The dim glow of the laptop screen illuminated the darkened room, casting faint shadows across the walls. The air was silent save for the rapid click of keys as Xia Yan worked, her mind as sharp and focused as ever. She had spent hours carefully navigating through layers of encryption and bypassing firewalls, her hands moving with mechanical precision. It had been years since she'd last touched a system this intricate, but the skill, ingrained in her like muscle memory, came back as naturally as breathing.
It wasn't the same style of hacking she had mastered in her past life. Aurora—no, Wrath—had been infamous in the hacking world, a name whispered with awe and fear. Her work was unparalleled: bold, fast, and devastating. But that kind of signature would expose her instantly. Wrath's fingerprints on a system would ignite a hunt that she wasn't ready to face.
Instead, she had crafted a new persona: Ghost. Where Wrath was overwhelming force, Ghost was subtlety incarnate, slipping through cracks in the system so smoothly that no one would know they'd been breached until it was far too late.
Her target tonight was an offshore account belonging to a business conglomerate with ties to corrupt officials. A corporate war had left one party desperate to hide funds, and they had posted the task anonymously on an underground forum. To most hackers, the job seemed simple: retrieve the funds, leave no trace. But Xia Yan knew better. She had already uncovered that the client was an ambitious startup CEO looking to discredit his rival by framing him for theft.
A small smile tugged at her lips as the final sequence executed flawlessly. The account's defenses crumbled before her, revealing its contents. "Thirty million USD," she murmured, the numbers lighting up her screen.
With practiced ease, she rerouted the funds through a labyrinth of shell companies and blind accounts before depositing them into a freshly-created overseas account under her new alias. The process was seamless, efficient, and left no discernible trail—except to those who knew exactly what to look for.
The man was looking to frame someone for theft, so obviously Xia Yan would use the opportunity to really steal his money. She coldly smirked at the screen.
Xia Yan leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. The payout was substantial. Thirty million dollars wasn't just wealth; it was freedom. It was the foundation of a new power base. But as satisfying as it was to secure the funds, she wasn't naive. She knew the money came with a baggage, she had known that the funds were under investigation but why would she care? At the end of the day, it's just Thirty million USD. Aurora was a multi-billionaire in her past life. It wasn't that she didn't try to hack into her own accounts to amasss the amount she currently needed for her plan….
A few days earlier…
Xia Yan was leaned back in the sleek leather chair, her fingers resting on the keyboard. The familiar thrill of hacking coursed through her veins—she made sure everything was untraceable, not even using her new persona Ghost signature. Right now, what she was doing needed the utmost discretion.
Her original bank account had always been a closely guarded secret, a fortress of financial independence she had meticulously built. Billions rested there once, nestled in investments, real estate, and discreet offshore accounts. Aurora had never trusted anyone with its existence—not even with her master.
But now, as she stared at the empty login screen of the Zurich-based private bank, an unsettling sense of unease crept in. She cracked her knuckles and got to work, bypassing security protocols with a practiced ease that made her heart race.
Lines of code danced across the screen as she navigated through firewalls and encryption barriers. A part of her reveled in the familiarity—it felt like slipping into her own skin again, even if it was only her mind that remained intact.
And then, finally, she was in.
The account balance popped up on the screen.
Balance: 0.00 USD
Her breath hitched. She stared at the number, refreshing the page twice, three times, hoping it was a glitch. But the number didn't change.
Her hands tightened into fists. This account wasn't just money—it was security, power, and evidence that her past life had existed.
"Impossible," she muttered under her breath. Her funds were diversified, scattered across multiple holdings. Even if someone knew about this account, draining everything would have been nearly impossible.
Unless someone had planned for it.
Her fingers moved with renewed urgency, pulling up transaction logs. Her heart sank as she saw the trail of carefully timed transfers. Over the course of several months—starting before her death—every last cent had been siphoned off. The logs were thorough but deliberately obfuscated, the kind of precision only very few hackers or someone with inside access could achieve. Because this was deadliest assassin Aurora's account . The undefeated hacker Wrath's account.
Her throat went dry. This wasn't random.
She scoured deeper, tracing the transactions, decrypting fragments of data. Names, locations, and dates began to emerge—a web of companies and shell accounts, all leading to…
She froze.
Present …
Across the city, in a government surveillance bureau…
"Sir, we've flagged an unusual transaction," a junior analyst said, turning to his superior. His screen displayed the details: thirty million USD rerouted through a series of untraceable channels before vanishing into an anonymous account overseas.
The man, a seasoned official with sharp features and an equally sharp mind, frowned. "Source?"
"It originated from one of the flagged accounts under investigation for ties to corruption. The routing pattern… it's like nothing we've seen before."
The official studied the data, his expression darkening. "It's too clean," he muttered. "Whoever did this is a professional—far beyond what we're used to dealing with. And if they're this good, they'll know we're watching now."
The analyst hesitated. "Do you think it could be Wrath?" A cold silence enveloped the room.
Wrath. The name hung heavy in the air—a legend whispered in equal parts awe and fear among hackers and law enforcement alike. Wrath's exploits were the stuff of digital myth: toppling corporations, paralyzing governments, and disappearing a year ago without a trace.
The official's lips curled into a disdainful sneer. "Wrath?" he repeated, the word dripping with derision. "You think Wrath—the so-called undefeated hacker, the one who's supposedly toppled governments and bled corporations dry—would waste their time siphoning thirty million from a second-rate account?" He shook his head sharply, his sharp gaze pinning the junior analyst.
"Use your brain," he snapped. "This is too small, too subtle for Wrath. Wrath doesn't just take; they make a statement. Every move of theirs is a declaration of war. This?" He gestured toward the screen. "This is precision work, yes, but it's quiet. Surgical. Wrath doesn't operate in whispers."
The analyst flushed but stood his ground, mumbling, "I just thought… the routing pattern… it's so sophisticated. No one else could pull it off so cleanly."
"And that's why you're still a junior," the official said flatly. "If Wrath were behind this, you wouldn't be sitting here gawking at traces on a screen. You'd be sifting through rubble, wondering how they managed to burn the entire system to the ground."
But even as he dismissed the idea, a nagging unease flickered in the back of his mind. Wrath was a ghost story for most, but for him, Wrath had always felt real. And the precision of this job…
He shoved the thought aside, his tone sharp as steel. "Whoever this is, they're dangerous—but not Wrath. Don't get distracted by fantasies. Focus on the facts."
The analyst nodded reluctantly, turning back to his monitor. But he couldn't quite shake the thought. If it wasn't Wrath, then who was good enough to make them think of the name at all?
Back in Xia Yan's room…
The screen of her laptop went dark as Xia Yan powered down the device. She had already done the steps to erase any traces of her work and encrypted her local files with layers of security that even seasoned hackers would struggle to crack. Of course, if someone knew where to look, they can find ghost's traces. And that was intentional.
She stared at the blank screen for a moment, her mind churning.
The thrill of hacking—the precision, the challenge—had always been intoxicating. But this wasn't her past life. The stakes were different now. Aurora might have been untouchable in her old world, but here, she was rebuilding from scratch. Her enemies were faceless for now, but she knew better than to believe they would remain that way for long.
Her fingers brushed against the desk as she thought of her next steps. Money was only the beginning. What she needed next was influence—connections, tools, and allies, even if temporary.
Unbeknownst to her, the flagged transaction had already set off alarms in government surveillance systems. The account she had breached was under active scrutiny, part of a high-profile investigation into a network of corruption spanning corporate and political elites.
The senior official paced his office, his thoughts churning. The hacker, now nicknamed "Ghost" by his team—a name that, unbeknownst to them was the very alias Xia Yan had chosen for herself. Ghost was unlike anything he'd encountered in recent years. The precision, the fluid movements, the untraceable routing—this wasn't the work of an amateur.
"Ghost," he murmured, the name tasting bitter on his tongue.
Now, with Ghost's fingerprints—no matter how faint—on the case, the official was determined to unmask this new player in the hacking world.