it opened. Others could manipulate fire, lightning, ice, or things far stranger.
Not everyone was fortunate enough to awaken.
Those who did were called many things.
Blessed.
Gifted.
Evolved.
Ruyi called bullshit.
There was nothing blessed about any of this.
Especially not today.
Ruyi had only been passing through.
That was the part she would later keep repeating to herself.
She had not been hunting a beast.
She had not been looking for trouble.
She had not volunteered to help anyone.
She had simply been walking down the street when the creature appeared.
One moment, the city had been moving through another ordinary afternoon. People were shopping, vehicles crawled through traffic, and vendors shouted over one another.
The next, something crashed through a building.
The scream came first.
Then the running started.
Ruyi barely had time to turn before the beast came charging into the street.
People scattered.
She ran with them.
Of course she did.
Anyone with enough sense would have.
The creature was enormous, its body an ugly fusion of boar and wolf, covered in coarse, matted fur. Its limbs were too long, its shoulders too broad, and its mouth was filled with far too many teeth.
It tore through everything in its path.
A vehicle flipped.
A concrete barrier shattered.
Someone fell.
Ruyi stopped.
Not because she wanted to.
Because the beast was already coming toward her.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
She ran.
Her only thought was escape.
She didn't have an ability.
She wasn't trained to fight monsters.
She wasn't some awakened hunter with a reputation and a weapon designed specifically to kill dungeon creatures.
She was simply a woman who had made the unfortunate mistake of being in the wrong street at the wrong time.
She spotted a fallen weapon near the remains of a security checkpoint.
A glaive.
Long shaft.
Curved blade.
Probably discarded by someone who had run for their life.
Ruyi grabbed it without thinking.
The weight nearly pulled her off balance.
"Seriously?"
The beast roared.
She turned.
It was already there.
Too close.
Ruyi swung.
The glaive struck the creature's shoulder.
The blade bit into its hide.
Not deep enough.
The beast barely reacted.
Ruyi's stomach dropped.
She pulled the weapon free and stumbled backward.
The creature lunged.
She dodged.
Barely.
Its claws tore across the pavement where she had been standing.
Ruyi swung again.
The beast twisted.
The glaive caught against its thick hide and slipped from her hands.
"No."
The creature turned toward her.
Its jaws opened.
Ruyi froze.
She saw everything.
The rows of teeth.
The saliva hanging between them.
The dark throat opening wider.
The certainty that she was about to die.
There was nowhere to run.
No time to pick up the glaive.
No one coming to save her.
Something inside her snapped.
Not exploded.
Not ignited.
Opened.
Cold.
Quiet.
Empty.
The world seemed to pause.
Ruyi felt something reach through her.
Not around her.
Through her.
Then the space between her and the beast folded.
A small distortion appeared in the air.
Black.
Not darkness.
Something beyond darkness.
The beast's head struck it.
And part of its body simply...
disappeared.
There was no explosion.
No spray of blood.
No spectacular impact.
The flesh simply vanished as though reality had scooped a piece of the creature out and forgotten to put it back.
The beast staggered.
Ruyi stared.
A hollow cavity had opened through its chest.
Not a normal wound.
There were no torn edges.
No shattered bones.
No organs hanging from the opening.
Just an impossible absence.
A clean, empty space where flesh had once existed.
The beast made a choking sound.
Ruyi instinctively reached for the glaive.
The creature tried to move.
It collapsed.
The pavement shook beneath its weight.
Ruyi stood there, frozen.
Her breathing came hard and fast.
She stared at the corpse.
Then at her hand.
A faint distortion hovered above her palm.
It did not glow.
It did the opposite.
Light seemed to disappear around it.
A tiny piece of nothingness floated just above her skin, bending the air around it.
Blood from the beast had splattered across her fingers.
One droplet rolled toward the distortion.
It vanished before touching her skin.
Ruyi's face went pale.
"What the hell..."
The distortion pulsed.
She clenched her fist.
It collapsed with a soft thwip.
Instantly, exhaustion slammed into her.
Her knees nearly buckled.
She caught herself against the glaive.
For several seconds, she could only breathe.
She had killed it.
She had actually killed it.
Not with the weapon.
Not really.
Whatever had happened had done it.
Ruyi looked again at the corpse.
The hollow in its chest remained.
Impossible.
Clean.
Empty.
It looked less like the creature had been injured and more like a portion of it had never existed.
"What did I just do?"
She had no answer.
And, more importantly, she didn't intend to stick around long enough to find one.
She picked up the glaive.
Her hands were shaking.
Her first instinct was to leave.
She had survived.
That was enough.
She had no reason to stay.
No desire to explain.
No interest in being congratulated.
She turned toward the street she had originally been trying to reach.
Then stopped.
Voices.
Footsteps.
The sound of hurried movement.
Ruyi looked over her shoulder.
Several figures were approaching from the far end of the street.
Not civilians.
Responders.
The people who were supposed to deal with the beast had finally arrived.
Too late.
They slowed when they saw the corpse.
One of them raised a hand.
"Hold."
The others stopped.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The creature that had been tearing through the district lay dead in the middle of the street.
And standing beside it was a woman they had never seen before.
Ruyi.
She looked exhausted.
Her clothes were dirty.
Her hands were trembling.
A borrowed glaive rested against the ground beside her.
She did not look like a hunter.
She did not look like someone capable of killing a creature of this level.
One of the responders cautiously approached the corpse.
"What the hell happened?"
Another crouched beside the beast.
His expression changed.
"There's no impact trauma."
"What?"
"Look."
He pointed toward the enormous cavity in the creature's chest.
Everyone stared.
The injury was wrong.
There was no torn flesh.
No crushed bone.
No burning.
No freezing.
No signs of a conventional weapon.
It looked as though someone had reached into the creature and removed a piece of reality along with its flesh.
The responder slowly stood.
"I've never seen a wound like this."
Ruyi said nothing.
She tightened her grip on the glaive.
One of the responders looked at her.
"Did you do this?"
Ruyi hesitated.
She could have lied.
She probably should have.
But she was too tired to think of anything convincing.
"I..."
Her gaze dropped toward her hand.
Nothing remained.
No distortion.
No darkness.
Nothing.
"It was self-defense."
That was all she gave them.
And it was the truth.
She had not fought the beast because she wanted to.
She had fought because it had tried to kill her.
She had survived because something inside her had answered.
Whatever that meant.
The responders exchanged uncertain glances.
One of them looked ready to ask another question.
Ruyi turned away.
She needed to leave.
Now.
She had no idea what had awakened inside her.
She only knew that she didn't like it.
In the old world, people would have called something like that sinister.
Forbidden.
Maybe even evil.
Now, people had newer names for powers they didn't understand.
Blessings.
Gifts.
Evolutions.
Ruyi wasn't convinced.
There was nothing blessed about feeling an emptiness open inside you.
Nothing gifted about watching a living creature lose part of itself to a power you couldn't control.
And there was certainly nothing evolutionary about it.
She took one step.
Then stopped.
Her expression changed.
Something had touched her senses.
A vibration beneath the street.
A pressure against her skin.
A faint tremor passing through the air.
Ruyi slowly turned her head.
Three blocks away.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it.
Not see it.
Not yet.
Feel it.
The responders hadn't noticed.
They were still examining the corpse.
Ruyi stared toward the distant buildings.
Reality seemed to shudder.
A thin black seam appeared between two structures.
Then widened.
The air bent around it.
Glass trembled inside shattered windows.
Concrete groaned.
A low vibration rolled beneath the pavement.
And beneath the city, something vast seemed to draw its first breath.
Ruyi felt it deep in her bones.
Her exhaustion disappeared beneath a sudden chill.
Another dungeon was opening.
She stared at the tearing seam in reality.
Her fingers tightened around the glaive.
That wasn't there before.
The world had already changed once.
Now it was changing again.