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"It's so cold."

An unnamed mine on the frozen tundra of the northwest.

It belonged to no city, and there were no settlements nearby. Apart from white, there was only white.

The snow that never melted all year had washed away every color here, leaving behind a flawless, frigid white.

Ursus guards worked in pairs, piling the corpses of the infected at the side of the mine.

"How many is this?"

"The tenth? Or maybe the fifth? I've lost count."

A tall, thin man in an old military coat dragged a child's corpse toward a deep pit not far from the mine.

Another middle-aged man carried a bottle of alcohol. He drank as he joked with the tall man in the snow.

He was the mine's watchman, and the keys at his waist jingled against one another with every movement.

"Heh heh heh, I told you, didn't I? This place is practically heaven! God above."

As he spoke, the middle-aged man reached out and touched the dead girl's body, seemingly reluctant to let go.

"Break that disgusting habit of yours. It makes me sick. They're all infected."

Before the middle-aged man could react, the soldier kicked the mutilated corpse into the deep pit.

"Let's get moving. There are plenty more to carry."

"Relax. They're infected, aren't they? Who would care?"

The middle-aged man held his bottle and staggered drunkenly, completely unconcerned.

"Would a normal person bring along a bitch with smallpox? Disgusting. Get to work! If you don't hurry and delay us, the captain will kill someone."

The soldier shot the scum a contemptuous look before walking toward the transport truck parked outside the mine. A large number of soldiers had gathered there, all carrying corpses.

Inside the truck, something wrapped in filthy rags seemed to wake up. It moved a few times and let out faint moans that vanished into the wind and snow. The tall soldier was already numb to such things. He roughly threw back the rags, grabbed what was inside, and dragged it across the ground toward the deep pit.

The driver lying in the cab tuned the radio as if this were something that happened every day, paying no attention at all to what was happening in the back of the truck.

"This morning, the federal government of Columbia officially signed Bill No. 3, announcing that the bill had come into effect. Columbia would impose sanctions on Ursus's No. 2 pipeline project..."

Static crackled from the radio.

Below the truck, the captain in charge relaxed his shoulders. This was not an execution ground, and they had no authority to kill people.

But the infected did not count as people. They needed no trial and did not need to be sent for inspection.

In Ursus, no one cared whether the infected lived or died. These filthy, lowly infected, who had no right to consume any resources, were treated no better than rats.

Anything that happened without a trial was none of their concern. They were only responsible for cleaning up.

Perhaps some of those brought here had been falsely accused and were not infected. But this was an Originium mine. Anyone here would inevitably contract Originium infection without protection. Once they became infected, they were infected, no matter how innocent they had been before. Becoming infected was the greatest sin of all.

The orders from above were simple: leave no one alive.

Their method was just as straightforward. Kill everyone who walked on two legs but did not wear the same uniform, then blow up the mine and bury all the evil underground.

The man looked toward the last infected remaining in the mine.

The adults had long since died. The elderly, the weak, and the sick had already died on the way here or in the freezing mine.

Only a small group of children remained.

The soldiers carried out a systematic massacre in front of the children, then threw the corpses into the pit as if they were hauling garbage.

But the children had grown accustomed to it. Their clothes barely covered their bodies, and their eyes were utterly numb.

They had seen too much death—so much that it filled everything they saw.

Perhaps this mine was the only world they knew.

The man waved his hand, signaling them to finish everyone off quickly. He was in a hurry.

Suddenly, his gaze fell unintentionally on a girl.

Ursus was a nation made up of a single ethnic group. Most of its people were Ursus, but this girl was clearly different.

A Castet.

The girl's long ears, growing from her dry, lusterless silver hair—withered from malnutrition and neglect—made her stand out sharply.

She was about eleven years old, and her features were fairly attractive. Among the ragged, dispirited children around her, she at least had good natural looks.

But her appearance was not what made her most unusual. It was her eyes.

Unlike the other corpses wearing human skin, those walking dead, the girl's eyes were alive.

Absurdly, the man actually saw something in those vivid eyes...

Anger?

What?

Anger?

What was she angry about?

Something unusual always stirred people's curiosity.

That angry gaze was truly interesting. What was she angry about? Was she angry at what they were doing?

What a joke. Would livestock feel anger toward the butcher?

How interesting.

The man then raised his foot and kicked over the girl who seemed somewhat different.

Anger?

Did an infected person even have the right to be angry?

She should have been like those walking corpses, those little infected beasts, with all her emotions swallowed by overwhelming fear.

The heavy military boot still bore crimson stains from the snow. One kick from an adult was enough to kill a child, much less one who was starving, severely malnourished, and exposed to extreme cold.

The girl collapsed into the snow without a sound.

She might have died, or she might not have. It made no difference. The captain clapped the snow from his gloves and ordered his men to speed up.

"Ugh... ngh..."

Perhaps the cold snow had stimulated the wound on her forehead. The numb pain jolted Yelena awake. Pain surged through her entire body, and the girl could only let out a series of agonized cries. Her body had already been battered by hunger and exhausting labor; she could no longer even struggle to stand.

It hurt... It was so cold... Am I dead?

The girl lying in the snow gradually began to regain consciousness.

The soldier's kick had knocked her unconscious.

She had never seen her parents.

Yelena only remembered being held protectively between a man and a woman. The man had used his body to shield the woman from a crossbow bolt and died, while the woman had used her spine to block the second volley.

After that, she had ended up here.

As for the days that followed, the girl spent them in an endless cycle of waking, pain, exhaustion, hunger, unconsciousness, and being jolted awake by icy water.

The constant abuse from the environment, the cold, and the guards tormented her mentally, physically, and emotionally, making life worse than death...

Was she dreaming? The biting wind seemed determined to remind her that this was reality. Her dazed will could not remain fully conscious against the cold wind. She only knew that she was about to die.

If this was a dream, she wished she could wake up soon and go find her grandmother.

Her grandmother was always reminiscing about how warm their old home had been, a place where one could see seasons other than endless snow, where there was a warm fireplace and venison that could be hunted down. If this was a nightmare, then wake her up quickly. Let her go find the "home" her grandmother had described. That was Yelena's only dream.

Yet before her dream could grow wings, they had already been broken in the pitch-black snowy night.

The boot pressing down on her had already left. The men's voices gradually grew louder. Her ears had long since been damaged and could no longer make out what they were saying, but instinct told the girl that danger was approaching.

Her childish body was far too weak. Waking up had already been a miracle, let alone escaping.

Her eyes grew heavier and heavier. The icy wind was stripping away her last remaining senses. Her vision blurred, but even so, the girl desperately waved her arms, trying to crawl out of there, reach that home, and escape this nightmare—

"Thud."

Her legs were roughly dragged up. The thin rags that barely covered her could no longer shield her from the wind and snow. The frozen ground stabbed the exposed skin, while healed wounds and infected wounds were wrenched by the brute force. Old injuries continuously tortured the sensitive nerves of the girl. Compared to waking up to endless suffering, she would rather remain asleep. At least she would not have to endure such pain.

The snow in Ursus swallowed the girl's back completely. She tried to crawl up, but under the adult's dragging, all she could do was uselessly scrape her arms across the ground.

Her limbs had frozen stiff. The deep pit in the distance was shrouded in shadow, as if the god of death had spread open his arms...

Will I die...?

So cold... So hungry... It hurts so much...

So sleepy...

I miss Grandma...

I miss my parents... and the other children my age who were like siblings...

But Grandma is already gone. Will I meet her...?

I don't want to die...

The girl struggled to turn her head. She stretched out her arm and opened her hand. The gate in her empty field of vision seemed almost within reach. If only she could get through it and run along the road, she would surely come across a passing car and call for help. Then perhaps she could be saved.

If only she weren't infected.

Her increasingly muddled mind even began imagining her escape route...

The gate was not far away, practically within reach...

Resentment. Pain...

Why me...?

Why did they treat me like this...?

I don't want to die...

I don't want to die...

I don't want to die!!

Whether it was her final burst of strength or the support of her will to live, her powerless legs suddenly began to struggle! The unprepared man failed to keep hold of her, and the girl broke free. The gate was right there!

All she had to do was run over.

The girl struggled to stand. Her nearly numb limbs still strained to obey the commands of her mind. She only had to run over!

But reality was cruel. The girl, tormented by hunger, could not get up quickly, and the men around her were not mindless villains who would wait for the protagonist to make a comeback. One simple kick knocked the frail girl down again.

Then came the retaliatory beating. Yelena no longer remembered how long it lasted. All she could do was stretch out her hand and stare with all her remaining strength toward the gate so close yet forever out of reach, as if it embodied the hope she was gradually losing...

I don't want to die... I... don't want to die. Anyone... anyone is fine... Someone... please... save me...

A strange light.

Along with it came the eerie sound of the sky being torn apart. At the moment Yelena's consciousness was about to fade, blinding light illuminated the earth. The sky, which had been nearing dusk, turned white. Everyone instinctively raised their heads, searching for the source of the change overhead.

What greeted them was a pillar of light stretching from heaven to earth, and a wave of heat rushing toward them, hot enough to burn their retinas!

It was a flood of light descending upon the tiny mine.

The mine vanished—vanished in the literal sense.

The instant the light and heat arrived, everything around it melted under the intense temperature.

At the moment death rushed over her, Yelena seemed to awaken her Originium Arts, perhaps because of her overwhelming desire to live, or perhaps because of heaven's final mercy.

It was extreme cold, as if reflecting this world covered in white and showing what winter truly meant.

Temperatures colder than winter itself spread outward from the girl as their center!

It was as if a snow lotus had bloomed in midair, colliding with the scorching flames above the ground.

Because of this, Yelena survived. But the mine and everyone else inside it did not fare so well. Those swallowed by the blast center were instantly vaporized, while those farther away were consumed by the impact of extreme heat and pressure. The entire pit reeked of charred flesh. Only Yelena, at the edge and having awakened her ability, had narrowly escaped death.

Perhaps it was divine retribution, or perhaps it was something else. Yelena did not understand what had happened. She only tasted blood in her mouth, smelled the odor of burning human flesh, and saw a scene resembling hell.

The blast not only turned the mine into a pit, but also knocked over the vehicles nearby. The rations the guards had been carrying were blown everywhere, and most of them were ruined.