By the time Nana Shi and the System slipped to the outskirts of Estis City, dusk pooled like ink at the earth’s rim.

A heatless sun slid west like a pale coin, and the Northland shed a few more degrees like leaves in frost.

“Mm… I still can’t fathom what kind of spine these Northland folk have to live in a place that bites like a wolf.”

They huddled around a campfire in a hidden cave, flame petals licking stone while the System eyed the thermometer on her cold-weather suit.

Ninety below gnawed at the air like glass dust, and an ordinary human would fold even with Yan Xiao’s best gear.

Thinking that alone, the System felt a grudging awe rise like steam from snow for the people of the Northland.

“Something on your mind?”

Sensing that ghost-light stare, Nana Shi lifted her gaze from the fire, her face a winter mask, her silence ringed with thorn.

“Uh… no… nothing, I just spaced out for a second.”

Her lie landed stiff as a frozen twig, and Nana Shi let it fall, returning to the ember-glow like a rock in a cold stream.

The System exhaled by the fire, relief flowing like warm tea, yet her chest still felt pricked by the bramble around this host.

What had happened after they parted—between her host, Qi, and Yan Xiao—that salted sweet Nana into General Nana Shi, thorned and far?

Night passed without a ripple, and at first light, when the Northland sun bled pale over stone, they blended into a passing caravan.

Estis City differed from other states under the Northland banner, a trade hub set to the east like a jewel sunk in ice.

Its people were mostly native Northlanders, yet silver flowed through Estis like a river in flood, richer than the continent’s own cross-border trade.

Knowing this, Nana Shi and the System didn’t rush to spy on other Northland states; they took rooms in a quiet tavern near the gate.

Two weeks in the mountains had wired their spirits like taut bowstrings; the System was data, but Nana Shi was flesh that bruised.

With safety like a lid on a boiling pot, they steadied their bodies first, letting sleep stitch what the wind had torn.

Another day turned, and the pair stepped into the streets, cloaked as wanderer merchants, leaving a narrow alley for Estis’s roaring light.

The city opened wide and gleaming, streets bright as polished bone, crowds flowing like tides, hawkers’ cries crashing like surf between high facades.

Luxury rose in tiers like a cliff of glass, and humble homes huddled beside them like weathered huts at a palace gate.

The rushing footfall on the main road beat like drums, announcing a city stuffed with silk and sharp with gold.

They had expected trade to be heavy, but this abundance still hit them like the flare of a sudden sun.

The System noticed something stranger: people strode the avenues in rough-sewn pelts, fur stitched like bark, faces untroubled as still ponds.

The air knifed near a hundred below, yet no brow showed frost-bitten strain, as if winter itself was a hearth to them.

The so-called cold read in their eyes like room temperature, ordinary as rain.

“This Northland—so blunt and domineering—it’s terrifying,” the System whispered, awe and dread twining like smoke.

On a battlefield, that kind of body would be iron in the wind; most continental armies would shatter like clay.

They left the square and moved for the true market heart, where coin talked like thunder and rumor skated like ice.

Their first task was clear: dig for the Northland Six Nations’ core news, then, if luck stayed, salt any rifts among rulers.

A bright plan dies easily, and as they drifted the stalls like drifting snow, they heard a truth hard as granite.

The so-called Six Nations had been unified months ago by one who named himself the Ice Emperor, a hand closing on a storm.

Every former state had been renamed a City, and the Ice Emperor’s main seat lay thousands of kilometers away in the Ice Palace.

“This is no small thing,” the System said back at the tavern, her voice heavy as iron, meeting Nana Shi’s equally stony gaze.

“With one ruler instead of six, stoking Northland tension is smoke in rain.”

“I also heard the Ice Emperor has been touring the Cities, as if weighing something on a knife.”

“General Shi, could this tie to His Highness Moragus preparing to march on the Northland?”

“Hard to say.” Nana Shi’s face tightened like a drawn bow.

Chronos City and the continental states were already bristling like spears, a battlefield waiting for a spark to fall.

Moragus had sent them to read the Northland wind, to see where the ice would crack when the first blade sang.

Chronos sits central like a heart on a table, enemies to east, south, and west; if the Northland joins in, that’s a noose of four.

That’s not a game you win with bravado; it’s a storm that drowns mountains.

For now, Nana Shi had no illusion of striding the Northland sideways like a tyrant in a legend.

“Report first,” she said. “We don’t see the whole snowfield yet. We’ll need to stay longer and map the ice.”

“Eh, how long will you be staying here, then?”

“!”

The strange voice fell like a pebble in a still pond, and Nana Shi moved like a shadow breaking.

In a breath, knives flashed from her pocket and flew at the screen like black swallows.

Bang, bang, bang—

Blades punched through paper and chewed the wall, quivering like needles after a quake.

A streak of red slipped into view, and a woman appeared as if poured from flame, curving lines wrapped in heat.

“Greetings, two generals of Chronos City~”

Thousandwise wore a smile like lacquer, gentle as spring rain, yet her ghost-walk entrance rang a bell in both their chests.

Whoosh—

No answer came, only Nana Shi’s fist cutting the air, a winter gale sealed in bone and muscle.

The System fell back to a safer corner, her calm tossed like a skiff; her scanners hadn’t blinked once—so how did this woman approach like mist?

“Who are you?” Nana Shi’s strikes kissed only air, and when the red-haired woman offered no counter, she halted in a guarded stance.

Her outfit and her words smelled of the Northland; the snow told on its own.

But when had their trail begun to smoke?

“N-no, it wasn’t me. I’ve been glued to you the whole time, General,” the System blurted, heart thudding like drumbeats in a parade.

Was this where the habit of trusting no one took root like ice in a crack?

“Relax, General Shi,” the woman said, fox-bright eyes curving. “I’m Thousandwise, former ruler of Estis among the Northland Six.”

“I came to share a few words.”

Her smile held a sly gleam, and paired with that silk-silent step, it seeded a bad taste in both their mouths.

“If it’s talk, then talk,” the System said from the window, gaze tilting to the street where Northland soldiers ringed the tavern like a net.

“No need to ring us with spears while you whisper.”

“Oh? You must be Deputy General Ning,” Thousandwise cooed, smile sweetening like syrup. “Just as the rumors said—small and adorable.”

The smile deepened, and a feverish blush bloomed like a bruise, raising gooseflesh the wrong way. “Truth is, for certain unspeakable reasons, my soldiers and I are thrilled you came~”

“So, generals of Chronos City, could you be rough with us?”

“Mind or body, both are fine. We absolutely won’t resist~~”

“Eh?” For a few seconds, the System doubted her own ears, as if snow had muffled the world.

What… what was this woman even saying? Could someone translate the madness into human?

What in the frozen world did this Thousandwise want?

To be honest, the System was baffled, stunned like a deer in a lantern’s glare.

She had never imagined Northland soldiers were… into pain. Not just one. A whole bouquet of them. Saints preserve us.

Return my awe at once, you lunatics!

If conditions allowed, she’d drag this rare specimen back to Chronos City and let Yan Xiao open her head like a clock.

“Ala~ why aren’t you moving yet?” Thousandwise pressed her cheeks with both hands, voice dripping like honey. “Come catch us and punish us, won’t you?”

“Bondage is fine too. Just put us back afterward, okay? We can’t miss His Majesty the Ice Emperor’s punishment, hehe…”

“So. Punishment is what you want.” Nana Shi’s mouth lifted, a cold curve like a blade catching moonlight.

The System, at the window, flinched and edged back, the old, familiar smile of cruelty blooming like black ice.

“Fine,” Nana Shi said softly. “I’ll oblige.”

In the next heartbeat, a point of black light flickered through the room.