Huff—

Huff—

What… what did I do again?

Bodies carpeted the clearing like withered leaves after frost, and Snow stared blankly, her heart a hollow drum in a silent forest. Humans, beasts—every shape laid still. Only she stood, a lone reed amid a scarlet marsh, clothes soaked in blood, chestnut hair steeped as if drowned in a blood pool.

The sun burned like an unblinking eye, and she couldn’t tell mirage from mountain. Since she took that white magic staff from the Grand Elder, she felt her soul drift like mist.

Voices kept surfacing like cicadas after rain, each saying it was Snow, each claiming the body as its shore. One voice whispered like night wind, You’re only my delusion, a persona dreamt from smoke.

She clung to defiance like a rock in flood. It must be the staff’s power, she thought; if her will stayed iron, those strange murmurs would break like waves.

But each time sleep folded over her like a black sail, she woke in strange ashes. Corpses around, blood on her skin like rust. The staff’s voice went silent, a dead lake, leaving her questions drifting without oars.

One day, she bought a memory crystal. With nerves tight as bowstrings, she opened it before sleep, needing to see the dark hours that stole her. Dawn found her in another ruined meadow, bodies strewn like storm-felled pines.

She searched until her breath rasped like winter reeds, and finally found the cave where she’d lain. The crystal sat where she’d left it—almost. Its position had shifted the width of a fallen petal. Someone had touched it.

Who? Whose hand moved the crystal?

She released the memory like a moth from a jar. The fire in the vision was a breathing ember, and Snow slept like a snowdrift. Time flowed as slow as sap, and her image sank into deep sleep. Then her body twitched, rose like a shadow uncurling.

That version of her smiled, a crooked crescent, eerie as moonlight on a blade. She leaned close to the crystal, ready to fling it like a pebble into a pond. Suddenly her face hardened, cold and aloof like winter glass, eyes flashing disdain for all things under heaven. She set the crystal back, then slipped away like a fox in brush.

In that instant, memory flooded her like spring melt. She had met someone who looked exactly like her; that figure dove into her body like a comet, and they fused. Since then, personas blossomed inside her mind like a crowded garden.

You think your world is real, the voice said, soft as snow, but you’re only my fantasy. After that, the chatter swelled, a market of voices discussing trivial dawn and dusk, as if their world stood as solid as stone.

Duty rose in her like a mountain. She had to defeat the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts and guard the world’s fragile lamp. So she sought counsel from the personas, and their wisdom was a deep sea. In her memory, they split into two tides: a combat faction with blade-bright skill and uncanny strength. The War Princess was their banner, a persona born for battle who called herself “Princess,” so Snow named her War Princess.

The other was theory’s quiet river, represented by a nameless persona. Snow called her “Heart.”

Heart’s wisdom and the War Princess’s power braided like silk. Snow took down Dimensional Cage and Bloodpool Samsara, sealing their cores like stones sunk beyond time. For a while, the road looked sunlit.

Real and unreal… Her thoughts were a storm-tossed boat as she wrung blood from her hair like rain from moss. She couldn’t tell if her existence was mountain or mirage. The personas, the endless whispers, tangled her mind like vines.

Her fingers brushed the sigil of the magic staff on the back of her hand, craving answers like a thirsty traveler at a dry well. Silence met her, deep as a sealed tomb.

Pain gnawed her skull like a wolf. It left no space for gentler thought.

I’m not the illusion, you are! The cry burst like a sparrow from a snare.

Twenty years of tears and laughter flickered like lanterns; they couldn’t be smoke. She thought of her years in Ancient Memory Town, the faces of Xi and Xian, the small world there like a teahouse in snow.

I remember, in Ancient Memory Town… The Dark Cuisine incident Ouyang stirred up, once buried like a hush, clawed back through her stabbing ache, along with the ominous shadow that clung to Ouyang like fog.

Leticia…

Thinking of that chaos, she naturally recalled the girl at its heart—Leticia, the one said to carry demon blood, a winter plum blooming against scorn.

I’m so tired… I just want… to see them again… The feeling pressed like a night tide. If she slept now, she might never wake as herself, might never see those faces again. So she held on, knuckles white, wrestling a nameless darkness like a fisherman against a rogue wave.

Far off, smoke rose like bruises on the sky; something fought with thunder. Explosions boomed, and the earth shivered like a drum. Trees toppled in the forest, felled by shockwaves like grass before scythes.

That’s… angels…

Angels, a flock dense as snow, straight from the fairy tales she’d heard like lullabies. Pure white wings, a breath of sanctity like incense. And in front, a black-winged figure stood out, a drop of ink on white parchment.

They were hunting a fallen angel.

They swept closer, clarity sharpening like a blade. Leticia? That face that held hope like a candle in wind, that gentle calm that didn’t flare even under curses—both appearance and aura sang Leticia.

Snow-sis?

That single call, tender as a bell, nailed the truth. As Leticia brightened to see Snow, a heartbeat of joy turned into ruin—a spear of holy light punched through her like lightning through a tree. Black feathers scattered like night rain, and blood scattered like rubies in the air.

Leticia…

With a dull thud, Leticia’s body fell straight and still, and Snow stood rooted like a stunned statue.

It’s your fault. If not for you, she wouldn’t have faltered; this would never be. The voice that had tormented her nights echoed, a cold wind in a hollow.

It’s your fault, you killed Leticia!

No… I—I didn’t mean— Her hands clamped her head, and her blood-drenched figure screamed like a torn reed. I never wanted to hurt her, never!

The angel host drifted in like winter storm clouds.

My lord, the heretic’s secured. The one ahead… A two-winged angel addressed the only archangel bearing four wings. Snow stank of blood like iron rain, and by their creed, such “evil” was to be purged. My lord, that thing looks like a heretic too. Do we strike?

The archangel cut the air with a hand, his judgment a blade. Not a single heretic is to be spared.

Snow watched them chain Leticia’s body with iron links, ready to haul her away like a stolen relic, and that motion struck her heart like a spark to dry tinder.

You… don’t touch her!

Blood strewn across the ground began to wriggle like living worms. It rose and congealed into sword after sword, points glinting like frost, all aimed at the angels. Leticia… she’s the proof I exist. Her being says I’m not a phantom… and you would erase my proof?

A cold breath washed over the angels, a chill like wind from the deepest Abyss, carrying the world’s bitterest scent.

Heh, heh… You’ll all pay.

A white magic staff bloomed in her hand like moonlight on jade—the relic left by the Sky Goddess, named “Sunny Day.” Long ago, the staff had become a sigil on Snow’s skin, beyond her reach, and that androgynous voice had fallen quiet like a sealed bell. Now its return felt natural as dawn.

Madness danced in her smile, a twisted flower in winter. She looked like a lunatic laughing at thunder.

The jade-like staff blazed a white sun, and angels and Snow vanished into its light like motes swallowed by day.

Not far from the site, a few elders whispered, voices dry as paper. One was the Grand Elder who had given Snow the “artifact.” Just like the legends, all power springs from the mind. Under such force, a mortal can stand against gods.

But pity weighed his tone like dust. She’s already been eroded by the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts. Soon, the First Spirit will fade, and new personas will replace her. In truth, this test failed. The Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts give us the capital to resist the Demon King, but our souls can’t bear their rust.

Their words held no worry for Snow’s life, faces and hearts cold as stone—a clutch of elders who treated all under heaven as tools on a bench.

Time slid by like dusk over water…

La— Lady? Leticia’s eyes found the familiar figure, orange hair flowing like a sunset stream, a pale yellow dress brushing the evening breeze like soft wheat.

Leticia, we meet again.