The blade that pierced Yue Liuyi came from a girl with flame-red hair, a comet streaking straight into moonlight.

Petite body, storm-swollen presence. Silk hanfu gleamed, dragon patterns coiling like red-scaled rivers.

Her face was porcelain fine, yet her smile was feral, a wildfire too old for her age.

(Who… who is she… No, I didn’t sense a trace… Her power vastly outstrips mine…)

Yue Liuyi clamped down on pain, swallowing the blood like frost. The red-haired girl stepped in, the knife sank deeper, cold iron burrowing like winter ice.

(Counterattack? Not a chance… Her magic hits like a tidal wave!)

Strength bled out through that long blade. Her limbs went heavy, a nightmare pressing down, a body pinned like a puppet nailed to the floor.

“L-Little Yue…!”

Dixue spotted the chaos in the vent and stared, disbelief bright in emerald eyes.

“Long time no see, Dixue.”

“Y-you’re…”

Dixue froze. Her emerald gaze locked on the red-haired girl. The silver-haired girl’s eyes held anger with a tremor of doubt, shock with a shadow of sorrow.

“Let Moon-sis go!”

“Lingwei, don’t!”

Too late. Zero Wei launched, and before she saw the counter, a blast of scorching heat flung her away like a leaf in a furnace wind.

“Ugh!”

The catfolk loli hit the ground with a soft thud and went limp. The red-haired girl hauled Yue Liuyi close and sprang to the high dais where Blood Dancer stood.

“Zero Wei!”

Maria gritted her teeth, ready to rush, but Xiang Xiaoyan blocked her with a blade like a midnight thorn.

“The enemy has a hostage.”

“!!!”

“Heh. I usually despise using hostages. But without one… Dixue wouldn’t speak to me so sweetly. Isn’t that right?”

Head tilted high, she stared with unmoving, deep crimson eyes at Yedie Snow and didn’t blink.

“How… how are you on this ship! What do you want with Little Yue!”

Dixue drew her bow, rage lit like a storm torch. Her slender palm was slick with cold sweat, rain on carved jade.

“So she’s called Little Yue? Dixue found another helper, I see. Blue hair… she reminds me of Xinrui. Want me to… process you again?”

She twisted her blade a notch, as if stirring a calm pond, and pain ripped through Yue Liuyi’s nerves like lightning through a tree.

“Mm—!”

Yue Liuyi bit down hard and didn’t scream. She was a boy beneath the silk; pain alone wouldn’t break him. Escape, however, was a locked door with no handle.

“Stop! Let Little Yue go!”

Blood ran crimson along blue hair, pattering to the deck like red rain. Dixue’s heart burned; Yue Liuyi’s pain clamped on her own like twin chains.

“Third Princess, don’t go too far! Are you declaring war on the Rangers Lodge?”

Xiang Xiaoyan’s words jolted Yue Liuyi and Maria. So the red-haired girl was the rumored fireborn princess—Sikong Qinhui?

(It’s the Third Princess! No wonder… so strong! At least master-class…)

“Hmph. This isn’t Dragon Heaven. No law binds me. In the New Land, power is the only tongue.”

Her voice was loose and wild. Flames blossomed around her like circling red dragons. Sikong Qinhui’s red hair lifted without wind, a banner in a blaze.

Inside that fiery cage, Yue Liuyi’s body hardened to stone. One knife, yet she felt carved from head to toe, a marionette jerked by invisible strings.

“Are you insane?”

Xiang Xiaoyan stepped to Dixue’s side, knuckles white on her sword, a thorn ready to bloom.

“Hmph. Black Rose, you don’t get it. Dixue, I’ll ask one more time. Will you come back to me, stay by my side, always?”

“How could I… You let the Murder Fiend kill Xinrui! And now you hurt Little Yue! H-how could I ever…”

Dixue clenched her fists. Her face slipped into shadow like ink silk sliding under a moon.

“Then don’t blame me for ending talk of mercy. Dixue, I adore you. So even if I must be rough, I’ll take you.”

(Does the Third Princess… love Dixue?)

“Why! If you love someone, shouldn’t you hold them gently?”

Yue Liuyi longed to fight the Third Princess at her side. Yet all she could do was breathe those words like a lantern in wind.

“You know nothing!”

Sikong Qinhui’s face darkened like a storm front. The blade at Yue Liuyi’s spine pressed deeper with a grinding chill.

“Gah—!”

“Let go of Little Yue… or I swear I’ll kill you!”

Dixue lifted her face. Her glare hit like an arrow. Silver magic rose around her, flowing like moon dew.

“So Dixue cares for her that much. Right. I just had a brilliant idea.”

Feeling Yue Liuyi’s pain thrumming, Sikong Qinhui chuckled. “Since you love this little doll so much, then you’ll be my doll. Or I kill her now.”

“Huh?”

Dixue stood stunned, emerald eyes widening like clear lakes in a gale.

“I’ll count to three. At each count, I turn the blade in her body once. Let’s see… how many turns until she’s a heap of meat? Three… two…”

Sikong Qinhui meant every word. Besides Dixue, nothing else mattered to her, like a hawk locking on a single star.

“D-don’t hurt Little Yue! If you let her go, I’ll agree to anything!”

“Dixue, don’t listen!”

“No… I can’t let Little Yue die again…”

Dixue lowered her bow and smiled at the violet-haired girl, a smile wetter than tears, sorrow heavy as rain.

“Well? Decided?”

“If you promise not to harm Little Yue.”

The Third Princess smiled, satisfied, like a cat curling around a warm ember. “Fine. I swear on my soul: if you become my doll, I will never trouble this blue-haired girl again. I won’t harm her at all.”

“Mm.”

“Then kneel.”

Thud. Dixue knelt. The silver-haired girl so noble and graceful fell to her knees without a tremor, like snow surrendering to winter.

“LittleSnow, don’t…”

Yue Liuyi wanted to shout, but even her lips wouldn’t part. Earlier, the Third Princess left speech for the sake of hearing her scream. Now even that thread was cut.

“Repeat after me, swear on your soul: I, Yedie Snow, will forever become the doll of the Third Princess, Sikong Qinhui. I will serve her, obey every command. If I break it… all those I love will vanish like smoke, and I will become an emotionless monster.”

The red-haired girl laughed wild, savoring control like a puppeteer holding bright strings.

“Dixue, don’t accept it! That’s the most brutal soul ban!”

A soul ban is the highest vow cut into the soul. Break it, and the soul is scarred. The lightest leaves you hollow; the worst strips your humanity, a walking husk.

“Mm. I, Yedie Snow, will forever…”

Dixue didn’t answer Xiaoyan. She spoke calmly, the cruel vow falling like snow over gray stone.

Her emerald eyes held no fear of chains, no grief for lost freedom. Only peace and a quiet joy, like dawn after storm.

She gathered her courage and smiled at her beloved Little Yue.

Because she didn’t know if she would ever see Little Yue again.

She didn’t know if she would ever have the freedom to smile to her.

So the silver-haired girl, at least now, in this last unfrozen moment—

would give Little Yue courage,

so she could walk on alone.

(Sorry, Little Yue. I can’t go to the Rainbow Sanctuary with you. But don’t grieve for me. Because I can finally save the one I love. And that, for me, is enough.)

Emerald eyes gleamed as they had back then—

when we played games together,

when we teased each other in wicked cuddles,

when we chattered while doing makeup,

when we built our Snow-Moon Forest,

when we baked little cakes,

when we…

I want to stay with you, to make a thousand bright futures together.

But…

I’m sorry…

Crystal drops splashed before the silver-haired girl, tears like dew falling from a winter plum.

Will you just watch?

Will you stay bound?

Will you let Dixue become a puppet because of you?

Will you watch a companion leave again?

Will you—

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Yue Liuyi knew nothing.

She didn’t know who she was.

She didn’t know how to break these chains.

She didn’t know what could save Dixue.

She didn’t know. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.

But she knew—

she would never let the one she loved cry.

The night sky appeared.

A thousand constellations rose around Yue Liuyi, stars swelling from silence like lanterns on a river.

Power surged through her body, unmatched, a tide from the deepest gene and heart.

It felt like breaking every lock with one dawn.

It felt like all the tries man dared against the sky.

It felt like all the shouts life hurled at despair.

Hope is seized by living hands.

So—

a massive gravitational field blasted the Third Princess backward, hurling her like a red leaf in a storm. The blood-red blade slipped free, and blood pattered hot onto the deck.

Everyone stared, breath caught. The Stellar Moon Compass spun around the blue-haired girl, and those myriad stars were no longer ghostly images. They were bodies alive with unsayable force.

The starry sky felled the Third Princess in a single strike and knit Yue Liuyi’s wounds like night silk mending torn light.

But the power was fleeting. In a heartbeat, the stars burned out.

Yue Liuyi fell, a kite with cut string drifting down—

and just before the deck rose up, the silver-haired girl caught her in gentle arms.

“Huh?”

Yue Liuyi blinked. She was cradled against Dixue, staring into those familiar, clear emerald eyes.

“Don’t worry. The vow didn’t take.”

“Mm… Thank goodness…”

Warmth wrapped her, a familiar embrace like spring. Yue Liuyi didn’t even notice she’d started to cry.

“Little Yue crying… so cute.”

Dixue smiled and brushed the tears from her cheek with a touch like snow petals.

“We… can still go to the New Land together, right?”

“Of course. We promised.”

“Mm.”

The girls kissed.

In that moment, time turned to forever.

“Damn it! How did my royal power—!”

Sikong Qinhui clenched her fists. Not only fury at sudden failure, but shock, iron-cold, at being defeated at all.

She carried dragon blood—royalty among royalties, a crest carved by thunder and flame. Impossible. An elite-ranked girl toppled her, like a reed cutting a wave.

Worse to swallow—the victor was Dixue’s lover, a moon tied to her tide.

“Dixue, Liuyi, everyone run! She’s about to unleash Dragon Power!” The warning cracked like winter ice.

“No one runs! Special Response Unit, stop them!” The order snapped like a whip through smoke.

Bands of gold flickered around Sikong Qinhui, scales of light rippling over her skin. The red-haired girl roared, a furnace birthing a storm.

Across the doorway, black-robed figures in conical hats poured in like rain, shadows washing the threshold.

“It’s fine. I stole back the weapon specialized against Dixue,” Dixue said, voice steady as a drawn bow. “With Xiaoyue beside me... I’m unbeatable.”

She let her lashes fall like falling snow and gathered Yue Liuyi into her arms.

“Don’t call me that weird nickname right now...” The protest fluttered like a startled sparrow.

“Heh... then let’s meet the future together,” Dixue breathed, a smile like dawn on frost.

A dazzling silver light detonated, a moonburst tearing the dark.