Nana Shi moved the moment her plan set like frost; she took Tifana and the System, three shadows like arrows off the string, straight for Estis City.

Inside Estis City, mark-bearer troops muttered like crows on a wall, wondering where their patrol went, when an ink-black axeblade fell from the sky like night itself.

“E–enemy attack?!” Their voices cracked like thin ice, and before they could stand, several figures vaulted the far wall like wolves clearing a drift.

Nana Shi gave the nearest man a snowfall-soft smile, then tightened both hands on Heavens Sunder, and brought it down on his brow like a falling star.

Squelch! Crimson splashed like thrown ink; the white wall bloomed a gruesome mural, while meat on stone breathed the iron reek of blood into the winter air.

Before the others clawed free of shock, Nana Shi had already slipped forward, a viper with venom in its fangs, her steps as light as drifting ash.

“Their reinforcements are here!”

“Catch that woman!”

Battle cries flared like sparks in dry grass; mark-bearers came in a rush, sigils glowing like embers, and swarmed her like a storm-tossed tide.

Against the gulf in strength, their charge was moths to a flame, wings lit with their own ruin, brave and doomed beneath her shadowed blade.

The assault on Estis City dragged like a grindstone; they were only three hundred, but many wore mid-tier marks that shone like cold brands on skin.

She refused to use Spirit Energy; she fought on body alone, each strike a bell of steel, and the grinding took time like a slow snowfall.

When the high sun slid behind the snow peaks and dusk pooled blue over the Northland, she finally wore down the last mid-tier mark-bearer.

“These marks pack power,” she murmured, breath smoking in the chill; she hadn’t pushed this hard even when crossing planes with the System like two stars.

“Host, you okay?” The System popped out with Tifana like fish from a quiet pond, only after the city’s killers lay still as stones.

Nana Shi shot it a sidelong glance, a knife-thin look, and let the silence fall like snow; she was long used to the System’s vanishing act.

“Go to the dungeon. Let everyone locked inside out.” She tossed Tifana a ring of keys that clinked like sleet; she’d fished them from corpses’ mouths.

“Also, explain things to your city’s people later.” She flicked her eyes at window shadows; Northland residents peered like lanterns in fog, wary and wide.

“I don’t want folks slapping ‘bloodthirsty’ on me for nothing.” Tifana had said she had some name in the Northland; names travel like wind through pines.

“Uh… uh…” Tifana’s hands caught the keys like cold birds; her face went blank, the way the sky blanks before snow.

Those fierce mark-bearers, cut down by this woman like reeds before a scythe—she’d never seen violence so simple and absolute, a hammer without a spark of Spirit.

The Ice Emperor could flick a finger and drown foes in Spirit Energy like tidewater; but City Lord Shi killed by pure might, a landslide of muscle and steel.

“So, City Lord, what will you do now?” Her voice tiptoed like a mouse in a granary.

“What else… rest.” Nana Shi slid Heavens Sunder away like tucking night into a sheath, tilted her head as if to catch a breeze. “Busy day. I’m beat.”

“Eh?”

“Eh?”

They traded looks, two startled birds on a rail, and made the same odd sound as if the air squeezed them.

“City Lord needs rest?” Tifana’s surprise hung like frost-breath in moonlight.

“Of course I need rest. You think I’m a superhero?” Her tone was flat as ice; she was flesh and bone, warm and mortal.

“…Sorry, City Lord…” Tifana’s gaze skittered aside like a pebble on ice, shame pinking her cheeks like dawn on snow.

“You were absolutely thinking something rude.” Nana’s eyes went dead-fish dull, a lake with no wind, pinning Tifana’s averted stare.

Tifana didn’t dare answer; her smile went crooked, a crack in thin ice.

“Forget it. Go do your thing.” Nana rolled her eyes like tossing a pebble, turned, and let the corridor swallow her steps.

The System looked at Tifana, then at Nana Shi, then chose its weather and drifted after its Host like a leaf in a current.

“Find anything useful in the city?” They took a room at an inn; Nana rummaged for toiletries, hands moving like swift sparrows, without glancing back.

“Mm… not sure it’s useful.” The System shut the wooden door as gently as snowfall and pulled a beastskin scroll from under its coat like a secret flame.

“What’s that?” Nana lifted her head, towel draped like a cloud. “Beastskin-wrapped smut?”

The System’s mouth twitched like a string. “Found it in a little attic in Estis City. It records news about the Northland’s Ice Emperor.”

The Ice Emperor of the Northland? Interest rose in her chest like warm tea in winter.

“Such as?”

Silence settled; the System’s look turned rare and weighty, like ice with a river running under it.

“Host, read it yourself.” It handed over the scroll, the hide rough as dry bark.

Nana unrolled it; the first line burned with the name Thousandwise, stark as ink on snow.

“That masochist perv wrote this?” Her face went strange as a crooked moon. “She’s got a stalking kink too?”

“Anyway, set that aside. Read first.” The System’s voice nudged like a stick in drifting snow.

“Fine.” Nana lowered her eyes to the hide; Thousandwise shadowed the Ice Emperor like a hawk’s shadow, so there might be meat here.

Let’s see…

“Northland lunar year xxxx, November 2, overcast. The Ice Palace’s research wing made a new fragment grenade. Because I failed to peek at Her Majesty the Ice Emperor in the bath, I was ordered to test the grenade. Hm. Detonating it against my chest felt surprisingly good. If not for the Impaler, I might’ve died. Still, compared to the ice spikes Her Majesty uses for my usual punishments, it lacks a certain flavor. Overall, not bad. Could try it occasionally.”

“What in the frozen hells is this?” Nana blinked hard, like snow in her lashes. “You stole her kink diary for me?”

And those dates—Northland lunar calendar—were recent, like footprints not yet filled by snow.

“Host, breathe.”

“Breathe my ass. I didn’t come to the Northland to read a masochist perv’s kinks!” Her temper snapped like dry twigs, heat steaming in the cold.

The System nodded, sympathy soft as falling ash. Anyone would react like that to such ink-stained madness.

“Still… you really need to read on.”

“What, does it get worse?” Nana side-eyed the System like a cat. “If it’s all her death-wish kinks, take the scroll back.”

“Hard to believe, but the Ice Emperor material is later…”

“…Tch.” So, no skipping the snowdrift; she had to wade through.

“So, keep going, Host.”

Nana’s mouth twitched, but her eyes fell back to the hide like leaves to water.

“Northland lunar year xxxx, January 14, clear. The army imported ammo from the inland. By Her Majesty’s order, I served as chief inspector. The 6.5mm is fine, but I prefer 9.0mm or larger. The heat entering the body and the fullness of it—utterly addictive. Her Majesty said this batch is for the Northland border, so she didn’t leave me much to play with. A pity. As compensation, Her Majesty tied me to the training targets and swept me with ice spikes. Not bad.”

“…?” Nana stared like an owl in daylight. It was a miracle this woman still breathed.

Hand on grenade, flesh eating bullets—by some crooked measure, she was fiercer than the Ice Emperor herself.

“And this has what to do with the Ice Emperor?” She’d skimmed a dozen entries; all of them were Thousandwise courting death like a moth flirting with a candle.

If there was a link, the Ice Emperor was just the backdrop, a mountain behind a lunatic dancing.

“Don’t rush, Host. We’re close. Skip to the last few?”

The last few? Nana’s eyes slid downward; the ink changed color like a river turning red. From this entry onward, the writing was all in red.

“Northland lunar year xxxx, April 4, rainy to overcast. Lately, Her Majesty the Ice Emperor often goes out alone at midnight. Perhaps she heard the woman in Chronos City awoke. Each night, I see Her Majesty on a high balcony in the Ice Palace garden, gazing over the Northland snow with a far-away look. She seems livelier than before, a faint warmth sometimes softening that peerless face. Yet a touch of loneliness has crept in, like a pale thread in silk.”

April fourth… that was the day Nana woke in the real world; the memory gleamed like a pin of light.

Did the Ice Emperor’s strangeness start then? The thought drew tight like a bowstring. She kept reading.

“Northland lunar year xxxx, April 6, cloudy to light snow. I failed to peek at Her Majesty’s bath again and was hung up in the Ice Palace as a target. I enjoyed it, but I still sensed that Her Majesty’s mood was low today. Is something weighing on her mind?”

“Northland lunar year xxxx, April 10, clear. Foreigners have been appearing across the six Northland states. Judging by their clothes, they aren’t from the continent. I wanted to drive them off, but Her Majesty had given prior orders, so I let them be.”

“Northland lunar year xxxx, April 12, light snow. I thought up a new way to peek, but I got too lost in the fantasy and was caught by Her Majesty. I was hung on the Palace again.”

“Northland lunar year xxxx, April 16, light snow to clear. There was internal unrest in the Ice Palace today. With Her Majesty present, the troublemakers were swiftly dealt with. I examined them; without exception, each bore a strange mark. They’re the recent foreigners in the six states, no doubt.”

Northland, lunar year xxxx, fourth month, day twenty. Heavy snow, a white veil over the land.

Recently, His Majesty the Ice Emperor has been soaking far longer, lingering in the bath like a winter night that won’t end.

Each time he steps out, steam clings like misted veils; his gaze drifts, a little dazed, like drift ice tugged by a silent tide.

Thinking back on his oddness these past days, a prickle of worry hits before thought.

I may have sensed it—His Majesty seems troubled by something, a shadow moving under the frozen surface.