“Tangxue… Crimson Goose is a different mountain than the Vampire you met before,” Qianya said, her voice tangled like reeds in a cold wind. “Even at my peak, I couldn’t scale her. She’s True-God tier now, like a storm god brooding on a high ridge.”

“Oh… True-God tier, huh.” Tangxue answered as if flicking snow from her sleeve, her mood cool as dusk. In her head, she’d already planned how to deal with the white tuft perched on her head—first bleep, then star—like carving patterns on ice.

Qianya watched that breezy look and felt words flutter like moths around a lamp. She hesitated, then braced herself. “Tangxue… will you trust me?”

“…?”

“The Blood Elf’s underground palace lies nearby,” she said, breath steady like spring water seeping through stone. “I came to cleanse my bloodline there, using the ‘Blood Core’ you gave me. If it works, I can advance to—”

Tangxue shoved Qianyue aside, like pushing a drifting cloud from a moon. A red blade cut their talk clean, sharp as a maple-leaf edge.

Crimson Goose, who’d been perched on the rooftop like a hawk, dropped down with a silk-smooth fall.

“Heh… I really got ignored, didn’t I?” Crimson Goose smiled at Qianya, sugar over venom like a lacquered cherry. “But fine. You were the former queen, so I’ll forgive you. Still… I heard something fun, Venoina—Qianya. You think you’ve still got the life to reach that palace?”

“I said it—today even wings won’t save you,” Qianya hissed, her tone like sleet cutting feathers.

Crimson Goose lunged, grin feral as a hunting cat. A blood-stained rapier bloomed in her hand like a thorned rose. Her speed was storm-lightning; even with her mind honed to a blade, Tangxue barely tracked the motion like watching hail in a gale.

“Three Lives Endowment, Guard a Thousand Autumns.”

Tangxue threw up a defense, crisp as moonlit ice, and forced a gap as if freezing the river mid-surge.

Crimson Goose stared at the blue-haired girl who stood a head shorter, like a stream under endless sky. She couldn’t believe a killing stroke, cold as iron rain, had shattered on winter glass.

She glanced at her rapier. A thin frost filmed it, pale as hoarfrost on grass, and her hand trembled like a leaf in late autumn.

Tangxue’s eyes had already turned pale-blue, a glacial lake catching dawn. Now she felt like someone else entirely. Her invisible sword intent thrummed, a hive of winter bees among pines.

[Sword Art: Ground-Shift]

[Thunderclap]

[Chase Slash]

[Rising Dragon]

Crimson Goose felt herself unraveling, like silk snagging on thorns. The ant she’d scorned had become a sword-saint; in the blink of a cicada’s wing, the edge almost halved her, lightning cutting old trees. If not for reflex, she’d wear scars like claw-marks on stone.

“Tch! This damned pipsqueak’s actually tricky,” she spat, anger gritty as sand under teeth.

She clenched her jaw. Blood flowed in her red-amber eyes like molten dusk. She swung with full force, a mountain storm meeting blade-light head-on.

A True-God-tier Vampire’s blow hit like a meteor. Tangxue crashed into the ground, the impact carving a crater like a dark pond in dry earth.

“Heh… heheh…” Crimson Goose looked at her right arm, disbelief thin as smoke. She’d been cut without noticing, the wound a red crescent gleaming like a new moon.

Crimson Goose wasn’t a fool. She wouldn’t belittle someone until it killed her. Feeling the other’s strength, she cooled in an instant, steel tempering in river water, and measured again.

“Didn’t expect it… You, little pipsqueak, have some bite,” she said, fog lifting from her gaze like dawn over hills. “But will you really stand against me?”

Her voice went calm, dark and smooth as night water. “Not boasting. If I burn everything, I can kill both of you in a heartbeat. I could flatten this city to bare earth. I just don’t feel like it.”

“You’re still young, a sapling not yet ironwood. Your future could match mine. Why bury your life here under cold soil?”

“Done talking?” Tangxue’s tone was flat, a cold rain on hot stones. “Can I go back to killing you?”

“…”

Crimson Goose’s face locked up, veins rising like coiled vines under her skin.

“Fine. Since you crave death, I’ll oblige,” she said, blade-sheen like thunder before rain.

“Tangxue, careful! Crimson Goose’s innate—”

Qianya didn’t finish. A red shadow surged and swallowed her whole, like a blood tide swallowing the moon.

“Blood-Shadow Maze!”

Scarlet veins lit along Crimson Goose’s raised hand, rivers of red ink on parchment. Her aura erupted, wild as wildfire in dry reeds. Shadows around her twitched alive like paper puppets under lantern glow, then wrapped her tight and ate her. They circled Tangxue with eerie smiles, faces like crescent masks, bodiless yet pressing like a storm front.

A chill pricked Tangxue’s spine, then she looked. She read the workings like frost tracing window glass.

These are phantoms, no bodies, but soaked in her mana, hot as wine. A normal touch would burst you into blood mist, a red cloud sucked in like steam. It’s like the water sprites Dreamsound used to forge from water essence; both run on mana. The mimicked beings brim with power, though these shadows hold no flesh, only cold echoes.

Crimson Goose’s pressure was heavy, a mountain storm bearing down. Back when Vampire Edgar swallowed her, Tangxue stepped in like a traveler seeking sights. Now, faced with this blood-shadow ring, she felt the same weight she had under Qingyu Mengyin’s sky, thunder in her bones.

“In that case…”

[Ice Mail]

An ice-blue, glass-clear armor wrapped Tangxue in an instant, like winter glazing a pine.

One layer wasn’t enough. She layered defenses inside and out, nested shells like riverstones. Ice mail for mana, water veil for blasts, water bubble for shock, ice ridges for blades—she stacked them all, then warded her mind with a spirit talisman, a jade calm in a storm.

If I shut their mana out, they can’t touch me, Tangxue thought, a small relief like a lantern lit in fog.

It proved true. The blood-shadows tested her, leaving mana-scorches on the ice like blackened fern. Explosions boomed like thunder eggs, scythes scraped like winter sickles, yet none marked the armor. Even swallowing her only meant choking on a hard ice boulder, a frozen lump lodged in a throat of red smoke. Their smiles twisted, paper faces warping as they found no way in.

After a moment, Crimson Goose stood before Tangxue, face dark as iron. “Stay put, pipsqueak. I’ll tidy up your good friend first. Watch her die from inside your little ice block. Hahaha!” Her laughter rattled like coins in a cold bowl.

She turned to leave, cloak like a red wing cutting the air.

“Only I got swallowed, didn’t I?” Tangxue said, voice drifting like a snowflake that refuses to fall.

“…”

Crimson Goose kept walking, steps tapping like cold drums in a temple hall.

“I saw a shadow eat Qianya too, but the real mouth took me,” Tangxue went on, smile thin as a sliver moon. “Your trick reminds me of old faces. Honestly, I’ve been w-t’d more than once.”

“I’m guessing you can’t get out, same as me. Right?”

She looked at Crimson Goose, amusement warm as tea in winter.

“Devour-types are strong inward, weak outward. If you could split attention to kill Qianya, would you bother telling me?”

Crimson Goose turned, her voice a layer of frost on still water. “Then keep thinking that.”

She walked on. Soon her figure vanished into the ink of blood-shadow, like a drop lost in a red lake.

“…”

Wait—did I just mess up? The thought hit Tangxue like a gust through reeds, panic twitching like fish under ice.

What if this power isn’t what I think? What if she only baited me with words, a cat playing with snow?

Then Qianya’s in real danger, a thread under a knife.

Hold on—“good friend”… did she mean Qianyue?! The name flickered like a lantern swaying in wind.