“Impressive!”

The lean leader lunged again like a hawk diving. Night Frost slipped away at the instant of impact, like water sliding through fingers.

He raised his right arm to catch her left fist, then shoved hard, trying to throw her aside like driftwood in a current.

Night Frost tapped twice on a hard, intact slab, settling her stance like water finding a basin.

She crossed her arms to block his punch. Her right arm twisted, yanking his forearm close. Crimson Gold Flame surged up, eating his silver-white alloy like molten sun on frost.

He chuckled softly. His right arm shuddered, shattering the clinging flame like brittle glass, and his hand clamped her wrists, locking her attack like iron shackles.

He’d smeared on fire-retardant. The path before Night Frost bristled with thorns. If the burly man had joined in, she’d have been pressed into the dirt.

The lean leader flicked a glance at the burly man, a spark of understanding like flint. The big one wanted him to carry the load.

Night Frost drew a breath; flame wrapped her body like a cloak in a winter gale.

He snorted, planted a foot, and sprang. His legs left earth, his body whirled like a windmill, and strength-packed hands slammed her down like a falling hammer.

Night Frost caught herself, grabbed scattered flame, and condensed a spear. She drove it at his chest like lightning. He twisted a clean one-eighty, but the blade still kissed his belly, and heat melted the silver-white alloy like wax.

The alloy ran thin, revealing pale intestines. Threads of Blood seeped from the gash like crimson rain.

He clutched his wound, his face twisting like crumpled paper.

Night Frost conjured another Crimson Gold Spear, aiming to wreck his organs through the breach. He felt it coming, rolled aside, and the spear pinned the ground, grazing his flank.

His legs, etched in deep-blue Array Patterns, bent like drawn bows. Mana sliced the air as he kicked. Night Frost raised a Crimson Gold Spear and caught it. He didn’t retreat; he rode the rebound and kicked again like a piston.

Night Frost leaned back; the next kick cracked in like thunder.

They crashed across the ground in sharp bursts. Each impact made the air quiver like a struck drumskin.

Tech let the lean leader wield Mana. Night Frost’s Magic Layer trembled like thin ice at thaw. He was hurting too; with all that gear, one slow beat and he’d have died under her flame.

Each gauged the other, mountains appraising mountains through mist.

He cut a glare at the burly man, anger like live coal. He sprayed a special coagulant, sealing the charred wound, and growled, “You’re still not moving?”

Steam thrusters on the burly man’s arms hit max, vapor driving down his back like storm rain. Springs in his legs compressed to the limit like coiled serpents.

Night Frost’s eyes tightened; the leader alone was a mountain. With the burly man, her odds turned to ash on wind.

Chen Xiaoyin’s liquid shield was nearly spent, a well running dry. If she stalled, defeat would bite down.

They still hadn’t started?!

Only one way to buy time now…

Night Frost bit down. She pulled a small waist-box and fished out a junk array plate she’d lifted from a cheap mentor. It was battered, but it still held basic Array Patterns like faded ink on wood.

She slapped it to the ground. Red and blue light braided up like twin dragons. Attack and defense rose at her sides like banners in wind. The burly man’s fist smashed the defensive screen, dusting it to powder, but the blow lost most of its storm.

Blue faded. Red lunged forward. It secreted Blood-red threads that cut skin like knife Blades through silk.

The sneaking leader had his skin shaved thin; his face twisted, a feral mask cracking.

He ignored the filleted skin. He poured strength into both legs and whipped a kick at her belly like a lashing cable. Night Frost raised her left foot; her toe met his whip-kick like nail against hammer.

In his eyes, her leg’s Magic Layer and liquid shield nearly shattered like glass on stone. He figured the bone inside had splintered to chalk.

Night Frost only snorted. She pulled back over ten meters, her leg seemingly unharmed, snow-smooth on the surface.

Truth was, the leg took a heavy bruise beneath the frost—but not crippling.

Mid-fight, she found a way. She used her body as an array base, mirroring one layer of the plate’s dual defensive Formation onto herself. With a Magic Stone and spare materials, she carved a fresh defensive Formation—crude bark, startlingly strong.

Better than the plate’s.

But at that instant of defense, Mana drained like sand slipping from a glass. The Array Pattern dimmed, and parts began to crumble under the kick’s weight.

Night Frost staggered, a boat listing in wind.

The lean leader saw it and charged, another full-force kick, a hammer swinging for the anvil.

Boom!

Night Frost’s thoughts flashed; her eyes lit like dawn. Finally—here. She’d waited long enough.

He halted mid-air, a hawk checking its dive. Smoke billowed. Dust rose in a pillar. That plume marked one place—his camp.

Kaneko? Hostages? The Twelfth District never cared. The Twelfth District’s Magic Maidens had thrown everything into tearing down his camp, and the wall was breaking.

Profit be damned. If he lost his stash here, all roots would burn.

He’d poured a fortune into that leg, signed guarantees in dark halls. If he couldn’t repay, those people would claim everything. His value would vanish like fog.

He’d come to the Twelfth District for the Key everyone craved, a symbol of secrets and wealth. He couldn’t fall at step one.

Smoke boiled over distant tents. He wanted to turn back, but a Magic Maiden matched him and barred the way like a gate of flame. When fire leapt and the camp blew apart, he saw it in Night Frost’s eyes—relief, a chess stone clicking into place.

“You—”

Blood veined his eyes. His breath frayed. His half-healed wound seeped Blood like a spring. He exhaled, as if conceding the end.

Night Frost’s spear slid into the wound in that beat. Flame ran wild. His organs charred black, stinking like burnt meat on a ruined grill.

When the Crimson Gold Flame reached heart and gut, his life would gutter out like a spent lantern.

The burly man, all steam and gears, hit his limits and needed a cool-down. He wanted to help, but his machinery hissed and balked.

Their underlings hid far away. Ordinary bullets couldn’t pierce her liquid shield, much less stop Night Frost’s advance.

The lean leader collapsed. The blue engravings on his legs didn’t dim; in Night Frost’s eyes they flared brighter, a long-suppressed beam cracking the night.

Like a bomb about to blow.

Just like that arm last time, the leg had a self-destruct. Once the wearer died, it would—

Boom!

Scalding heat rolled at Night Frost like noon sun on desert stone. She’d seen it coming and ran flat-out. She knew this kind of self-destruct; without a dragon’s heart, she’d already be dust.

The earth bucked. The sky seemed to flee. Black Flame mushroomed, a curtain like the dust she’d seen in that secret realm, blotting the sun and turning the world gray.

The blast hit hard. It licked her even though she left first. Her Magic Layer and liquid shield got stripped clean. She bent flame and bled off the hurt. Without that knowledge, she’d have been half-paralyzed.

The others weren’t so lucky. At ground zero, raging energy swallowed them whole, leaving only flecks of flying flesh.

No one knew who built these devices. One truth stood—they evolved fast and hit hard, giving ordinary folk a way to defy the supernatural, to defy Magic Maidens.

Night Frost looked into the empty crater, a chill lingering like late autumn. She turned to the burly man with both legs gone, her eyes cold as a winter moon.

His stumps bled without end. He swung overheated alloy palms, but Night Frost wouldn’t trade blows. She pivoted and picked up a heavy hunting rifle blasted clear yet miraculously intact.

She copied his motions. She racked the bolt and pulled the trigger.

Recoil hammered her back, heavier than any magitech gun. She held with her body, but her light frame tilted, nearly planting her in the dirt.

The round spat from the barrel like a comet. The massive bullet punched through his eye, crossed his round face, and bit into the soil, then detonated.

His head burst into red and white petals. Night Frost found a shovel, stripped valuables from the bodies, and buried the remains under damp earth.

She scanned the camp. In a few intact tents, she spotted the one where Kaneko stayed. Confirmed, Night Frost sprinted for Kaneko’s tent, a flame streak through gray dust.