The gala hall went dead silent, like a lake sealed under winter ice.

Nana Toki planted a boot on a heavy trooper’s corpse, blood smeared across her face like a demon crawling out of a bloodbath.

In her hands sat a shotgun with a blackened body, a crow roosting against her shoulder.

Its silhouette was unlike any design they’d seen, a brutal, home-forged beast.

She slung it carelessly, the wide barrel breathing thin white smoke like a dozing volcano, and the nearby heavies raised their riot shields, hearts thudding like trapped drums.

It was absurd, like a fairy tale crashing a police briefing.

Their armor was rated to shrug off ordinary fire—yet this woman had whipped out a never-seen shotgun and punched straight through.

What kind of new tech was this, like witchcraft wrapped in steel?

And she’d just used the thing as a club a moment ago, swinging and smashing like a mace.

Wasn’t she afraid the barrel would burst mid-swing, like a snake biting its own tail?

The heavies stared at her, all the earlier looseness gone, tension stringing their spines like drawn bows.

“Come on. Keep going.”

Nana didn’t intend to explain where these impossible toys came from; she reset her stance, ready to brawl with this close-and-far chimera of a shotgun.

This time, the remaining heavies didn’t dare slack. They traded looks. Three shields rose as one, and they charged, a single wall like a bulldozer grinding downhill.

Every step beat the floor like war drums, a rolling thunder under steel.

One-handed, Nana seemed to expect it. She watched them flood in, pupils calm as night water, then snapped the gun up and fired boom-boom-boom into their lower halves.

Fire licked from the barrel like a serpent’s tongue; the report split the air like a thunderclap ripping cloud.

The next second, the three shield-bearers tasted sweetness in their throats—blood blooming like crushed berries—then they flew, bodies tossed like leaves in a gale.

Ribs cracked; the hit burned like a brand pressed to flesh.

Pain surged over them like a black tide, cold and endless.

Damn—since when can a shotgun triple-burst?

In the last flicker before blackout, none of them could fathom how they’d been shot.

Clink... clink...

Long, fat shells kissed the floor and sang, and only after Nana felt the three armored bodies slacken did she let out a heavy breath, like steam from a lidded pot.

If she hadn’t prepped, she’d be done—washed away like a sandcastle.

The System went numb.

System: “...”

Holy hell. With the quality of the toys she keeps pulling, the System half-suspected Nana Toki had looted the Galactic Police’s armory.

Grenades, guns—whatever you name, she produces, as if her skirt were a portal.

It didn’t dare say this to her face; or she’d grin, reach behind her back, and whip out a da-da-da blue-flame Gatling just to slap it.

“Let’s go, Milady.” It’s safe—for now.

Nana hauled Qingyu Si to her feet and moved to bolt for another room.

More than four heavies had come off that plane; others would follow the thunder of gunfire like wolves to a bell.

A helicopter prowled outside, circling like a hawk; with unknown guns inside, the street was a killing field. They could only flee the smoke-choked main hall.

Her call wasn’t wrong.

While she dropped four, the remaining four overwhelmed Zixia Chen and Yiwei Yang on the other side.

That armor’s high ballistic and blunt resistance left the pair tangled like flies in amber.

Even with the System’s cheat, Yiwei Yang and Zixia Chen lost in a handful of exchanges, like candles snuffed by a gust.

Zixia Chen avoided anything fatal; Yiwei fared worse—several cracked ribs and a fractured arm, pain crawling like frost.

The heavies wanted to finish them, but the beastlike roar from the smoke made all four flinch; their mission was to retrieve stolen military ordnance at the Yuehong Grand Hotel.

Why a small hotel housed stolen military gear was a riddle, yet orders fell like iron rain.

They disabled Yiwei and Zixia, then ghosted toward the gun’s thunder, following it like hounds on a scent.

They had to hurry, or the big shot in the chopper would grow impatient, a storm waiting to break.

Night draped the Yuehong Grand Hotel in hush, the kind of quiet that comes after the doors lock and neon fades.

If you ignored the lobby’s crackling tension, blades drawn in the air like cold lightning.

Holed up with Nana in a room beside the hall, Qingyu Si felt everything like a dream, smoke and blood painting the edges.

Nana’s familiar yet strange figure stood in front of her like a wall against wind, and safety bloomed for no reason, a small lamp in a storm.

“Shutong...”

She breathed her maid’s name, soft as a moth’s wings, and the mystery deepened, the woman unveiling impossibilities like one surprise after another.

“Shh.”

Nana, watching the hotel’s outer corridors, pressed a finger down, asking for quiet like a hand on ringing glass.

We’re running for our lives—can we act like it, like deer under moonshot arrows?

“Shutong, where did you get that gun?”

Qingyu didn’t read the gesture at all. She hid behind Nana like a curious child peeking from a curtain.

The shotgun was gone, vanished like a dream when you wake.

Nana’s breath stopped for a beat, words catching like a fishbone.

How did her lady end up just like Nesting Phoenix—zero sense of danger, strolling the cliff edge?

At least respect the villains who crossed a thousand li to catch us; be afraid for show.

System: “Host, this one is Nesting Phoenix.”

Bull. My Nesting Phoenix isn’t this brain-dead, like a goose pecking thunder.

Nana pushed Qingyu’s head back down, eyes on the dark like a cat at a window. “I hid it in my skirt.”

She had no intention of explaining that shotgun’s pedigree.

Qingyu studied her maid’s guileless face and, rare for her, went quiet for a breath.

Then, not long after, Nana felt something sneaking up her skirt like a mouse nosing grain.

“What are you doing?!”

She yanked her hem back, shock twisting her face; so her lady did crave her body, bold under the cover of same-sex and rank, hands like thieves.

Beast.

“I’m looking for the gun you hid.”

Qingyu peered earnestly at the veil of the skirt, eyes serious as stars in a well.

“The shells were spent, I tossed it.”

Nana’s face went black in a snap, a cloud smothering a sunbeam. So it was curiosity pawing her, not hunger.

“Can we pick it up later?”

Watching Nana’s profile as she scanned the hall, Qingyu bit her lip, held the words like a bird, then let them go.

“You serious?”

Nana stared. “It’s packed with plus-size armored heroes over there. Asking me to fetch it is asking me to lay down and die.”

Without a gun, that armor was a mountain.

“But I like that gun.”

Her blank face held a stubborn shine, like a pebble in a stream that won’t move.

“Fine. Here. Go play.”

Nana pulled a silver pistol from her skirt and handed it over, the metal gleaming like a fish. “Safety’s on. Don’t flip it off.”

“This isn’t as cool as the last one.”

Qingyu turned the pistol in her hands, eyes curious as a cat. She’d searched under the hem earlier and felt nothing; where in the world did the skirt hide it?

“Enough. Make do for now.”

Nana rolled her eyes, exasperation flicking like a fan. Thinking about playing with guns now—your heart’s a brass bell.

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll grab you?”

“Shutong, you said you’d protect me.”

Qingyu toyed with the safe pistol, her face returning to its still-water calm, but trust warmed the air like tea steam. “So I trust every word you say.”

“Milady...”

Warmth rose in Nana first, a small ember in snow, and the ice-cold schemer looked almost human.

She opened her mouth to say something, a soft thing like fallen petals.

Snap!

A crack split her ear like lightning shredding black silk. Instinct took the reins; she shoved Qingyu into the corner like tucking a bird into a nest.

Crash... crash...

The window in the next room burst, glass raining bright and brittle like hail. Nana watched, muscles tight as bowstrings, as figures swung in on a zipline, silhouettes cutting the air like spiders on silk.

Her face sank, weight settling like a stone in a pond. Why are there more coming in here too?