“Heh...” A hulking shape peeled out of the shadow like a mountain sliding free; every step made the “palace” bellow like a struck drum.

“Interesting. I wondered who came knocking. Turns out... just a human woman.” His voice dragged like stone on stone, thick as wet clay.

Xuewei glanced over, cool as moonlight on ice, and let his taunt fall like ash. “Troll. A split branch of the Mountain Giants... looks royal, too? Mm. Doesn’t matter.” She shook her head, a willow in a light wind. “You won’t walk out. You bred Goblins for evil, hurt the Radiant Empire’s royals, dug pits to ruin lives... anyway, you die.”

His sneer curdled, storm-dark and ugly, the jab landing like a slap across a drumskin.

“You court death! A lowborn wretch dares meddle in Troll royal business!” His laughter oozed like tar. “Oh? A little divine blood in that ant? Good. You killed that useless pawn for me—today I’ll use your body to craft another green-skin with god-blood.”

Lore cracked open like an old cliff. Trolls split from Mountain Giants when minds split like fault lines; they claimed noble blood and spat on treaties, saying law should be measured by fists, not oaths carved in stone.

Mountain Giants, blessed by the Earth God, carry earth’s marrow in their veins; they wield soil like a river current, and their strength and hide outmuscle dragons, iron hills wearing crowns of moss.

Trolls are the wildfire branch—hotter, harsher, sometimes stronger in raw force; but they’re few, like wolves scattered on snow, a rare howl under a cold moon.

They fled to the Demon Domain and raised a jagged nation like a fortress of bones; when a Demon King yoked that land under one banner, they kneeled and joined the demonfolk like shadows returning at dusk.

By sense and distance, a Troll wouldn’t tunnel half a continent to seed Goblins and threaten an empire; Xuewei tasted a hidden rot and knew he carried a secret like a snake under straw.

“Since we both want the other dead,” she said, lips curving like a knife’s smile, and let her breath rise like a winter gale, “we can drop the restraint, right?”

“You—you can hide your power?!” His pupils shrank like pricked beads, fear slick as oil.

“You talk too much.” Kerlinveil Xuewei’s eyes shifted from dusk-violet to ice-blue, cold pouring out like a frozen tide; time felt thick, each second a crystal bead on a string.

“—!” The Troll’s hackles rose like thorns; killing intent crashed over him like a black wave. “God-Aspect!”

“Heh! So what if you hid it?” He bared fangs like broken stalactites. “My royal-branch gift is top-tier! I can hold God-Aspect over ten sec—”

Before the boast could crawl out, Xuewei blurred like a bolt under stormclouds and drove a rising kick into his jaw, a hammer of frost and lightning.

“AAAHHH!” His roar and the ground’s rumble twinned like thunderheads; the “palace” shivered, but it didn’t break. The moment her mana spilled, the “palace” had turned into an ice hall, frost veining stone like white roots.

She hadn’t pulled the strike; the Troll rocketed from the underdeep to the surface like a boulder blown skyward.

“You won’t run.” Xuewei lifted the Iceflame Spear, its edge a winter star.

“Battle Intent: Lock.”

“High-Tier Physical Augmentation.”

“High-Tier Piercing Boost: Zenith.”

“Iceflame Imbuement.”

“Throwing Art: Sky-Rend!”

The spear screamed like a comet, blessed to hit and to break iron, drilling for the Troll whose face twisted like clay pinched by fear. In the next blink, Kerlinveil Xuewei’s poker face flashed before him like a ghost stepping through a mirror.

“Martial Art: Myriad Shifts.”

“I’m not at ‘kill you now’ yet.” Her ice-blue faded back to violet like twilight softening. “That was just to spook you. I heard Troll hide is thick as old bark.”

“D-don’t come—don’t come any closer!” Panic ate his voice like worms in wet wood; to him, she was a calamity on par with the Demon King back home.

She didn’t care for pleas. If she were weaker, she’d already be worse than dead; a creature that thinks with its loins wouldn’t spare a swallow, much less a tiger.

So she gripped the Iceflame Spear and slammed the shaft down on his skull, a bell struck by a glacier.

Boom—earth buckled; his bulk punched a crater into the floor like a meteor’s kiss.

“What was that? An earthquake?” Voices trembled like reeds in wind.

“Bad! If it’s a quake we’ll be buried down here! Go get Teacher Xuewei!” Footsteps scattered like mice in dry leaves.

“I don’t wanna die! We just escaped those Goblins—” The sobs came thin and salty, like rain through a leak.

“You go too far! A Troll may be killed, not humiliated!” Face to the dirt, he swelled like a poisoned toad; his aura climbed in jagged stairs, a tower of storm.

“My power rules the ground!” He grinned, teeth crooked as old roots. “At my level, I can collapse hundreds of kilometers in a blink! Your students are still below, right? Ha! I smelled those rats. If you’re set on killing me, I’ll drag your students as grave goods.”

Fear pricked first, cold as sleet on her neck. “You... you dare!”

“Haha! Think I won’t? Don’t mistake Trolls for cowards! At least, I’m not!” His left hand scraped the ground, laughter sawing up like a rusted blade.

“Let me go, or your students die!”

“Me?” Her laugh spilled like beads, bright and sharp. “Please. You think I came without a backhand? I thought you’d threaten me into dropping my weapon and surrendering. But you’re just trying to run? Gods, you’re dense.”

His face flipped colors like a fish in a pail, green to white; rage cracked in him like dry wood, but her words put ice under his ribs—she had a trump card?

She finished laughing and wiped the corner of her mouth, a glint like dew on a leaf. “Know what my trump is?”

“...What?” His voice shook like a loose door in wind.

“I guessed you’d be too scared to move. Hahaha—”

“You! You bas—”

“—tard...” The last syllable scattered like chips of slate as her boot caught him again, and he shot skyward like a kicked boulder.

She’d noticed the truth: he needed the ground to grip the earth like a puppeteer needs strings. So this time, she’d deny him soil, keep him in sky and silence.

“Then—execution begins.” Xuewei looked up at the hulking silhouette and smiled, bright as frost under sun.