Against all the girls’ expectations, the first to block the lightning… was the Great Arhat, like a mountain stepping into a storm.

“Your Highness, what are you doing?!” His shout cracked like split bamboo.

Master Mengyi, locked with Dawn Goose like hawks grappling in midair, didn’t sense the ripple behind him; by the time he saw the white‑haired girl in Shao Rong’s arms, the river had already flooded its banks.

“She’s slated for disposal anyway. Let her serve one last use here!” Shao Rong’s voice was a cold knife in sleet.

“Your Highness, you’re being foolish!” His rebuke rang like a temple bell struck off‑beat.

The Great Arhat flew in like a boulder hurled by a catapult, yet he was slower than a stormcloud primed to break.

Zzzzt!!!

From the white‑haired girl’s blood‑red eyes, a bolt speared out like a dragon of fire; the bronze‑skinned hulk toppled under it and turned into a slab of midnight charcoal.

It all happened in a blink; Yue Liuyi’s mind was still a calm lake when a living man vanished like mist in sun.

“Huh…?” Her breath fluttered like a moth by a lantern.

Shao Rong froze, too, her gaze stalled like a clock in frost.

“Little Yue, run!” The warning whipped the air like wind through reeds.

Thud—Dixue tackled Yue Liuyi to the ground, and then endless arcs frothed from the white‑haired girl like a flood of silver eels.

“Is she… losing control?!” Shao Rong’s face blanched like paper in rain.

She staggered back and gripped her jade hairpin, a royal secret talisman that bloomed a shield like a glass lotus around her.

The princess dodged the lightning under that fragile dome, but her soldiers had no umbrella under this storm.

The crossbowmen kept firing like metronomes, never noticing the tide; arcs swallowed them, crackle‑pop dancing over armor like wildfire through dry grass, and loyal lives turned to char.

“What’s happening!” The cry tore the air like ripped silk.

“Aaaahhhh!” Their screams rose like gulls in a gale.

Yue Liuyi felt her skull bloom with pain, a black chrysanthemum opening behind her eyes like a bomb.

The arcs from the white‑haired girl made the blue‑haired girl’s nerves crawl, like a thousand caterpillars threading through her brain; as each life crisped to charcoal, that crawling deepened like roots burrowing.

Breeze’s agony seemed even heavier, like a sapling bent double in a typhoon; Yue Liuyi forced her gaze around and saw Breeze kneeling, face drawn tight like a drumskin.

“Ugh…” The sound was a pebble dropping into a well.

“Breeze…” Her whisper drifted like ash.

After devouring the crossbowmen, the lightning spilled wider, a tide rushing for the girls; Zaocun and Ji Wan stood at the prow like deer before a snare.

“Sis, what are you doing!” Ji Wan’s voice fluttered like a trapped bird.

“H‑help!” Zaocun’s plea was a reed bending in floodwater.

They tried to run, but who outruns a lightning arc, a hunting net of light?

Ji Wan scooped Zaocun up, but before a step could land, the lightning web chased them, death flickering like fish scales in a night river.

Dense, endless, horizon to horizon… and just as the cat‑girl’s silhouette was about to be swallowed, a vine snapped out like a whip and hooked her waist.

San Hua Zhi commanded the vine, reeling Zaocun and Ji Wan back like fish saved from a weir.

“We’re saved!” The relief rang like a bell in fog.

The vines pulled them clear with swift grace, like swallows skimming a pond.

But the girl in a kimono couldn’t hold; her strength drained like sand through fingers.

“S‑so good…” Her smile was a wan moon behind clouds.

“Sister Zhi?!” Their cry shook like wind in bamboo.

“At last… I can protect my companions…” Her words were petals falling.

A thin line of blood traced from San Hua Zhi’s lips like red silk; thud—she dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Xiao Zhi?!” The name cracked like ice.

“Wait, Dawn Goose!” Dixue’s shout chased like a thrown rope.

“Damn it, I’ll take you with me!” The oath burned like oil.

“Die!!!” The snarl was a blade striking stone.

Sword clenched, Dawn Goose blinked behind the white‑haired girl like a shadow stepping through a doorway; give her one second, and she’d sever the head like wheat under a sickle.

But a second is an ocean for current, enough for lightning to run hundreds of miles like a river in flood.

“Huh?” Her breath snagged like a snagged kite.

When Dawn Goose struck, she saw it—she was ringed by an electric sea, a bright prison like a mirrored lake.

Ahead was lightning, left was lightning, right was lightning, behind was lightning; whether she advanced or retreated, the path was a wall of rain.

No choices, only to stand like a stake and be eaten by the storm.

For a blink, Dawn Goose remembered the Great Arhat; he must’ve faced the same net, a fisherman’s circle no fish could slip.

(Am I… going to die too… damn it! I didn’t… for Xiao Zhi—) Her thought frayed like a torn banner.

Lightning flashed, a thunder‑net slicing her body like wire through clay.

Dawn Goose shut her eyes and held still, a statue posed by fate.

Her whole body darkened to midnight, unmoving like a stone stele in a graveyard.

…

…

Yue Liuyi stood stunned, a cold so sharp it was steel sliding from her spine into every limb.

“Senior Dawn Goose!” Her cry rang like a struck chord.

“Big Sis Dawn Goose!” The second voice trembled like reeds.

“Wait! That’s not—” Hope flickered like a firefly.

In despair, Yue Liuyi noticed something wrong; the black‑haired girl’s body was coal‑dark and dull.

But it wasn’t scorched flesh.

It was… stone. A statue carved by a storm.

“I… won’t let… my companions die anymore!” The vow was a seed cracking stone.

Breeze held herself up on hands and knees, limbs trembling like a fawn’s; that small body strained to grow like a bud pushing through ice, and her magic rose to meet the lightning like a green tide against a silver one.

“Huh? My hand…” Her fingers felt like wood.

“Why’s my body… so stiff…” Her breath clouded like winter.

With Breeze’s spell surging, Zaocun and Ji Wan, San Hua Zhi and Bernice, Little Monkey and Little Dragon—all turned to stone, a ring of statues under stormlight.

Stone doesn’t conduct; turn a girl to rock, and lightning slides off like rain off a tile.

It was Breeze’s method, the old way she saved lives, a grove turning to granite to weather fire.

But…

Breeze couldn’t petrify Yue Liuyi, who was also a World Tree Maiden; the spell slipped off like rain on a lotus leaf.

The countless bolts sensed the lone opening and poured toward Yue Liuyi like a river finding its gorge.

“Huh?” Yue Liuyi lifted her face, eyes calm as a well, and met the lightning.

This lightning carried despair, carried jealousy, carried disillusion, carried annihilation; it was a storm brewed from broken hearts.

It was a strike no girl could dodge by speed alone, a decree written in sky‑fire.

But the bolt, in the instant before it kissed Yue Liuyi—

Met a body that stepped in front, Dixue’s back like a white shield against night.

…

…

“Uh!” The jolt hit like a drumbeat; the girl woke as if yanked from dark water.

She didn’t know how long she’d lain there; her limbs were reeds, empty and soft.

“Huh…? Your Highness, you’re awake?” The voice in her ear was a bell’s clarity, warm and strange.

“Who are you!” The red‑haired girl clenched a fist that felt like clay.

Only then did she notice the old wounds still etched on her body, pain flaring with each motion like coals under skin.

“Don’t move, Your Highness! You’re still injured!” The speaker rushed in like a nurse in rain, steady hands on her shoulders.

“Who are you, and why are you at my side!” Sikong Qinhui’s nerves bristled like thorns.

“Rest easy, Your Highness. I’m Xia Jiajun. I’ll guard you always, like a blade at your gate.” Her vow was a banner in wind.

“Xia… Xia? Don’t try to fool me! Xia Jiajun is a man—how could…” Her words stumbled like stones.

She objected, but the keen‑eyed redhead saw the echoes—the spacing of the eyes, the bridge of the nose, the tiny freckled pores—structures a mask can’t rewrite, bones under bark.

“Princess Qinhui! I really am your guard. Because of… certain things, I’ve become a girl.” Her confession fell like rain.

“Uh… I get it.” The red‑haired girl frowned, nodding with effort, accepting like someone swallowing bitter tea.

“But what happened… where are we? Were we captured?” Her gaze searched like a lantern.

“To report, Your Highness: we’re in the Rainbow Sanctuary! We were captured by Crimson Paradise, but we were lucky to meet the Butterfly Snow President—she saved us!” Her words were lifelines braided tight.

“Di—Dixue?! W‑wait! Where is Dixue?!” Panic surged like a wave.

That stab from the dream resurfaced, a heart‑clench like thunder close by; the red‑haired girl understood why she’d woken.

The silver‑haired girl—the one she liked like moonlight through willows—must be in mortal danger.

Sikong Qinhui braced herself and sat up from the bed, like a blade wrenching free of a scabbard.

“Uh… President Dixue should be out gathering resources, I think? I don’t know…” Xia Jiajun’s answer staggered like a child in snow.

“You idiot!” The rebuke snapped like a twig.

She raised her hand, palm poised like a falling fan, but the slap wouldn’t fall across Xia Jiajun’s cheek.

If it were her old guard, the blow would’ve landed clean, merciless as hail; but now, facing this girl, facing those eyes edged with dried tears, the redhead’s hand hung like a stalled pendulum.

“Hmph… forget it! Carry me. We’re getting out.” Her command was a thrown spur.

“Huh? Your Highness, where are we going…?” The question fluttered like a leaf.

“To find that damn Shao Rong! In the New Land, only that thing she carries can threaten Dixue!” Her fury flashed like flint.

“Th‑that…? How could she dare use that? It’s the bane of all life!” The words shivered like winter reeds.

“She’s crazier than me! Corner her, and she’ll burn the forest to ash!” Qinhui’s eyes blazed like coals.

“Understood!” Xia Jiajun bit down like a wolf on a bone and hefted the princess, muscles coiling like bowstrings.

“Hurry!” The order cracked like a whip.

On Xia Jiajun’s back, the red‑haired girl swallowed pain like fire and stared into the distance, eyes a drawn bow.

(Dixue, you’re mine… I won’t let you die by anyone else’s hand!) Her vow flew like an arrow into stormclouds.