"What are you on about?", Jian Li asked.

He smiled at her once again, but this time, the smile seemed to contain a hint of sadness.

"You have a very special soul, young one. Tell me, what are you hoping to achieve in your life?"

"Um... I want to achieve happiness?", Jian Li answered, confused by what a normal 7 year old would have said in her position.

He shook his head. "No, that is not what you wish for. You have an ambitious soul. A very ambitious soul. You wish to be great. Powerful. In short, you wish to be a hero. A very powerful hero."

"I see...", she said, unsure of what to make of the man called Meng.

The strange man raised an eyebrow.

"You do? Interesting. Tell me, what is it that you had hoped to achieve in your next life?"

Jian Li raised an eyebrow back, unsure of what he meant.

"What do you mean?" She asked, very confused.

Meng continued to stare at her for a couple moments before breaking out once again into laughter. At this, Jian Li began to feel uneasy and wanted him to stop laughing.

"Unfortunately, your time in this life has come to an end. I will take your soul now to break through to the next stage of my Art. Heh heh, after I refine your soul, I will be able to reach ascension, hahahaha!!", Meng suddenly says with a sinister expression.

Fear ran through her as she realized what the old man meant to do.

Abruptly, the children around her started screaming as a dark miasma descended upon them. They started clawing at their own faces as if their faces were itching. Their blood dripped down from their noses and landed on their shirts like a waterfall. The family guards nearby saw this and charged towards Meng, only to be dissolved into a black mist and pile of flesh before her eyes. The miasma continued to grow and enveloped the entire square where the children and other servants of the manor were gathered. The smell of death and decay grew stronger as the thick black fog continued to spread beyond her vision.

Meng just stood there, a faint purple glow surrounding his body as he stared at her. At this point, most of the people affected by the dark miasma had already passed out. Jian Li saw the passed out people gradually dissolving into mist and mounds of bones and flesh.

"I don't want to go", she cried, tears streaming down her face. Meng simply stared at her with a slightly sad smile on his face.

"Goodbye, little one. Your next life awaits you, a young and powerful soul such as yours, is made to be used by someone like me."

"No! No!" She cried out as he reached out to her with hands that were twisted and deformed. The dark miasma seemed like it was mostly concentrated around his hands. A single finger extended, pointing at her.

"It has been an honor meeting you, little one. I hope we meet again in your next life.", he said while still wearing the sad smile on his face.

A single teardrop fell down his cheek as the miasma began to consume her.

"Goodbye", he whispered as her vision started to fade.

A purple light filled her vision as she let out a blood-curdling scream filled with pain.

"JIAN LI!!!", she heard a deep voice yell as her senses seemed to slowly come back. When she got her sight back, she saw her father standing in between her and the mad wizard with a glowing longsword in his hand. Her face was pressed against the cold stone floor and her whole body hurt.

As she saw the mad wizard, she quickly looked around and saw what remained of his victims. The courtyard was filled with the dead and disfigured bodies of the young children, the guards that charged over and the elder servants who were watching over the courtyard. Some of the bodies were missing limbs, others looked as if they had been melted and yet, others seemed to have aged hundreds of years as their bodies withered in seconds.

She felt a shudder go down her spine as she recalled what happened just moments ago. She saw the wizard in front of her, he seemed to be muttering something as he raised his hands up. Purple flames flickered to life in his hands, merging with the dark miasma. Her father was standing in front of the wizard. He was a tall, broad shouldered and sturdy looking man with a neatly kept beard. Along with that he wore a chainmail armour and a red cape behind him. He held his sword firmly in his hand as he stared at the wizard. His piercing blue eyes seemed to look through the wizard's very soul. "I'll make you bleed for what you did to this village! Die!" He yelled as he ran towards the wizard.

He swung his blade in an arc whilst Meng dodged nimbly to the side. Meng thrust his hand forward and a ball of dark purple flames came flying out of his fingers and hit her father. He screamed in agony as the dark miasma flame coursed through his body, his sword fell to the ground as he clutched his chest.

The miasma flames burned his flesh chest around his, turning it black as soot. He screamed in agony as the dark flames coursed through him. Her father soon fell to the ground as his body continued to burn.

Jian Li felt powerless. All she could do was watch her father burn. As the wizard slowly turned from her father to lock eyes with her, without another word, the wizard raised his hand and shot another purple fireball at her. She screamed as the ball of dark flames flew right towards her. It engulfed her body, charring everything it came in contact with. She felt the flames burn at her skin and turn her hair into ash. She tried to endure the pain she felt coursing through her body.

Then, as quick as it started, the burning stopped. She touched and looked at herself and found that her skin was still tanned but slightly cool to the touch. A few strands of white hair fell before her eyes. The flames had transformed her hair.

"What is this?" She heard Meng exclaim in surprise and confusion. He did not expect to see a person's hair turn from black to white due to contact with his dark flames. Then, she felt a surge of energy flow through her body. She felt the pain ebb away as a surge of life energy coursed through her veins. She felt invigorated and full of rage. She felt like she could take on the whole world.

Meng stared at her and looked as if he had seen a ghost. He stumbled back nervously.

"This is not possible," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

Abruptly, all the dark miasma in the area got wiped out by a white flash and the pure, life-filled world took its place again.

The trees were lush and green again. The flowers were blooming once more and the small animals, which had been hiding from the darkness, came back out into the open. The only difference from before was that the courtyard was currently covered in carcasses and flesh piles of the unfortunate ones.

"Even death is too easy of a punishment for you." a gentle voice rang behind her. Jian Li turned and saw the calm face of her elder sister Jian Ye, but her hands were shaking.

As Meng opened his mouth to answer, Jian Li barely caught a tiny ball of pure light flying by the corner of her eye into his mouth. He screamed as it burnt everything inside him. The light was eminating from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. She saw his body convulse and writhe in pain as it gradually started to turn to ashes. The wind picked up, dispersing his ashes and the now tattered green robes were all that was left of the mad wizard.