The second match was Ling’s. She stepped in under cut-glass lights and saw Arthas across the ring like a mountain of winter steel.

She stared at the strange Skeleton war-armor and the blue rune greatsword in his hand, excitement sparking in her eyes like stormfire. Ezio had shocked her earlier; Arthas stirred something fiercer.

“Hey, hey—are you the Lich King?”

Arthas looked at her, a snow-silent gaze.

“Lich King? What’s that?”

“Huh? Not really? Eh, whatever. I still kinda like you. I’ll go easy.”

Anyone would hear the barb in that. Arthas didn’t flare. His voice came like an old wind through pines.

“Excess pride births disaster.”

“Blockhead, I’ve earned my pride.”

“Then hear this. An ominous aura drapes the Empire like stormclouds, and all of it turns around you.”

“If you can sense auras, you know I’m strong.”

“I won’t deny it. Your aura’s stronger than a god’s. But your heart doesn’t match it. You’re still weak.”

Her excitement snapped cold. Her eyes sharpened like drawn blades on his throat.

“I take it back. I hate you. Let someone else keep Frostmourne.”

“I don’t know how you know that name. But it isn’t a good sword. Don’t trifle with it.”

“Shut up. I don’t talk to people I hate.”

She pulled out the [Script]. Her toe kissed the floor—whoosh—and she blurred from the spot, ignoring the mechanical screen stuck at ‘two.’

Arthas didn’t hurry. He planted Frostmourne in the ring. Ice bloomed from the blade like a white flower, fanning out into a hard, glittering icefield.

Ling’s strike crashed in like thunder, but her [Script] hammered a phantom. Arthas had already ghosted away.

His voice came from her flank like a cold bell.

“Told you. You don’t know how to use your power. You’re just flailing kindergarten punches.”

Anger flared. Pride bit her heart like a thorn.

“Shut up!”

—Damn it. Fighting that God-King didn’t feel this awful. I get it. I didn’t read the Script. If I read it and know his moves, I’d have nailed him already.

She poured magic into the [Script]. It floated into her sight like a dark moon, then she rushed him again, breath sharp as frost.

[Arthas shifts left and dodges Ling’s punch.]

Black letters crawled across the [Script]. She saw his next step and, with her punch, gathered a [Magic Cannon] on her right, a marigold of light.

As the [Script] said, he slipped past her fist. The [Magic Cannon] slammed into him like a comet.

It hurt him—barely. He took one breath and the wound sealed like ice over water. He looked unmarked.

“See? Use your power right and you grow stronger. You’ve grown already.”

“What do you even know?”

He stood unharmed, calm enough to critique her. For the first time, a fight felt heavy as wet snow. For the first time, it stung.

She didn’t move. Arthas sighed, a winter reed bending.

“If you won’t come, I will.”

He raised Frostmourne and hewed down. Cold surged at her like a tidal winter, and doubt rattled her heart like a struck gong.

What’s happening? Why is this body cold? I should shrug off wild heat and bitter frost. Why can’t I beat him? Why—why—why? Someone tell me why!

“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn! Extreme [Magic Cannon], five hundred-round barrage!”

Her shout cracked the air. Countless cannons ignited and fired—whoosh, whoosh—like a storm of fireworks. But these flowers were roses: beautiful, and thorn-deadly.

The barrage roared for a full minute. The ground ended pockmarked with craters, no smooth place left. If not for Arthas’s icefield thickening the floor, the arena would’ve been ruined.

“Got it out of your system?”

His voice came across the frost, clean of emotion.

Ling bowed her head. For the first time, this body felt powerless, like the trash husk she’d worn in her last life.

“Why are you still unhurt?”

“No mystery. I know myself. I can bring out a hundred percent. You can’t even use one.”

She blinked, mind grinding through those words like millstones.

“You mean I can’t even use this body?”

Arthas nodded, and somehow a face caged by a Skeleton helm managed a touch of pity that chilled the spine.

“Yes. Since you get it, my task is done. Think on it. I’m leaving.”

He stepped off the stage, snow-calm, under a forest of confused stares.

“Uh… Arthas leaves the arena. The winner is… Yufan Ling?”

Even the announcer sounded lost. Shouldn’t the Script say Ling loses? What happened to the guaranteed dragon-rider stomp? How did he ‘lose’?

Ling stood rooted, like her soul had slipped out and gone wandering.

By Arthas’s meaning, he’d seen she couldn’t wield this body. Her ineptitude turned the should-be-invincible “Yufan Ling” into this failing “Yufan Ling.”

She hadn’t changed at all. Even this invincible power hadn’t erased her useless, losing self.

Am I… really… that… useless?

—Arthas’s POV—

He walked down from the stage. A strange figure blocked his path at once. Arthas didn’t startle; he looked straight at it, eyes steady as night water.

“Speak. Why did you do that?”

He took in the phantom—a book that was a person, a contradiction that fit like a puzzle piece.

That wasn’t the point. He knew she wasn’t weak. She could fold him like paper if she wanted.

“To wake her. She hasn’t adapted. She hasn’t hit the effect I want. I need to change her—let ‘her’ come out—make her know why she exists. Then I can bring ‘Ling’ back.”

He saw madness gleam in those pupils like mercury. His heart held a sliver of pity for Ling, cold and real.

“You didn’t need to go that far. She’s probably doubting whether she should exist.”

The phantom flickered twice, like bad reception. Strange—can a book have signal?

“You’re wrong. We do need it. She doesn’t want to believe any of this belongs to her. Blame ‘Ling’—she made that dumb choice, shipping that one to another world. Eighteen years carved this temperament. Still, it’s not exactly ‘Ling’s’ fault. The world wrote the rule. You can’t change it…”

Her tone dipped, a small fall of leaves, and somehow he knew a book looked sad.

“If that’s your path, fine. I hope… you’re ready to bear the cost.”

She drew herself up, pride like a raised banner.

“Heh. Keep your advice. Remember, you’re only here because I summoned you. Your meaning exists for my plan.”

He almost laughed. True enough—just a summoned blade in someone else’s hand. Whatever happens to her—what’s that to me? I only have to obey. Right?