“Jade Ring...”

Hoisted by his throat like a caught fish, Lorin’s face twisted in pain, the sky wheeling above him like cold glass.

He couldn’t grasp why Jade Ring Long would do this, why her arm clamped his neck like an iron vise, crushing breath like a door slammed in winter.

“Now you want to save him? Too late!”

Wearing Jade Ring Long’s face, Elise laughed like beads scattering on stone, her mana flaring like dark surf, and from the air she yanked a thorned black whip.

“Die.”

Boom—!

The whip smashed the tiles; cracks webbed outward like frost racing a window, the sound knifing through the square.

Tangling sleeves and air like briars, Ling'er Long struggled and couldn’t break free, and Lorin’s eyes, trapped in that grip, dimmed like lamps drowning in dusk.

...

At the same time, on Nana Toki’s side, Trollop had been driven into a dead end, the way a fox meets the cliff with hounds at its back.

She froze the whole arena with ice-element chill, a pale kingdom of walls and floor, and even maxed-out agility couldn’t slip through a glacier’s teeth.

Irritation hit like a needle of snow. So he really thought she had no way to deal with him?

Go on, keep dodging. Keep dodging.

Nana Toki still remembered how this clown had blindsided her in Dragonbreak City; that tab was ice-cold and due.

“Dodge, why aren’t you dodging now? Weren’t you cocky just now? You even ambushed me. Keep going!”

Hands locked on the Colossal Axe’s haft, Nana Toki swung again and again, and ice walls and floor shattered like brittle glass under thunder.

Trollop fled in tatters, a shadow tripping over blue light. He barely avoided her frontal blows, but the stray ice kept nipping him like wolves in drifted snow.

“Wait, wait, wait! Your Highness, let’s talk! No need to kill at the drop of a hat!”

He felt it too—the slow death of attrition—so he skidded to a stop, breath steaming like a spent horse, and turned to negotiate.

But Nana Toki had no intention of stopping mid-swing; her arms moved faster, a blizzard sharpening into knives.

You idiot. As if I’d let you go that easy.

Boom—!

Her axe struck empty space. She readied to rip it free and chase, when suddenly her forearms sank like they’d been shackled, and the blade embedded in the tiles wouldn’t budge, like a frozen fang welded to stone.

“I told you, don’t be so hot-headed. It’s bad for our friendship,” Trollop exhaled, relief rolling off him like thaw. “Now can we talk properly?”

“Talk what? Don’t tell me you expect me to give up stopping your little plan.”

She released the haft. Her eyes went glacial, pinning him like spears. “You’re not from this world, are you.”

In that instant, she felt it clear as ice cracking—the link between her and the axe cut clean, like a silver thread snipped.

It felt exactly like when the hidden space in Dragonbreak City had been severed, a door slammed by an unseen hand.

So Trollop wasn’t your run-of-the-mill villain after all.

“Well, you noticed after all...” He’d expected the question; his faint smile didn’t ripple, a mask smooth as oil on water. “Turns out I still can’t meddle too much here. I wanted to observe you longer. A pity.”

“What do you want to observe?” Nana Toki’s gaze went flat, a dead lake in winter, and the chill crawled under the skin.

“Nothing much. Pure curiosity. You’re interesting,” he said, eyes bright with amusement, finally lingering on the Demon Hand. “More delightful than I’d hoped.”

“Pervert.” The word squeezed between teeth like a shard of ice. She summoned ice from within, and it clamped him in blood-ice, clear and red like winter glass. “Say all that just to make me mad enough to kill you?”

“Of course not.” Encased from neck down with only his head exposed like a grotesque statue, Trollop stayed at ease, the river calm before a fall. “I revealed myself to repay you for helping me find the experimental subject’s mental world. A game’s a game. It should be fair, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Her brows knit, dark as storm-bent branches.

“You’ll need to ask the System squatting in your head... hm—”

He didn’t finish. In the next heartbeat his face changed like a cloud blowing over the sun, and blood flooded from eyes, nose, and ears like ink spilled in snow, his features twisting into something wolfish and wrong.

“Our game’s just begun, Miss Nana...” Eyes bulging like cracked marbles, streaked in red, he stared into Nana Toki’s gaze. “I look forward to next time... hm!!”

“...”

His head lolled. Still sealed in ice, Trollop killed himself like a candle snuffed between fingers.

“...”

Nana Toki stared at the lifeless man, thoughts moving like slow avalanches. After a long breath, she flicked her right hand, and every block of ice around her melted away like dawn draining a frost.

“Host! Where did you go just now!”

The voice burst in her head, the System jittery as a sparrow in a storm. Just now, its link to her had been cut by some unseen blade, and the blankness unsettled it.

“W-what’s wrong, Host...”

Faced with her near-blank, glacial calm, the System felt a sudden chill, as if an invisible hand had closed on its heart, squeezing the breath thin.

Did something happen inside?

“...”

“Nothing.”

She slid her gaze aside like a shutter, wrenched the Black Great Axe from the floor with a crunch, slung it to her shoulder, then dragged Trollop’s cooling corpse and headed straight for Yu Ang, footsteps steady as a metronome.

“You’re a trash System.”

The suddenly insulted System: “...”

...

At Ghostfiend City’s heart, Yu Ang and Cheston were trading blows like hammers on anvils, a fight stripped of ornament.

No flashy flurries; just fist wind and sword glare, give and take, neither retreating, every simple move packed with the force to kill, like a river striking rock.

By the time Nana Toki jogged back with the Black Great Axe on her shoulder, their duel had heated to white, and not a single building in Ghostfiend City stood whole, rubble piled like broken teeth.

She hadn’t planned to wedge herself into their battle.

But Trollop’s curveball had left a tight, nameless fire in her chest, and she needed a vent, like steam begging a whistle. The last two of the Four Heavenly Kings were perfect targets.

Bang—!

With a casual palm she swatted the unguarded Yu Ang, sending him skidding like a puck across ice, then snapped her arm and hurled the Black Great Axe.

A thunderous clang.

The massive blade buried in the ground with an ear-stabbing ring, and Elise, caught off-guard, staggered back several steps before her stance locked like a dancer’s heel on stone.

“Bingtang, what are you doing?”

Yu Ang, dumped onto the tiles, glared up at her, confusion flaring like sparks from flint.

“Nothing much. I’m in a hurry.”

Expression blank as frost, Nana Toki pulled three yellow Talismans from her pocket and flicked them toward Ling'er Long and the others, not bothering to explain.

Then, right under Elise’s and Cheston’s eyes, the figures who touched Nana Toki’s yellow Talismans began to fade, bodies blurring like mist whisked by wind, and vanished.

“Oh? You moved all your allies away and plan to face the Four Heavenly Kings alone?”

Cheston misread her intent, lifted his greatsword like a raised tide, and sneered. “That’s a stupid decision.”

“Ha... a stupid decision?” Nana Toki kept her face calm as still water and tossed the corpse she’d been dragging. It thumped at Cheston’s and Elise’s feet. “I’ll skip the chatter. I have one question. Answer me truthfully, and I let you go. Reviving the Ghostfiend or whatever—I won’t care.”

Her voice rolled through the wrecked city like winter wind down an alley, and everyone felt a draft bite the spine.

“...”

“Are you brain-dead?” Elise tightened her grip on the black whip, her smile sharp as a thorn. “You don’t think killing Trollop and Eboron means you can beat all Four Heavenly Kings, do you? Empty bravado’s a human classic.”

“So you’re not answering?” Nana Toki yanked the Black Great Axe from the ground and settled it on her shoulder again, one brow arching like the edge of a crescent.

“...”

Silence pressed in, a held breath before a storm.

Maybe it was nerves, maybe instinct, but both Cheston and Elise felt something off about the woman before them, this calm like a blade in its scabbard.

She was too composed, like someone holding a final card under velvet.

“I don’t care what trick you’re playing. If you’re stalling to cast that same teleport, give it up,” Cheston said, knuckles whitening on his sword as he frowned. “Inside Ghostfiend City, the same magic can only be used once a day. That means that teleport you used won’t work again.”

“...”

“Ugh, forget it. Talking to you two blockheads is pointless.”

She sighed, a thin ribbon of fog in cold air, lowered the Black Great Axe from her shoulder, and leveled her gaze like a hammer sighting a nail.

“I’ll just beat you until you answer honestly.”