Tangxue swung down faster than Qing Feng Yuelian could blink, a blade of frost like a falling crescent. But a hazy ward already wrapped Qing Feng Yuelian, a veil sure to block one full volley. The icy edge passed through her figure like mist and split the mountain behind like a cracked glacier.

"…"

Fear first, then thought—like a chill before dawn. Even when I’m no longer truly alive, do I still flinch from death?

A flicker of timidity rippled through Qing Feng Yuelian’s chest like a wind on still water; she gave a wry smile, thin as moonlight.

"You really don’t hold back at all," she said, voice steady as stone.

"What about you?" Tangxue glanced back at the ice dragons wounded by Qing Feng Yuelian and at Dreamsound, barely standing like a reed in a storm. Her fist tightened, a knuckle of ice.

"I’ve already… done my best," Qing Feng Yuelian said, breath pale as frost.

"You think I went all out?" Tangxue tilted her head, cool as sleet.

"…Huh?" Qing Feng Yuelian let out a puzzled laugh, light as chimes. That slash that almost took her life wasn’t full force?

"Even if I cut your head off, I can keep you alive. Want to try?" Tangxue’s tone was flat as a frozen lake.

"…I’ll pass," Qing Feng Yuelian said, a weary exhale like fog.

So that’s what you meant… The thought skimmed her mind like a shadow crossing water. She shook her head with a smile, calm as falling snow. "Are you going to stop me?"

"If you’re stalling for time… we can talk for three more minutes," Tangxue said, her face blank as ice, eyes on Qing Feng Yuelian like a fixed star.

Dreamsound was still here—hope bright as a candle. Tangxue couldn’t waste time and let reinforcements drift in like a black tide. Those three minutes were for old ties only, a thin thread in winter.

Qing Feng Yuelian—Dreamsound’s aunt. Tangxue had seen her three, maybe four times, memories like flakes on a sleeve. She didn’t know Qing Feng Yuelian well. Dreamsound… she wasn’t sure. But Qing Feng Yuelian was one of Dreamsound’s few living kin, a fragile ember. Tangxue could not kill her.

"If you want to stop me, bring something that can convince me," Qing Feng Yuelian said, her tone level as calm seas. "Like taking everyone away from this world that’s about to break—something that clear. If you can’t, please step aside."

"I will save this world," Tangxue said, the words steady like an oath carved in ice. "Maybe that doesn’t carry weight. But I believe it’s what the Ice Deity—my first mother—gave me as the meaning of my existence."

"A single ‘maybe’ won’t sway me," Qing Feng Yuelian answered, cool as rain on slate.

"I don’t want the last of my family to crawl out of despair only to fall into a trap called ‘hope,’" she said, the bitterness sharp as iron.

"Maybe the path you chose is the trap, Aunt Yuelian," Tangxue narrowed her eyes, gaze locking like iron frost on Qing Feng Yuelian.

"Being fooled and not knowing it—that’s the tragedy, isn’t it?" Her voice landed like ash on snow.

"I know very well whether I’m fooled," Qing Feng Yuelian said, light as drifting leaves. "At least I can feel it—this sly little fox doesn’t have a hundred percent faith in her own words, right?"

"I don’t have a hundred percent guarantee I can keep my promise," Tangxue said as her face hardened, cold as a sealed tomb. "But I’m a hundred percent sure your wish can’t be fulfilled." Three minutes were running out, sand as thin as frost dust.

"You know why the gods placed Hell’s gate here, Aunt Qing Feng Yuelian?" Tangxue’s voice sank like a bell into deep water. "This place is a graveyard of gods."

The divinity soaked into this ground was the weight that pressed on Hell’s door, an iron seal under winter sky. Anyone who tried to break it would be bitten, like hands torn by their own chains. And she had permission to move that seal—inheritance from the Ice Deity, a key cut from frozen starlight.

When the gap in power widens past a threshold, the other side becomes an ant under a thumb—fragile as dust. Qing Feng Yuelian felt it as a mountain falling.

An irresistible pressure crashed down like a tidal glacier. The Qing Feng Yuelian who’d stood like a descending god was pinned to the ground like a leaf in a storm. Qingsheng Tangxue did something without a visible motion, and her power climbed to a tier Qing Feng Yuelian’s hand could never reach, like a peak lost in clouds.

"So this is what it feels like to be crushed by strength," Qing Feng Yuelian murmured. She wiped the blood at her lip like a smear of sunset and lifted her eyes to Tangxue, both refusing to yield like two cliffs facing the sea.

"Aunt Qing Feng Yuelian, they lied to you," Tangxue said, the words quiet as falling snow.

"I know. I’m just cannon fodder, right?" she answered, a thin smile like a cut. "That’s exactly what this mission is."

As they spoke, a gate of space opened between them like a black mirror. A girl with black-red hair stepped out, interest gleaming like ember-light. She flashed to Qing Feng Yuelian’s side with a playful grin, her tone sing-song as bells. "Yuelian, you’re a vital comrade to us. How could we really send you to die, hmm?"

"!"

Tangxue sensed the net under her feet like threads of ice and stepped free in a single flicker, swift as a white fox. Two strikes laced with divine power bloomed where she’d stood, explosions like twin suns of frost.

She raised ice-walls at once, sheer cliffs of blue, sealing the space and catching the blast like a breakwater.

"So we’re surrounded," Tangxue said, eyes cutting toward Dreamsound like a beam. She gestured: go, like a wing flick in stormlight.

Dreamsound hesitated, then nodded, a petal trembling. She understood. She’d guide the ice dragons away from the main clash, a quiet retreat like snow down a slope.

"Heh—come and go as you please? You think this is your back garden?" A woman’s mocking voice slithered in, sour-sweet as rot, and a strange orange sword-qi barred Dreamsound’s way like a sunset fence. The next heartbeat, countless ice spikes surged over the sound’s origin, a blizzard of thorns. Cold in the air rode with magic, gnawing at everything like winter rust. A touch was enough to lock a target still, like this world trapped at absolute zero.

"Sorry, but it is," Tangxue said, her gaze dropping to a killing chill. The spike-filled zone was pared to ice-dust by swordlight, a snowfall of shards. Even if the foe lived, they’d be skinned raw, like bark stripped by wind.

"Haha… feisty little thing," a familiar bull-headed mask appeared before Tangxue, his chuckle oily as smoke. He’d changed clothes; now he looked like a middle-aged corporate drone, gray and tired as office rain.

Without noticing when, they’d ringed Tangxue in like wolves. The upper echelon of the Flower of the Other Shore had all arrived, each wrapped in a strange dead aura, a reek like grave earth. Hell’s heretic god had lent them that power, a stain like midnight oil.

"Curious how we made it here so fast?" the black-red-haired girl asked, eyes bright as coals. She didn’t wait for an answer. "Force and time twist each other. To the strong, time crawls like cold honey. You don’t feel it. You think ages pass in a thought. When you tapped the power buried in this god-tomb, the clock here started to race, like a river in flood. Don’t believe me? Feel it yourself."

"!?"

The words jolted Tangxue like lightning on winter branches. Shock showed despite her ice; she reached out with her senses like a net on water. For her awareness, the outside time was speeding like wind through reeds—far, far faster.

It can’t be just me… can it? The doubt slammed in, a stone in the heart.

"Old myths say a day in heaven, a year on earth," the girl sang, voice soft as silk. "Maybe our few thousand years are just a few days to the gods. Who knows, hmm?"

"From the moment you used the tomb’s power, a huge time gap opened between here and the outside," she continued, smile thin as a blade. "So do you keep using it?"

The price of the god-tomb’s strength was simple and cruel: the outside world sped up like straw catching fire. For Tangxue, who had little time to spend, it was a blaze through a tinder house.

"…Bastards," Tangxue hissed, teeth clenched like ice on stone. If she didn’t use the tomb, she couldn’t beat them. Their power sat on a knife-edge, precisely below the point that would trigger the acceleration—balanced like a scale in the dark.