"I'm pretty sure he's saved many in his free time. Have you ever heard of any large scale accidents happening within our sensing range in the past few years? What he dislikes most is injustice and weirdly,... others praising him. Especially after we've been with him. He just doesn't like to acknowledge a debt to his own choices and the people entangled with them," Yue Lan said, turning to Hye Won with a knowing look.
...
Outside on the terrace, Han Chen took a deep breath, cloaked himself, and shot straight up into the sky. His mind had already locked onto the general direction of the spacecraft from the news images he'd seen earlier.
The clouds above parted in a perfect circle, torn open with divine precision. In the silence of the upper atmosphere, Han Chen had already broken through the stratosphere. His body hung suspended several thousand kilometers above Earth, channeling law energy with such mastery that he'd accelerated past Mach 50 through sheer force of will.
His qi shields blazed around him ~ not just cushioning the shock waves but containing the backflow of superheated air. In the vacuum of space, noise became meaningless. Only the cold hum of cosmic background energy filled the void, while a spirit shield protected his internal organs.
Thousands of miles above him loomed the massive satellite launch and carrier space vehicle, hundreds of crew members inside. His spirit sense extended outward like a vast net, reaching nearly 350 miles in every direction. Yet even that enormous field felt insignificant against the infinite architecture of the universe unfolding before him.
Ten seconds.
Within his sensory field, fragments of radio noise flickered at the very edge of perception ~ SOS beacons, garbled communications cutting through the static. Earlier, Earth's news feeds had given him the disaster's rough location. Now he was pinpointing it with surgical precision: signal delays, the minute Doppler shift of the dying ship's carrier wave, the cold calculus of stellar parallax. His spirit sense picked up the approaching light signatures, distinct from the background stars. Confirmed. Vector locked.
He didn't bother with full invisibility. In the depths of space, who would see him anyway? As long as he didn't shine like a flare, he might as well be a ghost. A simple qi shield and nearly motionless positioning made his body refract the cosmic light perfectly. On Earth, his wives' soul resonance helped him triangulate his position in any relative motion frame ~ and it would scale up accordingly. Coordinates confirmed.
A warp bubble formed around him, barely perceptible, and in the next instant he vanished.
What followed was motion without light or sound. A silent streak of deep ionization trailed across the void as space moved ten times the speed of light asymptotically. At that velocity, even his vast spirit sense became nearly impossible to process meaningfully ~ he had mere fractions of a millisecond to register anything within it.
But somehow, Han Chen extended his consciousness across the blur. His mind tethered to anchor points in the fabric of space at the edges of his spirit sense, leaping from destination to destination.
Eight seconds.
In that span, Han Chen had crossed nearly twenty million kilometers. A few tens of thousands of kilometers ahead, he sensed the scattered remnants of the vessel ~ fragments drifting at nearly 30 km/s. Within milliseconds, he warped again, now dangerously close to the wreckage.
The radiation in his travel wake was catastrophic, but his spiritual shielding held firm. There, just ahead, a crew transfer vessel the size of a three-story building drifted helplessly, torn nearly in half continuing to disintegrate.
The surviving crew inside were working frantically ~ panicking, desperately trying to stabilize the hull ruptures. He sensed capsules scattered throughout the void ~ emergency escape pods spinning wildly, their thrusters firing as they tried to realign into stable orbits. Their survival window was narrowing fast as debris continued to collide around them.
Han Chen reached out with his will.
Space itself bent ~ not around his body, but around his intent. His spirit will slowed the capsules' momentum, cradling them like leaves caught in invisible hands. Near the damaged propulsion modules, he gave gentle nudges, guiding the fragments back toward stable orbital vectors. One by one, he collected the survivors and, where possible, the dead.
The scattered remnants were carefully brought together with the main frame and redirected back into a gravitationally stable orbit ~ slowly, due to the massive inertia involved. The pods were then guided back into the vessel, and even the slowly dispersing air and diffused oxygen trails were captured within his spirit sense and sealed back inside.
His elemental transformation abilities sealed the hull fractures, stabilizing the entire vessel. Thrusters reignited under his guidance, and systems flickered back to life one by one. The entire operation took nearly an hour. But by the end, the ship was no longer doomed.
It was orbiting again, functional enough for human engineers to reclaim and assist in the final recovery. He performed a full scan to ensure its design was sound and that survival necessities were present until the crew could disembark safely. When he finished, he took a moment to meditate in the stillness of space.
Fifty-five minutes passed.
In that silence, he felt closer to his heart and communicated with the dao. Making plans for the future, he turned and took one last look at the crew ~ who were now oscillating between shock and wild excitement ~ and warped away.
Then came the flash. A high-energy radiation burst streaked across the void.
Four seconds.
Han Chen materialized back near Earth's orbit. This time, the return required no complex calculations ~ he simply followed the echo of his wives' soul resonance. Once within Earth's exosphere, he dropped back into regular motion, descending slowly over the next ten seconds until the familiar hum of home returned.
His feet touched down gently on solid ground. He exhaled deeply, released the internal pressure, then breathed in again, grounding himself in the world once more. His senses were suddenly assaulted by every sort of noise his spirit sense could detect, and he quickly dialed it down to manageable levels.
The entire operation had consumed nearly 35% of his internal energy due to the intense law control required for faster-than-light movement.
...
Inside
The news was already exploding. Satellite feeds had recorded a flash—something unreal. A blazing return of energy from above. Minutes later, the damaged spacecraft reconnected. Engines came back online. Rescues began.
They called it a miracle. "Hope," the newscasters said, "seemed to come from nowhere."
Speculations followed: "It must've been the ship's AI—it came back online, handled the emergency. Systems stabilized."
His wives hugged him as he walked in.
"Took you long enough."
"We couldn't even see you on the holo-vision."
"Is it hard to stay up there? Could we hold our breath and stay too?"
They bombarded him with questions. He smiled and answered them all.
On the screen, another streak appeared—this one outbound. It vanished millions of miles away, leaving behind nothing but silence and awe. It looks like FTL motion makes trails appear moving backward in time.
No explosion. No debris. Just the whisper of something beyond physics.
Around the world, concerned people cheered. Some well-wishers wept. Some prayed. And many, lacking better explanations, thanked the gods... or aliens... for the impossible salvation. Back there, Han Chen had seen that the rich guy everyone was eagerly waiting for was well protected in a capsule, but two others hadn't made it.
...
Adventures
The outside world had moved on, as it always does. People debated conspiracies about the incident, scientists offered their theories, and the usual geopolitical mess churned along. But for them? Well, their days became surprisingly simple ~ watching movies together, trying whatever food caught their eye, wandering through places that felt too fancy for normal people.
Han Chen's mind could map out future possibilities like branches on a tree, all happening in real time. His Spirit Will let him nudge things from across the room without lifting a finger. And those Laws he'd mastered ~ shifting materials like clay, transforming them, weaving illusions that fooled the eye, reading thoughts that people thought were private ~ meant they could walk through crowds and choose exactly who noticed them. Who heard them. Who would forget they were ever there.
Life stayed peaceful, even in the chaos of crowded cities and busy markets. Though, honestly, people seemed... different. More distant, maybe. Colder. There was this intellectual arrogance that hadn't been there before, and those who stayed kind? Well, others were quick to take advantage of that kindness. This was supposed to be the land of freedom and endless opportunity, but even freedom came with a price tag and a brand name slapped on it.
When night fell, the cities transformed. LED lights blazed from every corner, sirens wailed in the distance ~ just enough noise to drown out whatever was really happening underneath. There were black markets that operated where you can buy anything from stolen art, drugs, military weapons to even humans and rare creatures
Hye Won and Yue Lan were still wearing their Comic-Con outfits from earlier, grinning as they slipped into alleyways and dimly lit streets. At first, it was all laughter and adventure. But then they heard the screams.
Their instincts kicked in immediately, leaving Han Chen to follow behind with that resigned sigh he'd perfected over years of their adventures. Within minutes ~ and this is where it gets interesting ~ they'd disarmed a mugger, shielded some kid from crossfire, and taken down a second attacker who'd come at them with a hidden gun. All of this happening in two different locations at the same time, mind you.
>>>><<<<
"See? Just like the movies!" Hye Won flashed that grin at Han Chen when they regrouped.
He just shook his head, though the affection was clear in his eyes. From chasing waterfalls to poking around some haunted place, his path had become permanently tangled with theirs. And this country ~ well, it was famous for its whispered stories. Aliens, strange phenomena, realistic rumors.
Yue Lan remembered what their local driver had told them earlier, half-joking but with real unease in his voice. "Sixty miles out," she said, that playful spark in her eyes sharpening into curiosity. "That ghost house. The driver said it was abandoned... chemical spill? Fire? Nobody could agree on what actually happened, just that something terrible did." Her voice dropped. "Let's go. For real."
Han Chen didn't even hesitate. While his wives practically vibrated with anticipation, he dove into the digital corners, his technical skills cutting through layers of obscured records and heavily redacted police reports. The truth he found? Much worse than any urban legend.
The Torment
Nearly six years ago, a soldier came home from hell. Not just war ~ that would've been manageable; he was a commander ~ but unauthorized biotech experimentation. Brutal "enhancements" done without his consent. He returned broken: body shattered, mind scarred, his peak master-level strength gone. The regeneration they'd promised him? A cruel lie that left him missing a leg.
A warrior reduced to limping through shadows. He wasn't treated with respect there, but as a discarded peace. Not someone who helped his nation. His power is no more as his status. He only has few months to live as per them.
But home offered no sanctuary.
Instead, he found a slaughterhouse. His parents lay dead, bullets in their heads, blood long dried. He'd gotten a call from them just a week before ~ they were coming back, they'd said. The rancid stench from the next room made him move slowly, in agony over what he didn't dare imagine.
His daughter and the women of his family. Both starved, chained, decaying and infested. The floorboards showed agonized scratches where they'd crawled, inches from food, water and a phone deliberately placed just beyond their reach. Possibly raped too. Someone's idea of exquisite torment.
His past had caught up with him ~ debts called due, old allegiances shattered, grievances left to fester. They'd known he was coming. As he stood there, paralyzed in the ruins of his life, trying to process the horror, the first shot shattered his remaining leg, pinning him against his own prosthetic.
They didn't give him a quick death. They mocked him. Reveled in his agony, laughing as he screamed through gritted teeth while another bullet tore into his thigh. They even managed to defile his God, mocking him with sacrilege right there, spitting on it .. amidst his most sacred beliefs, where he relied on, after turning a new leaf in past. Then, as their final act of erasure, they set the house ablaze and left him inside, entombed in smoke and unbearable grief.