The fight tipped into a landslide, the tide rushing one way as Xiao Qianxue hung in midair and, with Eternal Twin Stars, rained lead like a storm with needle-true precision, pinning four elite guards in place.
“Is that all you’ve got?” The ache in her right hand pulsed like a bruise under ice, yet the blonde girl moved easy, her rhythm flowing like water through flame.
“Damn you, you’ll pay for this, you little slut!” The guards scraped sparks with their weapons, barely batting incoming rounds aside, only to ping ricochets like fireflies into their own teammate.
“Who’re you calling names?” The blonde girl’s heel cracked across the loudmouth’s face, teeth spraying like scattered rice, cruelty sharp as frost.
“Shit!” He stopped blocking, and hurled his weapon at Xiao Qianxue as she spun in the air, the throw cutting wind like a dark hawk.
“Oh? Giving up already?” To her, men with weapons were sheep edging toward a butcher’s blade; without weapons, they were lambs under winter snow.
“Hahahahaha!” He clawed out a black injector, laughing like broken glass, and drove the needle in hard; “You!” the other three guards shouted in unison, their voices clashing like drums, torn between stopping him and letting fate bite.
The arena fell oddly quiet, silence settling like fog; taking the lull, the blonde girl swapped mags on her silver-black twin pistols—Eternal Twin Stars—and fished a green vial from her waist pouch, the liquid glinting like spring water as she jabbed it into her bleeding right hand. Boss entering phase two means no interference, she thought, but topping up isn’t cheating—like a fox slipping through brush.
“Uu… Aaaah!” He roared, and lifted his head—fur bloomed ink-black along his face and torso, claws lengthened like icy daggers, even his teeth turned into hooked ivory; muscles bulged in uneven mounds, veins swelling like twisted roots under bark.
“Beastform…?” The blonde girl stared, stunned by a scene ripped from movie reels, the script smearing like rain. “Hey, hey… intel didn’t say anything like this…”
“Die… awooo!” The three guards backed away like crabs before a wave, leaving the beastified one to stare down Xiao Qianxue.
“So fast!” The instant the beast lunged, Xiao Qianxue snapped into firing rhythm; she side-rolled like a leaf in a gust, then booted a nearby stool toward the beast with a thunder-crack of wood.
“Roar!” One punch turned the stool into snowing splinters, the force brutal as a falling tree. “Oh my—” The sight froze her breath like midwinter, fear tightening her chest; one clean hit from him would snuff her candle for good.
She raised her guns, bullets screeching like hornets toward soft spots—eyes, knees, ears, heart, and even the lower gate no armor likes to name.
It was clear the beast had lost all reason, and the change still crawled under his skin like a climbing ivy; he took every shot on raw flesh, shrugging impacts with a mountain’s weight, then flexed his joints as if loosening cords on a bow.
“How is this cheat-tier physique even a thing? Dammit.” The truth landed cold—her rounds didn’t scratch him; as Little Loli prepared the best strat—run like a fox through reeds—the other three guards skittered in fast, hoping to pick the bones.
“Awooo!” Their move didn’t pass their teammate’s feral law; with a rage-roar, he pulped the closest one with a single punch, meat splashing like red mud, death sure as nightfall.
“Fall back!” The remaining two didn’t hesitate, breaking for the exit like birds startling from brush; reality slammed in, the beast chasing them down and crushing each with one blow, the last dying with the black vial still clenched like a snake’s head—too slow to morph, fate cold as iron.
Back on her side, a silver little case appeared in the blonde girl’s hands, the gift Hoshina had shoved at her before the mission, saying, You’ll need this when the key turns; she’d tried opening it in the car, but the lock held tight like frost.
Clack, clack—the case exhaled a white mist like winter breath and eased open on its own, smooth as a moonlit door.
“This is—” Inside lay a Desert Eagle, the body an all-silver gleam with serpent engravings winding like river vines, the tan grip crowned by a black skull like a night totem.
“Naga Serpent God?” Xiao Qianxue lifted the pistol, spotting the four characters etched under the slide, a chill running through her palm like water over stone. “These rounds are massive.” She took the mag from the other side of the case—only four bullets, each carved with patterns like talismans.
Clack—she seated the mag and racked the slide, and the whole Desert Eagle breathed a faint silver glow, moonlight humming like a drawn blade. “What is this…?”
“Awooo!” The beast felt the killing omen pour off her gun, threat like winter iron, and came screaming in. Bang! Xiao Qianxue didn’t flinch; a silver round howled down the barrel, the serpents along the slide flaring with light like scales catching dawn.
“Awo!” He twisted away from the heart line, but half his body blew apart, meat and fur shredding like storm-torn canvas, and his death dive still bought him blood.
“Uwah!” She slammed into a wall hard enough to rattle her bones, red spitting from her mouth like a burst petal; pain burned in her abdomen, hot as a brand, and blood poured like a broken stream. “It’s over…”
The beast’s claws had opened a wide red mouth across her belly; she’d tried to dodge, but the Naga Serpent God’s recoil pinned her like a nail in wood, and his strike grazed deep.
“No…” Panic pricked like cold rain; she pawed at her pouch, hand trembling, and found nothing but dust—days of luck spent thin. Since the last showdown, the shadow of death haunted her like a long winter; the first time, Blood God’s Hand dragged her back, the second, a forced spatial transfer, and this time, fortune felt silent as stones.
She should’ve brought more healing vials, but the silver case was bulky, and she’d only packed two like a cautious sparrow. “I won’t die…” Strength leaked from her limbs like warmth from a cracked cup; she raised her wrist and saw her tactical watch destroyed by the impact, shards like dark ice, and knew—if its field hadn’t softened the slam, she’d already be out cold.
“I won’t die…” Faces floated through her mind like lanterns on water—her parents, Joanna, Luke—so many threads still undone; she wouldn’t let the loom stop here. But the gash below kept flooding like a river in spate, her body frozen in place, aware that one wrong move could spill organs like a basket tipped.
“Damn…” With the last ember of strength, she put a bullet through the beast’s skull, the headshot cracking like thunder over a lake.
“Looks like I don’t need to lift a finger—you’re already circling the drain.” A black-robed man stepped into view, his voice smooth as cold oil. “Leave this world with regret clinging like thorns.”
“Is it the end…?” Before darkness sealed her eyes like heavy snow, a bloom of blue flame erupted nearby, a sudden lotus of fire breaking night.
