Boots hit concrete in cargo-jammed Cabin 317, echoing like iron rain on cold stone.

“Oh, you came?”

Scarlet lips smiled out of the dark. A lush, mature figure dragged a smear of blood as she stepped from shadow—Blood Dancer.

“As agreed, I’m here… Where’s Zaocun? I need to see her.”

High on the dais, Blood Dancer looked down. Chulei squared his shoulders; ink-dark eyes showed nothing.

“So impatient? Your cute junior is right above your head.”

“What!?”

He looked up. The ceiling was webbed with red lines like veins. At their heart, countless strands formed a cage of blood. The catfolk girl slept within, quiet as fallen snow.

“She isn’t hurt, right!!”

“Use your eyes. I’ve dropped the anti-detection spell.”

Chulei scanned the suspended Zaocun. Relief loosened his chest. Aside from a sleep hex, her body was untouched.

“Per our deal, here’s half the Scarlet Rainbow Mag-bullets. Once you release her, I’ll lead you to the other half.”

Cautious as a blade in frost, he drew a small box from his coat.

“So these are the Scarlet Rainbow Mag-bullets… That mana—intoxicating.”

Blood Dancer stepped closer to admire. Chulei slid back, keeping the Murder Fiend at arm’s length.

“One hand for the girl, one hand for the goods!”

“Fine.”

She lifted a hand. The blood cage sank like a red tide, setting Zaocun on the floor, a dozen paces away.

“Set the Mag-bullets on the ground.”

“…”

Chulei crouched, laid them down, then sprinted to Zaocun and scooped her up.

“Zaocun, are you okay!”

She still slept. He reached out, ready to dispel the bindings on her.

A white thigh slipped from a crimson kimono. Blood Dancer’s steps were fox-fire bright. She bent, picked up the Mag-bullets, drew a handgun from her sash, and seated the round.

“Deal’s off, Mr. Chulei.”

A hunched figure shambled up behind him—filthy gray robe, ruined face. Nightmare Rust.

“What do you mean by this!?”

Chulei took in the room. Blood Dancer leveled the pistol—barrel loaded with a Scarlet Rainbow round. Nightmare Rust spread a corroding field, sealing Cabin 317’s doors like rusted ice.

“I’ve held back long enough. And Blood Dancer seems intrigued by your blood.”

“Why bargain? If we grab you, the other half comes out under torture.”

She licked her lips. Hunger, naked and raw, crawled across her gaze.

His breath cooled. “So that’s how it is… Then I’ll just kill you both.”

“Hah! You alone? Inside my field?”

Blood Dancer laughed, a peal like broken glass, as if this were the world’s funniest joke.

“You won’t know till we try. And I’m not alone!!!”

Chulei pulled a grenade and tossed it.

It didn’t bloom fire. It burst into a thousand strands of silver light.

Silver melted across the room, as if the world turned to quicksilver. White butterflies lifted and danced, gorgeous and unreal—dream poured into motion.

“This is Dixue’s domain now. Trash, begone!”

Dixue’s porcelain silhouette stepped to the warehouse center. The silver-haired archer stood like a goddess. With a single Cherry Blossom Butterfly Speech, she shattered Blood Dancer’s field completely.

The bloodlines webbing the ceiling snapped. The iron tang in the air blew away. In its place, a freshness like dawn after rain, clearing every breath.

“Special Envoy Rangers!? Since when do smugglers collude with Special Envoy Rangers!”

Nightmare Rust snarled at Chulei and drew a knife.

“Don’t be so dramatic, cockroach…”

As he lunged, his own shadow rippled—a barely seen wave. A purple-haired figure rose from that darkness, and a razor gleam of swordlight cut straight through the gray robe.

“Ah!!!!!”

Instinct spared the Murder Fiend from decapitation. Even so, a withered arm spun away, severed clean.

“I’m taking Zaocun to safety first!”

“Go!!”

Chulei disengaged fast. He’d done his job as bait. Now, protecting the catfolk girl mattered most.

“Aaah!!!”

Losing an arm didn’t make Nightmare Rust retreat. It pushed him into frenzy. Murder Fiends haunt death’s edge; pain wires their nerves, and their next strikes hit harder.

Blood sprayed from his right stump and hardened into a warped black rustblade. It angled in bizarre arcs and cleaved for the purple-haired girl at point-blank range.

Clang!

The impact rang like storm on steel. Xiang Xiaoyan’s block held, but the force hurled her back. She twisted midair, planted both long legs on the wall, and kicked off. Her black sword howled, scything for the gray-robed killer.

Shadows met shadows. Nightmare Rust and Xiang Xiaoyan traded vicious, probing strikes, each threadlike and hard to read. After several exchanges, Xiaoyan took clear advantage—not just because he’d lost his right arm, but because her close-quarters pressure stopped him from hit-and-fade with his best assassination tricks.

Hiss.

Another spray of blood. Xiaoyan punched another hole into him. A butcher of young girls, he was already on borrowed time.

“Rangers Lodge, is it? Hah… perfect timing!!!”

Blood Dancer saw the brawl and only smiled wider. Fury, born of woman’s envy, fanned her to a blaze. That young skin. That smooth cheek. That silken hair. Each was a needle stabbing her pride. She would erase the silver-haired Special Envoy Ranger who ruined her hunt.

“I’ll use bloodlines to carve your face to ribbons… Die ugly.”

Red light leaked around her, power siphoned from Xu Ding’s blood. With it, she could animate every line-like thing nearby, turning them into killing threads that strangled whatever they touched.

Crates around the warehouse burst. Bundles of cables exploded outward—copper and plastic circuitry now varnished with her mana. As weapons, these bloodlines bit like military wire: flexible, razor-sharp, and obedient to her will.

“Dixue, careful!”

Xiaoyan pressed Nightmare Rust and shouted a warning.

“How can there be so many bloodlines!!”

Dixue knew many spells and counters for mana attacks. But against raw physics, her defense was like anyone’s. Skin feels like steel only till a blade kisses it. A light slice, and those lines would dig in and tear the silver-haired girl apart.

“Hah, I prepared for you prey for a long time.”

Blood Dancer laughed, vicious and bright, whipping bloodlines at Dixue in wave after wave. There were many, but the archer’s footwork was liquid silver. She slipped each trap by a hair, staying clear of the tightening net.

(So that’s her confidence. This physical threat is nasty—hard to dodge, and good for defense. As an ambush, it’s near unbeatable. But…)

Dixue’s gaze sharpened. The lines rose like vipers from the floor’s cables and struck. Yet their source was Blood Dancer. In her right hand, several red threads flared, feeding into the wires like veins.

(I get it…)

She smiled, sure. She stopped moving. She faced the oncoming bloodlines and chose not to dodge.

“Giving up?”

Jealousy had set Blood Dancer ablaze. She could hardly wait to kill.

But—

“One Arrow of Thunder. I’ll send you on your way.”

Dixue gripped her longbow. She pulled from her quiver an arrow whose tip sparked with caged lightning, and drew on the sea of red lines.

Electric light blew apart midair. It wove with the bloodlines into a dazzling grid—an electric sky. Blood Dancer could only stare, frozen, as the veins in her arm burned black under the current.

“You’re not weak. But blood and copper both conduct, you know~”

With a dull thud, Blood Dancer collapsed, crimson kimono puddling around her.

The handgun loaded with a Scarlet Rainbow round clattered to the floor.

“Damn!!!”

Seeing Blood Dancer fall, Nightmare Rust knew they couldn’t win. He tried to vanish inside his Rustbound Domain.

“Stellar Moon Compass!!!”

At the instant his will turned to flight, Yue Liuyi’s spell arrived. She and Zero Wei had hidden in the vents, watching and waiting—for safety, and the right moment.

Azure light swept him from all sides, stripping his last invisibility.

“Nice work, Little Yue!”

“You wretches—I’ll kill every one of you!!”

He glared at the purple-haired girl nearby and the blue-haired girl beyond, teeth grinding with hate. He didn’t strike them. He slashed at his own neck.

(I failed the mission. But if I shed the body and enter shadow-soul, the Master will revive me. I’ll have endless chances for revenge…)

Xiang Xiaoyan didn’t stop him—not for lack of foresight, but because the trap was already set.

Maria, wearing metal gauntlets, stepped into the doorway.

“I hear you can escape in soul form. I don’t do soul magic, but…”

She raised her left hand. Her gauntlet lit like a humming tower, rings of blue building on the metal.

“Inside a Strong-Magnet Rune field, every spirit-body turns to dust.”

The moment he saw Maria, Nightmare Rust’s mind went cold. His soul had peeled away, but it wouldn’t cohere like before. The magnetic field worried it apart, piece by piece, until nothing remained.

“No—no, stop—aaahhh!!!!”

The ugly head rolling on the floor showed fear for the last time.

The Murder Fiend—Nightmare Rust—was utterly destroyed.

“Yay! Sister Yue, we did it!!!”

Huddled in the vent like swallows in a steel reed, Zero Wei reached out and high‑fived Yue Liuyi.

“Mm—we did it! LittleSnow and the others are awesome; they cut down two Murder Fiends like clean wind slicing fog!”

Watching the clash below spark like fireworks in stormclouds, Yue Liuyi felt a sober chill settle.

She knew her strength wasn’t poor, but it had gathered dust like a sheathed blade.

Against trained Special Envoy Rangers, she was a step behind, like a runner in soft sand.

She’d scraped a chance win against a Murder Fiend, like a lone reed bracing a flood.

Dixue and her crew slipped deep into enemy lines and returned unscathed, blades like moonlight on water.

“Then Sister Yue won’t be under a Murder Fiend’s threat anymore—so great, like dawn breaking over frost!”

“Mm‑hm”—her hum fluttered like a moth in the dark.

Joy rose as Yue Liuyi shifted to drop down and celebrate with Zero Wei and the others—then ice‑cold pain speared her chest.

“Huh—?” Her breath snagged like a hooked fish.

A flame‑red blade burst out through her chest, drenched in bright blood like sunset spilling into a river.