“No.” Fulin gave a slight shake, ruby eyes flaring like banked embers. “I mean us.”

Her words fell like a pebble in a well, and she loosed the dark warrior skill “Gravedigger,” like prying open a grave under moonlight.

It’s a long‑range dark strike, and if it kills, the party blinks to the corpse like smoke crossing a room.

In short, Gravedigger is a kill‑and‑blink, a scythe swing and a step through shadow.

Black light pooled in her palm like liquid night, then hardened into a black arrow and shot straight for the archer.

The archer took the hit and dropped like a cut puppet; at once, lavender‑black circles bloomed under the three like ink in water.

“What is that?!” Shan Feng whispered, his voice thin as wind through reeds.

“We’ll arrive on the archer’s spot. Others may be near him. Brace for a fight,” Fulin said, her calm like ice over a stream.

“Got it…” Shan Feng swallowed it down like a stone sinking in a pond.

Almost at once, the circles swelled like widening ripples, and the world flipped—from a fragrant garden corridor to a square tower stinking like a smokehouse.

This was the fourth floor; kerosene lamps oozed black smoke like nettles of soot, and, as Fulin said, the archer’s death drew comrades like flies to carrion.

“What happened?!” Sentries rushed in with steel bared, eyes snagging on the archer’s chest, charred like burnt wood, and tension snapped like a bowstring.

“Sound the alarm!” one found his voice, but before the others could move—

“Don’t. Sleep forever.” Fulin snapped her fingers; “Dustbound: Silent Withering” branded them like frostbite, and six sentries clutched their chests and folded like wheat.

“This is brutal.” Shan Feng crouched, his finger near their noses like a feather—no breath, no mist on the air.

“The Marquis is above.” Fulin, hearing no stir beyond, pointed at the ceiling like a hunter pointing at the moon.

The Victorian square tower rose nine floors; by the map’s straight‑down measure, the prisoner sat on the ninth like a star on a peak.

“Five more floors to break?” Shan Feng sighed, air slipping out like wind from a bellows.

“No. You and your partner stay put like stones in shade. I’ll go up myself.”

“Be careful.” Shan Feng gripped his blade, leaned to the wall like ivy, eyes fixed on the stairwell like a wolf on a burrow.

“Mm. I will.” With that, Fulin flowed out the window as mist, pale fog spiraling up the outer wall like a silk ribbon.

Night wrapped her like a veil; unseen and unheard, she reached the ninth floor in one breath like an arrow climbing the sky.

High up, the wind gnawed the eaves; even with windshields, the lamp flames fluttered like moth wings.

A heartbeat later, the flames went out like stars gulped by cloud.

“Damn the Light Deity!” a sentry spat and bent to relight, his match a firefly in the dark.

Before the flame could bloom, Fulin’s sword kissed his ribs like cold rain, and her spell swept out; ten knights and three mages crumpled like felled timber.

“Who?!” In the dark, the Marquis couldn’t see; the thuds rolled like drums, and panic climbed him like frost.

In truth, the Feng Wolf Marquis was a map of bruises and cuts, his spirit brittle as winter ice.

These weren’t to pry secrets or force surrender; they were the Golden Flower Marquis’s dogs playing, salting Lance’s heart before the meeting like brine on a wound.

Fulin looked at his battered frame and clenched her small fists like pebbles in a sling.

In the dark, she used a voice‑shifting focus. “I’m the Blazing Fire Knight. I’m here to get you out. Come with me,” she said, voice like a covered brazier.

“Lord Lance?!” The Feng Wolf Marquis lurched upright, groping like a blind fish in a cave.

“Light the lamp and head down on your own. I’ll cut the path. I’ll wait below,” Fulin said, setting an oil lamp and matches on the floor, embers glowing like sleeping coals.

“My deepest thanks!” he blurted, tears messy as rain; once the lamp bloomed like dawn, he saw the room stood quiet.

He picked his way around the bodies like stepping stones in a stream, lamp cupped behind its wind‑guard, and trembled down the stairs.

He went down with his heart on a knife; only corpses lay there, but they were too clean, like stones after rain, and doubt nibbled like mice.

If it were the Blazing Fire Knight, there’d be scorch marks, claws of charcoal on bone, and the thought flickered like a moth.

But his mind was threadbare with fatigue; even free, it looped the Golden Flower Marquis’s taunts and his men’s tortures like a broken reel.

He set thought aside and focused on each step, one leaf at a time in a storm.

On the third floor, the Feng Wolf Marquis finally met Fulin and the others, like a boat finding shore.

“Lord Lance!” He almost collapsed at Lance’s knees, reaching for an embrace, but “Lance” slid three meters back like a shadow.

“You’re covered in blood. Talk later,” Lance said, calm as a still pond.

“Let’s go.” Shan Feng took the Marquis’s arm, shouldering the weight like a yoke.

“My rudeness… forgive me!” No doubt clouded him; exhaustion tugged his eyelids like heavy curtains.

“Put him on its back,” Lance said, nodding at the big cat like a mountain cat crouched for carry.

“Got it~” Shan Feng heaved the Marquis onto the big cat and slipped a blindfold on like a patch of night.

“What is that?”

“Lie still. We’re taking you home,” came the answer, warm as a hearth.

“Understood…” At Lance’s words, he slept like the dead, breathing steady on the big cat’s back like a child on a wagon.

“This guy’s thick‑skinned,” Shan Feng joked, laughter dry as straw.

“Yeah. Lucky he’s thick like that, or else…” Fulin’s words thinned, and she closed her eyes with a small smile, like frost thawing on a leaf.

“Move,” Fulin said, voice a bell in fog.

“Right.” Shan Feng and the big cat followed, footsteps soft as cats’ paws.

The three and one beast slipped from the tower like shadows through reeds—but Fulin hadn’t counted on this—

To stop any rescue, the Golden Flower Marquis had a spell trigger set on the Marquis, a thorn under the skin like glass.

And the square tower itself was a massive arcane landmine, a beehive wired to blow.

If the Feng Wolf Marquis left carried by another, the tower would explode like a struck hive.

As they crossed out, Fulin felt the energy in the building spike like a storm front rearing up.

“Damn it!” She caught it in a blink, bit down, and punched the earth bare‑handed; stone cracked like dry clay.

“Jump in, now!” She pointed at the hole, teeth clenched like a wolf in a snare.

“Damn…” Shan Feng got it in a flash, dragging the big cat and crawling in like lizards to a crevice.

All four squeezed into the cramped pocket like seeds in a pod—and almost at once—

Boom!

The square tower blew, a flower of fire tearing the night like a ripped banner.

Fulin’s call was right; underground, the four took the blast as a river under ice, dulled and far.

When the shaking stilled, they hammered up through the fallen rubble like moles, and on emerging—no surprise—

They faced the Golden Flower Marquis’s private troops, a ring of spears like a bristling hedge; the Marquis watched, glee bright as gilt.

“Grand enough welcome, Blazing Fire Knight?” he called, standing beside his Earth Knight like a cliff beside the sea, smiling wide.

“Lance, why did you come?!” the Rose Knight cried, voice bruised like a bent petal.

An explosion, then an ambush; danger stacked like storm on storm.

Even so, “Lance” kept that brat’s swagger; she spat grit like dust from a grindstone and yelled, “Choose! Clear a path, or—”

“You all die here.” Behind the mist‑cast disguise, a cold gleam slid along Fulin’s eyes like a knife edge, and her ultimate spell sat drawn like a bow.