Snow fell in flurries, like feathers loosed from a pale sky. In a world carved from ice, snow was the only theme.

Flakes drifted down, white and tinged blue, like facets chipped from winter. In Xi’s eyes, each crystal was razor-clear, every edge a shard of light. The wild snowfall felt dreamlike, a spell that made the heart sink sweetly.

Amid the frost-bitten world, a white-haired elf opened her arms to the heavens, as if to embrace it all. White dress, white hair, white skin—purity stacked like fresh snow. Barefoot, the White Elf turned with the hush of falling flakes, and sapphire eyes met Xi’s.

“You’re… awfully weak.”

In this snow-lashed realm, every stalk and spire was sculpted from ice, glass-bright and deep blue. The land, the sky—everything was crystal bound.

Xi had long known Lian existed; they had spoken more than once, like whispers through frost. But this was the first true meeting. Behind Lian, the storm-thin flakes thickened into great diamond plates. She raised a hand, and a leaf-sized diamond settled on her palm like a frozen leaf. Behind Xi, it still snowed too, but her world burned dusk-red, the color of a sun slipping under the horizon.

Orange-tinted snow sifted down, like embers cooling on white ash.

“I…” Xi wanted to argue, but no words would hold. Shame pricked first; then the gale howled, and her orange hair unraveled like fire in a storm. She stood dazed, staring at that snow-born elf, so pure she shouldn’t belong to this world.

The White Elf danced in the winter, light as a drifting flake and elegant as moonlight on ice. Then she stilled. The world shifted like frost melting. A jade-blue sky unrolled overhead, and a forest of ice-crystal trees rose ahead like a frozen sea.

Not far off, a wall of ice stretched across the forest’s far edge, a vein of winter stone. Beyond it lay an entire capital sculpted from snow and ice, a city like a frozen dream.

The flurries… stopped. Xi looked up at that unmarred blue, and missed the tender, clinging fall of snow.

“See it? That’s where everything began.” The White Elf’s finger, pale as carved jade, pointed at the distant ice-city. “Long, long ago…”

How long? Xi didn’t know. But the voice held an ancient weariness, like wind through old pines. It had to be very old.

“The Night Clan, with the White Elf clan’s help, destroyed that dreamlike capital,” she said, her tone like a bedtime story told by lamplight. “That was the seed of everything. Hatred ran on through ages, not fading in time, but thickening like winter ice.”

“That year, the Night King told the White Empress this: destroy that place, and the ancient prophecy won’t come true. A quiet, gentle life will cover both clans like spring rain.” A lake of solid ice rose before them, mirror-still. Benches of crystal were set along the shore like frost-edged pews. The White Elf sat, chin in hand, and stared at the city of ice as if watching yesterday through glass.

“But that place was shrouded in a strange power, like fog that cuts the road. Nothing from outside could step in easily. At a terrible price, the Night King cracked the barrier at last. He thought once it broke, the mortals beyond could never resist a god.”

“He slaughtered without a pause, like a winter gale stripping leaves. He was a god; mortals couldn’t stand against him. He let no threat live. Destroy the small lives, and the prophecy would freeze and die.”

A sweet wind-chime rang, delicate as ice tapping glass, and a ghostly clock hung over the ice-city like a pale moon. The blue vault dimmed, as if the sky itself went sad. Black fissures crisscrossed the firmament, splitting it into broken panes.

With each chime, snow began to fly again, like ash from a dying world.

“The ancient prophecy still came true,” she whispered. “The supreme god nearly fell in that small, fragile place. No one won that war. When it ended, only a scarred sky and a cracked earth remained, like a shield split in two.”

“It didn’t end,” she said as the city of ice sank away, and the crystal forest faded like breath on glass. The first world returned—snow, wind, and endless white. “Right and wrong don’t matter now. So long as both clans breathe, the hatred won’t melt.”

Her pure-white figure looked lonely, a candle in a cold hall. “Outside, in normal time, your enemy is one of the Night Clan from that story. And I’m the one who helped the Night King break the barrier.”

Xi’s heart dropped like a stone into snow. So the enemy outside and Lian were allies. How laughable to ask Lian for help.

“Sure. If I die, you get the body,” Xi said, a bitter smile thin as ice film. “But in stories like mine, people claw each other for control. You almost never fight me for it.”

The white figure turned; white hair streamed like blown frost. “Fight over it? Meaningless. Do you know the rest?”

She didn’t wait. Her voice moved on like a river under ice. “Later… they all died. The Night King, a supreme god. The White Empress too. They paid for what they did.”

“Eh…” Shock hit first; then curiosity burned like a small, stubborn flame. Xi didn’t know what a ‘supreme god’ truly meant. She knew it wasn’t simple. “Was it the kin of the mortals he killed?”

It wasn’t hard to guess.

“Yes,” Lian said, calm as snow at midnight. “They grew too fast, like spring grass after a storm. As the prophecy said, in that span they were lords of the stars. The Night King tried to cut them down before they ripened. For that, he almost fell. In the end, the Night King was buried in the void, and the White Empress—she died, and she didn’t.”

Dead and alive. The words were frost-riddle and paradox. Xi thought of Lian now—was this living, or a life trapped in ice?

“If control means nothing to you, can you help me face the enemy outside?” Hope came first, then shame pricked. “I know your two clans are allies, but…” But she couldn’t ask someone to turn on their own, and she knew it.

“If those children die, will you be sad?” Lian asked, meaning the little ones Snow had taken. “As an elder sister, I can’t let my sister grieve. I’ll help you bring them back. Then… if one day you must choose between duty and your beloved, which will you choose?”

“That answer needs time.”

Lian’s hand brushed Xi’s hair like falling snow, and her smile was gentle as thawing light.

Dragon Gorge gaped around them, the ground cracked and pockmarked, every scar a witness to what had just happened.

A black dragon roared like thunder under stone. Then its head slid from its neck like ice breaking from a ledge. Wings, limbs, tail—each split away, piece by piece, like armor shedding in ruin. At last everything slammed to earth. A terror of a dragon ended as a scattered heap.

Amelie’s hand shook; her scabbard and hilt clattered to the rock like dropped bells. “I… won.” The words left, and her eyes shut; her body toppled like a cut reed. Beside her, Kooson was drenched in blood, from eyes, nose, and ears like crimson candles. The giant still stood on a last, stubborn breath.

Irina held the fainted Xi. Helplessness hit first, then anger burned her pale cheeks cold. She trembled, eyes hard with unwillingness. Fei lay flat, one finger twitching—her limit written in dust.

After Ouyang and Valiant vanished, anger came first and cooled to resolve. Xi refused to chase Ouyang. With Irina and Fei behind her, she chose Dragon Gorge. With Kooson and Amelie there, they would save the children, whether alive or not.

But Dragon Gorge greeted them with legend—three adult dragons, storms in scaled flesh. And a man who claimed the blood of the Demon World’s royalty.

Battle lit like lightning on dry grass.

In the end, Amelie drew the sword like dawn cutting fog, and felled the Nether Dragon Emperor. Then her strength was gone, burned to cinders. The three adult dragons died to Amelie and Kooson, terrors fit to ruin any nation. But Amelie lay spent, and Kooson could squeeze out one last strike at most. The three girls were dead weight in a war of this height. If not for the shields thrown over them, they might not have lived to be this hurt.

Three monsters lay dead, but the royal from the Demon World still stood—a blade yet sheathed.

Despair nipped first; Irina clutched Xi tighter, mind flashing back to childhood. A world-crushing silhouette burned her one true shadow, the Demon King etched in fear. “The Demon King… shouldn’t be this weak.”

“They’re not,” a man said, voice slow as drifting ash. “First, they’re not at their peak. Second… I tampered with this gorge.” A middle-aged man walked closer, and black fire crawled off him like oil flame—ominous as storm-swell at midnight.

The air grew colder for no good reason. Irina’s breath turned white, a ghost on the air. So cold… why so cold?

In the sky, snowflakes began to fall, each edge perfect as a chiseled gem, white holding a thread of deep blue. Xi’s orange hair paled, strand by strand, like dawn bleaching to frost. The cold around her bit like steel, and Irina dared not step closer.