“LittleSnow!”

Yue Liuyi threw herself at that silver-white silhouette like a swallow cutting through rain, but a bolt snapped her back like a kicked door.

“Little Moon… don’t come…”

The silver-haired girl dropped to one knee, a storm-tide of blue plasma coiling over her skin, lightning flickering like frost-fire.

“LittleSnow! LittleSnow!”

“I… can still… hold…”

Dixue’s face knotted with pain, yet she pushed up on trembling arms, a sapling in gale winds; her emerald eyes held no fear, only steel-green light.

“…”

The white-haired girl’s assault never slowed; spears of light sliced through the vine-wall like knives through wet leaves, and stabbed for Breeze.

It was so fast, like summer lightning; the strike hit the green-haired girl’s body, yet no spark bloomed, no thunder answered.

“Uh… on her, there’s…”

Breeze looked unharmed as a quiet pond, then went limp like cut strings and folded to the earth.

World Tree Maidens weren’t made for war; as arbiters of life, they didn’t learn spells that snuff it out, like flowers refusing frost.

Worse, Wan Han had already siphoned part of her power, like thieves draining a well; shielding her friends from the white-haired girl was Breeze’s limit.

“Breeze…”

“Little Moon, danger!”

“Awoooooo—Awoooooo—Awooooooooo!”

Dawn Sky howled like someone who never learned to cry, a torn-throat wail that split the woods like a riven cliff.

Lightning swarmed from her like a school of silver fish, warping the air, flooding the forest like monsoon rain, coiling for another strike.

“She’s a humanoid weapon built by the Electrode Sect! A failed World Tree Maiden project!”

“What?!”

At the knife’s edge, Shao Rong finally spoke, voice shaking like leaves; a truth spilled out like a dropped cup.

Yuchai had raised an energy shield like a glass cocoon, but couldn’t move; the brown-haired girl stood shivering, a hare cornered by hawks; if the white-haired one kept razing, she’d die.

“If you’ve got any counters to World Tree Maidens, use them now! I don’t want to die!”

With death at her throat like cold iron, Shao Rong shed all secrets; for the Third Princess, survival burned brighter than pride.

“A counter…?!”

In a flash like a struck flint, Yue Liuyi thought of the Cataclysm Chain, an iron serpent coiled around doom.

But to guard the Forest Fortress, Ailuna and Maria hadn’t joined this ambush; even if Ailuna rushed in, that chain wouldn’t unbind in time, much less collar the white-haired girl.

“Little Moon… go first. You can’t handle her…”

“No way!”

Watching Dixue force herself upright, Yue Liuyi felt her heart sliced like paper under a razor; every jolt on LittleSnow’s body echoed through her chest like chained thunder.

“Don’t worry… as a princess of the Night Clan… I can… face a World Tree Maiden…”

Plasma scorched her from neck to hem, her clothes burned black like winter bark; even so, Dixue gave her beloved Little Moon a soft spring-smile.

She swept her left hand through the air like a crescent blade; silver light unfurled beside her like a veil of frost.

“Butterfly… Bind!”

Against that mesh of lightning, a cloud of silver-white butterflies rose around Dixue like snowmotes, weaving a dreamlike net of wings.

“Sinking Moon! Stellar Moon Compass!”

Yue Liuyi didn’t know if her power would bite; she just poured it out like a river to match Dixue, hurling it at the white-haired girl.

Butterflies met lightning and drank it like lanterns catching wind; they brightened, flitting and dipping, drawing the sparks and flying for the white-haired girl.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”

The moment those wings brushed skin, Dawn Sky’s scream tore out, a lab shriek born again; the girl once immune to lightning felt the lash like a brand.

“Even if I have to kill you… I won’t let you… hurt Little Moon!”

Dixue showed no mercy, storm-hard; her foe looked “frail,” but Dixue gave the whole blade, not the scabbard.

Wave after wave, silver butterflies surged like a shining tide, drinking lightning, drinking Sinking Moon’s pull, and stormed the white-haired girl.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The howl rolled through the jungle like wolves in winter; it rattled bones, but didn’t slow Dixue’s spell a heartbeat.

Because this was kill or be killed, a dusk with no twilight; if they didn’t fell her, Yue Liuyi would bleed.

Under Dixue’s flurry, Dawn Sky frayed to the edge; a failed World Tree Maiden, stuffed with harsh lightning like a barrel with nails, yet lacking the life-force weave of a true Maiden.

Her own power snapped back like a whip; her body buckled, a bridge under flood, and she couldn’t bear it.

Her thoughts fogged; darkness swallowed her sight like ink spilled across silk.

…

Dawn Sky sat alone, a pebble in endless dark, cold as lakewater under ice.

(Why… does everyone hurt me…)

(Because of the World Tree Maidens.)

Voices of girls breathed by her ear like night wind through reeds, thin and many.

Huh?

(Because of World Tree Maidens, we became test stock… like lambs led to knives.)

(Because of World Tree Maidens, we died… like candles pinched out.)

(World Tree Maidens lived pampered, never tasted our bitterness… like jade sealed from rain.)

So… that’s it?

(Revenge. Revenge. Revenge. Revenge.)

(Hundreds of girls cried in Dawn Sky’s ears, a field of ghosts, a tide of bells.)

(Everyone…?)

She felt power surge like spring flood, and a call deeper than thunder rolling across mountains.

She wasn’t alone anymore; the night had hands at her back like a storm pushing sails.

(So I can’t die yet…)

For her companions then, for friends already gone like fallen leaves, she had to end every World Tree Maiden, root and branch.

Lightning gathered in her palms again, a sun caged in ice, blinding and terrible.

Dixue froze a breath, unable to fathom why a dying foe flared like a volcano; the forest felt suddenly too small.

But the silver-haired girl had no path to retreat; behind her stood Little Moon, a moon she’d shield with her body like a cliff against wave.

…

The straightest bolt slammed into the silver-haired girl, a spear of day; she took it full, a bell hit by a hammer.

Szzzt!

The smell of scorched cloth curled up her nose like burnt pine.

The blue-haired girl’s eyes blew wide, skies after lightning; she watched the familiar LittleSnow topple backward like felled bamboo.

“I’m sorry… Little Moon… run…”

Dixue’s silver hair streamed as she crashed down hard, a fallen star; strands spilled across the ground like scattered frost.

“LittleSnow!”

Clear tears fell to the dirt like dew beads; a day like this might have come, like winter promised by autumn.

But Yue Liuyi never thought it would hit before her eyes, a blade at her throat; her beloved LittleSnow—

The formidable Butterfly Snow President, mountain-high; the Night Clan’s mysterious princess, moon-cold—

Actually…

Yue Liuyi sprinted forward like a startled deer, but it did nothing; the white-haired girl’s assault never paused, a storm that didn’t read prayers.

After felling Dixue, the strike came for Yue Liuyi, a hawk stooping faster than thought.

(Fall, World Tree Maiden!)

The lightning hissed with hate like vipers in a jar; the words slithered inside the thunder.

Even the Stellar Moon Compass couldn’t twist a blow with no weight, no body, like fog shaped into knives.

In a blink, endless light filled Yue Liuyi’s world like noon in a desert; there was no backstep.

No dodge, no shield; the power towered like an avalanche, sky collapsing, sight gone white, breath turned stone.

Even Breeze and LittleSnow were helpless now, reeds against flood; no road left.

Except to be devoured, swallowed whole by storm; no other ending seemed written in the sand.

Really…

Is there none?

…

…

No.

Rooted to the spot like a pine on a cliff, Yue Liuyi remembered the one path, a blade hidden in her sleeve.

But if she took it…

“No… there’s no choice left…”

Yue Liuyi nodded once, a moon tipping from cloud.

Now it was his turn to step out of the night and shield Dixue.