Ha. You’ve lived too long if you think Hell’s beasts will toss you a bone from their brimstone pits.

Qing Feng Yuelian, you know it’s nonsense.

What’s sealed beneath this frost is a mad god, mind burned to ash.

The first thing it’ll do is sweep life away like a black tide.

Tens of millennia ago, the gods paid in blood-rain to pin that lunatic under the ice.

If it breaks loose now, stopping absolute zero will be bought with tens of millions of graves.

Qing Feng Yuelian stayed silent, head bowing like a willow in snow.

“You… already knew?” Bingxue stared, eyes like cracked ice.

“Or is this the contract you spoke of?”

“…Yes.”

“Qing Feng Yuelian…”

“They can sacrifice half the ocean’s lives for the world.

Why can’t I sacrifice them for the world?” She tilted her head like a drifting petal.

“It’s all for the world’s future, isn’t it?”

“Are you still hung up on that?” The elder of the Ice Dragons spoke, voice creaking like old glacier.

“Still? Long Yi, you make it sound like breeze and cloud.”

“I never forgot. I can’t forget.”

“The dead of my clan—how do I answer them, when they never even knew their sin?”

“Qing Feng Yuelian, you misunderstand.

I won’t block you from killing your enemies for revenge.

But if you help Hell’s fiends, even paid in gold, the bridge behind you burns.

Those you favor may not thank you; they may hate you.”

“I can’t go back anymore.”

She shed her mask, and the pallor of an undead dawn showed through—skin like moonless frost, eyes like still water.

“!”

“Long Yi, Bingxue… for old times’ sake, hear me once.

Give up. You’re no match for the Flower of the Other Shore.”

“Qing Feng Yuelian, that’s my line.

Don’t end up shunned by all and estranged from your own.”

Eyes met like crossed blades; the air tightened like a drawn bowstring.

An unseen contest rippled through the space, thin as ice over deep water.

“Tangxue, wake up! The sea around us feels wrong.” Yaya’s voice trembled like a wind over dark waves.

“Waaah! What happened!? Is it the end of the world?”

Tangxue jolted up from the hammock, a bead of drool shining like dew.

Yaya wiped her mouth, face grave as stormcloud.

“Someone else is stirring the sea’s power. The target is the Far North.”

“The Far North…?” Tangxue froze, color draining like tide from sand.

“Where’s Dreamsound? Where did she go?”

“Little Dreamsound… she already left.

She didn’t want to wake you. I panicked, and I woke you anyway,” Yaya said, guilt like frost in her breath.

“Hah…” Tangxue sighed, weary as a gull in rain.

“I get it. Mom Yaya… I’ll head out soon.”

“Mm.” Yaya nodded, eyes steady as anchors.

On her way downstairs, Tangxue glanced at the Sea God’s Trident by the corridor.

Of course—Dreamsound had taken it, like a gull claiming a spear of lightning.

“Stupid Dreamsound, what are you thinking… being the good mother?

Then why not stay home with me?

I just wanted a quiet stretch with you both…”

Her chest tightened; her voice carried a tear’s glimmer.

Far off, two waves pulsed through the deep—one was Dreamsound.

The other felt like one of her last kin; otherwise she wouldn’t have slipped away.

Tangxue’s eyes cooled, like frost over a lake.

Priority was the Far North’s anomaly; from here, it felt like a child’s run to the corner shop—ten minutes at most.

Whoever you are, if you start trouble now, I’m giving you a big, fat knuckle sandwich!

After Tangxue left, Yaya finally stepped out, breath ragged like wind through reeds.

Decades of ice had left her weak; stairs were mountains, help was a storm she couldn’t sail.

“Be safe… Tangxue.” Her whisper floated like a prayer over cold water.

In the Far North, Dreamsound watched Qing Feng Yuelian in silence, calm as winter moonlight.

No Ice Dragon remained standing; they lay strewn like broken glaciers, alive but maimed.

“You came, Dreamsound.” Qing Feng Yuelian turned with a smile as soft as snow.

“Why?”

“Many asked me that today.

May I not answer? Dreamsound…

Or I’ll answer when your daughter Tangxue arrives.”

“She won’t come.

I’ll end this before she does.” Dreamsound’s eyes steadied like steel; she lunged, the Sea God’s Trident sweeping like a tidal arc.

“You’re even using the Sea God’s Trident?”

Loss flickered in Qing Feng Yuelian’s gaze, along with wary winter.

It was a Divine Artifact, a thing that could end her utterly.

She knew the Trident’s Authority, so she abandoned water magic.

Ashen annihilation poured from her, and a giant skeletal ghost-claw slammed down like a thunderhead.

“Ugh…!”

That claw carried eerie divine power; Dreamsound was hurled like driftwood.

But the Trident, driven by her push, bit Qing Feng Yuelian’s right shoulder.

Both bled into snow.

“You won’t get a second strike.

Give up, Dreamsound.

Your swordwork, gunplay, magic, and martial arts—I taught you.

I know your weight to the ounce.”

“Shut up…!” Dreamsound gritted her teeth, fighting a chill like midnight water.

Her divine power felt thin; the erosion gnawed like ice-worms, her soul ready to be plucked like a loose thread.

“I only want you all to live…

Why do you insist on the hardest road?”

Struggle shadowed Qing Feng Yuelian’s face; she aimed to knock Qingyu Mengyin out with a single blow.

“Isn’t the one walking against the way… you!”

Bingxue rose, huge as a mountain; ancient ice answered like a choir.

A forest of spikes surged, with clear ice-blue dragon breath, pressing in from both sides.

“Useless. I’ve shown you again and again.

This world’s divine mana, infinitely diluted, is no different from rich mortal mana.

Against true godforce, it shatters like glass.”

Qing Feng Yuelian stood still, drawing the bestowed divine power like a quiet tide.

She blocked Bingxue’s full strike with ease, an ashen veil over a raging storm.

“See? This is—”

“Her real strike—me!”

Qingsheng Tangxue burst from the blizzard, Frostwhisper unsealed, and brought it down on Qing Feng Yuelian like a falling winter star.