“Is she really Xiaoxue?” The class rep stared, disbelief fluttering like moths around a lantern, and the classmates froze like deer in frost.

The blonde girl slipped through the rifle’s hail like water through reeds, then ghosted behind the masked man. His arm came off like a doll’s limb, sliced clean by claw-sharp talons.

The forest was ink-dark, the campfire a pool of amber warmth, yet what happened at its edge crawled cold like spiders across skin.

“I planned to let you savor dying a bit longer, but I don’t have time to play.” Her voice was sweet as honey and hard as glass. She tilted her head like a curious cat, and her claws punched through his heart like an icicle through silk.

“Gag!” The kids left at the scene folded, as if a hand twisted their guts like a wet cloth. Death was a word like frost they never dared touch. But here lay more than one corpse, each death a mural of horror on black bark. Even if the dead were enemies and their end tipped the scales for you, what did it change under this moon?

“Yo, Nana and Class Rep, not planning to leave?” Xiao Qianxue sauntered over, eyes narrowing like crescent moons, a smile painted thin as a knife. Blood flecked her cheek like fallen petals, as if the carnage belonged to some other scroll.

“Xiao Qianxue! How can you kill people—ugh!” The class rep choked, and Joanna’s lips pressed tight like a locked box. “Sorry, safety first. And we’re monsters, you know.” Her tone was light as wind, her words heavy as stone. “We’ll talk after I tidy these up.”

The blonde girl turned; four masked men burst from the brush like hounds breaking the leash. “A Xin!” one cried, seeing his brother already a husk on the ground. “Look! The girl’s there!” Monkey stabbed a finger toward Little Loli.

“Drop her, or none of us walks out alive today!” The calm one barked, raising his gun mid-sentence like a thunder-stick cracking the night. “Nana, move!” Little Loli shoved Joanna aside; a bullet kissed her arm like a hot needle, carving a red line.

“It hurts!” She slid into the grass like a fox into shade, checked the graze, and watched blood bloom like a scarlet flower. Soon her pale arm ran red like a stream. “Damn…” She tore a strip of cloth like a cloud ripped from her shirt and bound the wound in a rough knot.

Sweat fell off her brow like dew from a leaf. Doubt pricked first, cold and small: Can I really drop them? She gritted her teeth like gates biting shut, then wove on through the trees like a shadow among pillars.

“Class rep, we need to go!” Joanna glanced at her phone; rescue was a drumbeat twenty minutes away. If they ran down the slope like water, they could meet it halfway. She grabbed the class rep’s wrist like a kite string, and they fled like startled birds.

“Joanna’s running!” Monkey shouted at the brown-haired silhouette slipping away like dusk. “Ignore it—if we split and chase, we’ll die blind in the thicket!” the calm one roared, his voice a whip. “Drop her first, then everything else can be fixed!”

“There! Open fire!” Their gunfire poured like monsoon rain. “Ah!” The blonde tried to dance through the storm, but a round found her calf like a wolf’s bite. Momentum yanked her down, pain tore her leg like cloth ripped to threads.

“We hit her!” the chatty one crowed, a crow on carrion. “Don’t rush—close in and finish her with a few more.” The calm one led forward like a hunting spear, the other three fanning out like wolves.

Not enough, her heart sank like iron in a well. Can’t even beat four guns—my strength still isn’t enough. Little Loli rolled and pushed up on both hands like a swimmer breaking surface. Four shadows swelled, closing like a tightening noose, and the mud on her clothes clung like shame.

She forced herself upright, pain biting her with every hop, and limped toward the trees like a wounded hare. “Miss Vampire, I suggest you stop.” After a few one-foot hops, the ache became a storm; she slumped against a tree like against a cold pillar. The bandage split open, and blood painted the cloth in red waves.

The four masked men rose out of the grass in time, circling her like dogs around a stag. “Or I’ll put a bullet in your other leg.” The calm one chambered a round with a click like flint, sighting the blonde who panted against bark.

“Or we take you back and have our fun?” Monkey’s voice oozed like tar; no one needed to ask whose mouth. “So who was it—what’s-his-name—who sent you?” Little Loli shifted, grounding herself like a dancer in sand, then lifted her chin. Messy gold framed her face; her eyes, scarlet and bright as garnets, swept the four like blades.

“Yeah, what’s-his-name sent us,” Monkey jeered, his grin a rip in cloth. “Enough talk. For our fallen brother and the boss!” The calm one squeezed his trigger, a twig snapping in winter; the other three snapped theirs in unison.

Through Little Loli’s dynamic sight, the bullets knit a tight net like spider silk, and then turned into wolves leaping for her throat. She closed her eyes, a breath like twilight sinking. Again. At least Nana got clear.

“Skill acquired: Lunge—Blood Crystal Arrow.” The cold mechanical voice rang in her skull like a bell trapped in ice. Joy flared; she snapped her eyes open, and in a single heartbeat the method and effect unfurled in her mind like a film reel.

“Too bad—today isn’t my death day.” Her gaze burned red, sly as foxfire. Around her, thick blood-crystal spikes, as wide as three fingers, rose like a thorny halo. One thought, and the spikes surged forward like a crimson tide, aimed at the masked men like spears at a boar.

Bang-bang-bang. Little Loli steered the blood-crystal, slamming spikes into incoming rounds like shields against hail, sending the rest streaking at the hunters like meteors.

Clack-clack—metal screamed in the air like a drumhead split. Then, pfft-pfft, the remaining spikes slid through bodies like hot knives through wax. Four corpses, punched full of holes like sieves, toppled stiff as felled trees.

“Mm!” A sharp sting bit her shoulder like a hornet. She looked down; a stray bullet had kissed it. In that downward glance, another round whisked through where her head had been and buried itself in the tree like a swallowed seed.

“Hah… close.” Silence fell like snow. The four masked men who’d wanted her dead lay scattered like broken baskets. Behind those masks, the faces must have frozen in disbelief like cracked porcelain. No one would tell them how they died.

“It hurts… it hurts!” She eyed her wounds, tears welling like beads in a string, forced out by pain. “Emergency treatment: enable?” The mechanical voice returned, cold as steel. She chose yes without a breath.

An invisible force tugged, like threads in a loom, and blood from the four bodies streamed out like red ribbons, merging, swelling into a scarlet fog that wrapped Little Loli like a shroud.

The blood-mist wormed into her wounds like a school of fish, plucked out bullets like thorns, and flowed into the gaps like plaster to stone. “It tickles—hah—hey! Don’t go in there!”

After a while, the mist thinned like dawn lifting, and Little Loli looked whole again, her skin pale and smooth as porcelain. “Energy consumption: one-half,” the voice chimed, as flat as slate.

“Wow, this heal is so imba.” She laughed, glitter bright, at the restored skin. But the backlash from the blood-crystal rushed in like needle-rain. Controlling the spikes had drained her mind like a cup poured dry, and strange stinging crawled under her skin like ants. Nothing comes without cost, a shadow whispered.

Her brief spark of excitement was swallowed by pain like a wave swallowing a candle. Her thoughts drifted, edges dimming like dusk falling over the pines.