The spectators outside saw it too, Ling alone wading into dozens of men like a knife into a wheatfield. Some who filmed the whole thing felt the video burn their palms like a fresh coal.

The clip bottled the most terrifying violence since the Moser Empire first raised its flag, a storm in a jar. Regular matches had injuries like stray thorns, but nothing this abyssal.

She never broke a rule, yet the air reeked of slaughter like iron rain. Under a legal sky, the feeling was a butcher’s wind. People asked if a human could be that.

In the Moser Empire, most citizens go a lifetime without touching murder, like walking a garden path. The penalty is heavy as an iron gate, and eye-for-an-eye is law.

This incident was the ugliest winter blossom yet. No one died, but she half-crippled men like snapping reeds, which smelled like death without its name.

It was still a sanctioned match, where injury is treated like rain on stone. The courts couldn’t bite. It felt like a kill-happy performer staging a massacre under lantern light.

If the video spilled out, it could seed panic like a frost across the Empire. So officials rushed in, trying to smother sparks with wet cloth.

They misread the wind. In a blink, the net blew like dandelion fluff, each seed a new copy. Exaggeration howled like wolves, and the content roared like firewood.

People saved it in their phones like talismans under pillows. One site cut it down, another sprouted it back up like bamboo after rain. Erasure was a dream of mist.

The impact on the Empire ran dark as stormwater. Soon, experts would crawl out like cicadas, chirping analysis, first condemning, then sneering, always grinding their teeth at Ling.

That drumbeat would drag her into trouble like a net pulling a fish. The conclusion was already stamped like a seal in wax.

But that was for later, a sun not yet risen. Ling’s creed was simple as a blade: let the future self deal with future thorns.

She felt no guilt, her heart a lake without ripples. In her mind, they were ants under a boot. Do you count the crumbs of bread you’ve eaten?

Seeing the twist in Ling’s thinking was like spotting rot under bright paint. Alicia felt a soft sadness fall, like dusk seeping into a room.

She’d failed to bend the sapling back toward the light. The path she hoped for ran off into fog, and her chest ached like cold glass.

In Alicia’s eyes, Ling had become a snarl of yarn, threads strangled into a knot. The girl she loved seemed trapped inside like a moth in silk.

“Hey, Ling, listen to me,” Alicia said, voice like a lantern in rain. “I don’t know what forged you, but try to climb out of that old skin.”

“You’re not a god; even gods can’t live alone on a mountaintop. That’s not living, that’s a walking corpse under daylight. Honestly, I hate who you are right now.”

Her words struck Ling like a thrown nail. Hate… me… like this?

Pain surged through Ling’s chest like needles under the nail. No—more like pliers ripping the nail one plate at a time, cold and bright.

What a joke. Hate this body? As if this steel would be worse than the rusted shell from before. I won’t go back to that scrap.

She lowered her head, face hidden like the moon behind cloud. The pressure around her sank, a falling barometer that made hearts thump like trapped birds.

“Hey… Alicia, are people made of many emotions?” Ling’s voice slid out like smoke under a door.

Alicia didn’t know why she asked, but she answered like tossing a pebble into a pond. “Mm? Yeah, I think so.”

“Then, Alicia, do you like me?” The question floated like a leaf in a slow stream.

“If you’d go back to how you were, I’d still like you,” she said, voice a trembling bowstring.

The old me? That flimsy shadow? You’d like that? Please—at least draft your lie before you fly it like a kite.

Ling’s fist tightened like a knot, and her teeth pressed her lower lip like a seal. She held the sadness back like a flood behind a dam.

After a few breaths, the fist uncurled like a fern, and she exhaled deep, a tide going out. She lifted her eyes, gentle as spring rain.

“Alicia, I like you too. From the first moment, something bloomed like light through shutters. I don’t want much. I just want to stay by you.”

Alicia flushed, color rising like dawn. Her heart budded with joy, warm as a stove under winter hands.

As the joy swelled, a face filled her view like a sudden moon. Warmth pressed her lips, that distinct tide when two shores meet.

Staring at Ling so close, Alicia’s mind emptied like a white page. Only when their lips parted did color return like ink in water.

“Ling… you…” Her voice fluttered like a startled sparrow.

“Alicia, thank you for taking care of me,” Ling said, words soft as folded silk. “This is my return gift—my first kiss, bright as a new coin.”

“You’re the first to warm my heart like a brazier. You’re important to me like a name carved in wood. I like you, whatever name the feeling wears.”

“So… you mean…” Alicia reached out like a hand in fog.

Ling’s tone dropped from velvet to ice, a river freezing in a breath. “Alicia.”

Hearing her name without the tender sister-note felt like a shadow crossing the sun. A bad hunch slid into Alicia’s gut like cold water.

“Like you said, people are made of feelings,” Ling said, each word a stone. “My cute side is me. My clumsy side is me. My bloodthirst is me.”

“I can’t cut off any branch of that tree. If you hate one branch, the hate will spread like rot down the trunk. So we end here.”

What twisted logic! Alicia’s mind snapped back like a taut string. She wouldn’t be dragged by that crooked river.

“People change!” she fired back, voice crackling like dry pine. “Why do you think you can’t?”

“I won’t allow myself to change for humans,” Ling said, the sentence cold as iron filings.

It was an unreasonable wall, solid as a cliff to Ling. Alicia stared at it and refused to bow like grass under wind.

“Liar! That silly god-on-top pride again?” Her words flared like sparks. “Is it fun? Is it?”

“You said you like me. Then hear this: I like you too. Isn’t that enough to drop that paper idol into the rain?”

Ling watched Alicia roar like a storm, and a tremor ran through her like a bitten chord. Past-life memories rose like chains and dragged the tremor down.

“…No,” she said, voice thin as frost. “But I’ll walk this tournament with you, start to finish, so you don’t lose face. After that, two roads diverge.”

Alicia froze, her surprise a shard of ice. She hadn’t imagined Ling would be stubborn as bedrock. What forged that stubbornness like a blade?

She didn’t want to untangle that knot now. She only wanted to throw questions like stones at the retreating back before her.

“Even this feeling can’t move you?” she cried, tears burning like salt. “You’re not a liar. You’re a coward in a mask!”

“You won’t face your own heart. You’re scared it will bend you like heat bends metal. From start to finish, you’re just a coward!”

Ling couldn’t hold. She feared her face would crack like thin ice and show the river beneath. She left in a blur, swift as a startled deer.

She didn’t stay to hear another word, fleeing the hallway like wind fleeing a storm bell. Silence rushed in after her like night.

When Alicia opened eyes drowned in tears, the corridor was empty as a dried well. She slumped against the wall, whispering into the dust.

“See? A coward,” she murmured, voice a wilted petal.

The match ended without reason, like a candle snuffed by no hand. Only Alicia and the vanishing Ling stood as winners on paper.

No… maybe… under this gray sky, no one won at all.