Colonel Chuang Tuskar trekked across the broken battlefield. Her armor was missing their greaves. Her once shining pauldron caked with crack and blood. The proud commanders’ eyes scanned the battlefield, barren with life and hope. The image killed any trace of light she once held.

Once upon the time she was the rising stars of the military. She accomplished much in her colorful career, achieving wealth, status and power through hard work and perseverance. Then one day, her leader declared war against an opposing nation after a massive diplomatic failure on their border. Several climactic series of battles later finally saw herself beheading the enemy—the witch queen Talaina Rosary.

But the war cost her everything. Her cities, razed. The coffee chop she enjoyed was now a smoldering wreck. Her subordinate Cindy Tia died, protecting her from a surprise attack. Chuang sobbed. Why couldn’t that girl survive? Cindy was kind. The heart of her platoon. The greatest friend from her grunt’s days.

Among the people who died, why it must be Cindy.

Amid her melancholy, Chuang heard the galloping sound of hooves.

“Chuang,” her mentor—Prime Minister Navia—slipped from her horse and rushed to the despairing colonel. “Are you okay?”

“Prime Minister,” Chuang fell into the arm of the only companion she had left. “The war will be over now, right? Everything will be okay now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Tuskar,” the Prime Minister responded. “Everything is over.”

Chuang felt the pin prickling her exposed nape. Strength went out of her body. Prime Minister Navia let the paralyzed Chuang fell to the ground with a look of relief on her face and tossed the poisoned needle away in disgust.

“Why, Prime Minister,” the Colonel looked up at the friend who betrayed her.

“Sorry about this, Tuskar,” said the Prime Minister. “You help wind us the war, but it isn’t enough. We are being invaded from the south by the Octavius Breaker.”

“Octavius Breaker?”

“That opportunistic bastard is waiting for us to war it out with Rosary before invading,” the Prime Minister told her. “His army already took our capital. I barely escape alive.”

“Then why? We could fight him together?”

“With what?” Prime Minister ranted, turning away from her friend and screeched at the sky. “A demoralized populace who hate us? Our decimated army? The granary that ran out of grain a month ago? This country is dead, Colonel. The only option I have is to guarantee my survival.”

“How?” Chuang’s raw willpower got her to her knee.

“Octavius wants a symbol to parade his victory. That will either be you or me. I am too important to get parade like a spoil of war. It is yours duty to die for me, so why don’t you repay me for all those favors and…”

Chuang roared and pounced at Navia in a trance of rage, sadness and despair.

She didn’t recall what happened next. Next thing she knew, she was sitting on the earth reddened with blood. Chuang now resembled a monster, stinking of bile and rusted iron. Her armor -- soaked in crimson fluid, body parts and gores belonging to Navia -- was the evidence for the grisly violence scattering the Prime Minister's pieces across the red dirt. The former Colonel spat out a mouthful of human meat, unsheathed the pen Navia gifted her as a present for her promotion, prepared to puncture her own throat and end her life.

The pen scattered into crimson poppies.

The barren ground faded to black like closing curtain ending the performance.

Chuang stared in confusion for a second before the stream of memories assaulted her.

She remembered being a witch beloved by many, but a sudden outbreak of conflict led to the end of everything she held dear. Her last memory of that life was being brutally raped by the invading battalion before the mountain of her people’s corpse. She died in the pillory without a single ally to aid her.

She remembered being a princess in a royal court. She schemed for the crown and succeeded, but that night, one of the many victims of her betrayal led the army of mistreated populace into her castle. Her magic was helpless after her servants secretly poisoned her nightgown. Her ill-treatment of the people below her resulted in her dear brother being beheaded before her eyes and her body torn to shred by the mass.

She remembered being born a street orphan, rescued from the street by a lovely prince who taught her everything she knew. In return for his kindness, she worked as his shadow, slaying many for his ascension. After finally become king, the prince called her to his chamber and sent her to a final assassination. That fateful mission ended with her prince charming stabbing her and revealing her father was the target. The prince kidnap her as a baby and secretly shaped her as a weapon for her entire life. She died without even the will to curse his name.

Memories after memories flooded her brain. In some, she was a pauper. In some, she was rich. Each time, Chuang would climb to the height of life and fell through her own selfishness, obliviousness or a factor off her control.

All of her death was pitiful.

Lifetimes of trauma tore her mind. The Heavenly Daughter threw up. All dignity vanished to the windy air. She begged those nightmares to stop. Anything to change those lives. Just one was enough. When did hope become scarcer than gold?

“You ask for hope despite being a destroyer of one?” Remus Breaker materialized from the shadow behind her. “Hilarious. People like you always beg when karma catch up. Nothing is wrong at all when you trample on innocent people, but when someone return the favor, you plead for mercy.”

Chuang turned to confront her worst nightmare.

“Please stop,” the goddess prayed through her snot and tears. The influx of pain, humiliation and soul-crushing regret was too much for her stature to handle. Her beauty and pride as the Heavenly Daughter hit the floor like smashed porcelain. Reduce to pieces of rag, she crawled to her tormentor for mercy.

“You want that information right. I will tell you everything. Just let me go. I will never come after her majesty Cytortia again. I will never appear before you again. I promise. I-”

“A promise from a deity doesn’t worth a damn,” Rem booted her in the face. “I already yanked all the information I needed when your mental defense collapsed eight simulations ago.”

The scampering Chuang flinched.

“Why-“

“Why am I still keeping you here, in a hyper realistic mental simulation of tragedies after tragedies?” Rem finished her sentence. “Because you trample on people for benefit and sell yourself to cruelty for power. Your action created an uncaring world which spawn me — a reactionary force — to keep karmic balance in-check.”

Rem knelt down and picked yanked Chuang up by her hair.

“Dear, I am not a devil from beyond. I am a preview of the monsters your action birthed. I don’t want to be a horror, but I am one, the least I can do is cashing payment for my creation.”

Chuang sobbed.

“Please,” Chuang cried. “Give me another chance. I swear my loyalty to-”

“Even if you keep your word, I am not egotistic enough to need a slave,” Rem spat. “Who the fuck do you think I am? Darkseid? Loyalty build on fear means less than shit to me.”

Chuang gave up trying to promise anything else. No promise of power, nor benefits, moved him. His rage climbed from the injustice done to other. It was like he cared more about a stranger than himself. He fought for an ideal, but instead of naivety, he possessed the conviction of steel.

What type of creature was this?

The boy’s eyes glinted.

“Don’t worry,” Rem said. “I mastered you, Chuang. I broke you down so much I understand you better than even Nu Wa. One day you will join me without a doubt.”

Chuang trembled.

“Oh, it is not a slave pledge or a secret spell that guarantees your service,” Rem whispered. “One day, you will enter our fold and fight for our dream alongside me under your own free will.”

Chuang’s eyes widened.

“There is no way that will happen!”

Rem smiled.

“Still have some spunk left, huh?”

The mental landscape warped. The floor underneath them fell away, revealing a crack on the earth, shining with deep surreal light. Only Rem’s grasp on Chuang’s hot auburn-hair prevented her fall to hell.

The glow of insane fanaticism shone in that serene darkness.

Chuang realized what was about to happen.

“No!” Chuang screeched. “No! No! No! No! No! No! No!”

A heavy metal chain materialized, binding Chuang’s body like a cocoon.

“All those powers for such an abysmal mental defense .”

“Nooooooooooo!”

Rem let her fall into the light.

…

Among the hill of trees and flowers, Chuang Selene sat under the majestic sky of breaking dawn. She blinked. For a second, the seven-years old forgot what she was doing.

“Chuang!” said a girl with silver-hair. “Uncle Migras is coming back from the capital with that book on fire magic.”

“Thank Tai!” Chuang smiled back at her best friend, Tai Huali.

She took the glance at the rising sun, smiled and ran to a brighter future. Little did she perceive that ten years later, her best friend would drag her to join a gang, resulting in her conviction and fate to fight in a gladiatorial ring for amusement before being raped and executed in a failed uprising.

On a hill nearby, Rem tried not to look at the scene. This part remained the hardest, not only because he knew the ending, but from the shame he endured to replicate this image every time.

Rem might be cruel, but he never dunked people to hell for no reason.

…

Alexi Martynov poured glasses of orange juice for the four people looking at him.

Every one of them was recovering from what Alexi assumed to be an intense fist-fight. The girl with demon horns arrived in casts, barely supported by a battered-looking elf with a bandage around her forehead. An Arab teenager showed up better, but he still sported a plaster on his cheek. Even the homey, helpless looking blond received a bandage treatment.

Few in the gang learned that Martynov had a fetish for demi-human hentai. He was one of the few people on Earth who welcomed the transmigration as long as he got to meet a flesh and blood fantasy girl. Looking at the company Rem kept, Martynov approved his junior’s superior charisma in a mixture of admiration and jealousy.

“You must be Remus’s friend,” Martynov said. “What bring you to my humble accommodation?”

Martynov wasn’t joking. His room only had a fridge, two couches, weapon caches and surveillance equipments. The gang only took one glance to know where Rem’s obsession with bare necessity originated. Melody and Luxinna glanced at the traveling suitcase filled with canned food in the corner and infinitely thanked Cytortia for sparing them the same punishment.

“I want to learn about Rem,” Hikma said. “I don’t doubt him much at first, but his accomplishment seemed almost inhuman.”

“Yes, that is one way to talk about him,” Martynov admitted. The Argentum War came into mind. “How do you find this place?”

Hikma showed him a [Conceptual Seal]

“We need to recall you from my memory, and use Hikma’s magic to track you down,” Melody explained.

Martynov sighed.

“High fantasy sure don’t mix well with my career,” the Russian man grumbled. “Go home, kiddo. Without Remus, there is no chance four queasy whelps will extract my information.”

“We just want to learn more about him,” Luxinna pleaded. “Look. Rem tortured a man to near-death, threatened to kill my sister with a straight face, threw Melody’s house to send a message and understand too much about firing gun than what Hikma confirmed is Earth’s average. We just want to understand him.”

“Even when he might be a criminal?”

Melody snorted

“I am related to one of the most blood-thirsty man on this plane. Lux’s daddy is a political pest who want to graduate the elves into a dictatorial partnership. Cy’s senior sisters is causing a war that already chalking up several thousands corpses. How bad could Rem be?”

Martynov sighed and made a leap of fate.

“I believe you already deduce Remus and I have criminal ties,” Martynov sat. “Technically, Remus Breaker is not our formal member. He is a relative — a cugino. But it is an open secret our boss is grooming him for the throne. I believe his ability spoke for itself given his inevitable ascension solidified three-years ago.”

“Isn’t it too easy,” Melody blinked, barely surprised by the revelation. “Gangs always have factions? How did new-comer like Rem become an heir so easily, even with the boss’s support?”

“Because the board saw how he dealt with our former heir,” Martynov said. “That bedlam started when Remus Breaker caught Cassidy Argentum selling narcotic, amassed the evidence and privately reported it to Cassidy’s father—our boss, Antonio Argentum — who hate the drug trade to his bone.”

“Wait, Rem reported your heir to the head?” Cytortia's jaw dropped. “And he lived?”

“Impressive, isn’t it,” Martynov confirmed. “He wrote a hell of cover letter in the document, declaring he only does this for the betterment of the community, and if we don’t like it, he prefers a quick death by a bullet through the brain. That by itself was enough to earn Antonio’s respect, but revelation that he destroyed all his back up out of respect for Argentum’s authority and our contribution to the country put a cherry on the cake.”

“Wait,” Cytortia’s mouth hung open. “Shouldn’t Rem be thirteen at that time?”

“Oh, it get better,” Martynov reminiscent fondly. “He and Antonio tricked Cassidy into confessing before all our seniors, blunting all his support. Then Cassidy ate the dirt—literally—after a duel with Remus. Not a soul in the gang was happy with how the Cartel tainted our territory with narcotic. Antonio needed blood to wipe the shame Cassidy brought to the family. The Argentum started a war with the Cartel the next day. We called it the Argentum War. That year, the Mexican learned to fear one name: Samadi.”

“How does Rem related to the Samadi guy?” Cytortia asked in a display of cluelessness.

“Samadi is Rem, isn’t he?” Luxinna answered for Martynov. “How did he earn a nickname? I don’t think Rem is a type who commit mass-murder.”

Martynov shivered.

“Murder is a paradise to the currency Samadi bargain. During the Argentum war, we didn’t kill our prisoners, we sent them to Remus, who then mailed them back to the Cartel once he finished with them."

“You task him to let your prisoner go? What the hell? Why do you do that?”

“Because Remus Breaker drove them insane,” Martynov said. “I worked for many of Earth’s most ruthless and what Samadi reduces people into scares me. Your friend didn’t grant them the mercy of death. He broke their mind, shattered their will to live and sent them back as a maddened specimen to break the enemy’s morale. He gave the Cartel an ultimatum: Argentum will send their solider back as a shackle while we cut their resource. The Cartel — faced with mounting asylum patient and trauma from executing hundreds of their maddened comrade — ran out the cash and spirit to fund the war. They surrendered unconditionally.”

The gang sat their stunned.

“In Mexico, there is an Asylum ward named the Recuerda de Samadi,” Martynov closed his story. “The Cartel built it to nurse hundreds of mentally broken friends and families. Remus left them a permanent remembrance that there are fate worse than death.”

…

Chuang Martynova hit the pavement as a firing squad executed her. Second, later, the simulation of Moscow faded into dreamlike blackness as Rem entered.

“Already dead on your feet, aren’t you,” Rem said.

Chuang did not answer. Traumas, miseries, and memories of uncountable lifetimes bounced around her shattered psyche like dancing imps. She lost count of her torment after her 35th life. She no longer cared. Was Chuang even her name? Was it Chula or Chuitna? Not that it mattered. She lost the motivation to resist several hundred years ago.

She only wished death would end her suffering.

Even knowing the state Chuang’s mind was in, Rem still cautiously created a white cracked and dropped the defeated goddess into one more hell.

There was no kill like overkill.

Real-world time for Chuang to break: 19 minutes, 34 seconds.