Mud slapped against Night Frost, who was wrapped in CrimsonGoldFlame like a kiln-lit cloak; on contact, the muck baked dry into clods, thudded on her skin, then bounced off her hardened Magic Layer like pebbles off stone.

She moved like a spark caught by wind; the flames under her soles pushed her to Xun Xun’s side in a single breath, swift as a swallow’s dive.

Two security guards lunged to block her, but the sky was a rain of sludge; the mire fell like netted ropes and pinned their feet to the earth.

Xun Xun’s arm had turned the color of mud; the sludge ate at him like lye, trying to melt flesh into sludge again, as if the river wanted him back.

Sparks bled from the phone in his grip; his fingers slackened, and it fell to the grass with a wet thump, like a fish dropping to shore.

Night Frost swept up a wall of flame, a sudden red tide, and dropped with Xun Xun at Kaneko’s side like ash settling after a gust.

She scooped Kaneko in one arm, hefted Xun Xun with the other, and slipped into a nearby grove, swift as a fox vanishing into reeds.

The mud clouded the sky like a dirty storm, smothering the whole little park in a brown dome, heavy as a low ceiling before rain.

The Magic Maiden battling that Monster hadn’t expected such a warped trick; a wide-area strike like this would wash over civilians like floodwater.

She raised her Wand again and met the Monster head-on; the crystal at its tip burst into a cross of light, cutting the gloom like a chapel window.

She wasn’t an Order Keeper; the Order Keeper from District Twenty One had surely received the disaster report and was already rushing here like thunder over hills.

So she had to end it fast, like a blade drawn before the drumbeat stopped.

Night Frost dismissed her flames; a clear, delicate face surfaced from heat-haze like the moon slipping from cloud.

Xun Xun’s palm had twisted under the black mud, warped like wood left in rain; panic pricked her like thorns, and she ran out of choices.

She gritted her teeth; flame leapt from her palm like a striking phoenix.

Bear with it, there’s no other way.

Her voice was light as falling ash, yet each word landed in Xun Xun’s ears like a bell, crisp and inescapable.

He peeled open his pain-shut eyes; bloodshot from agony, they stared up at the needled leaves overhead, red as dawn behind pines.

Confusion drifted through him like mist; still, he clenched his jaw and held on like a man clinging to a cliff root.

Ah… I must be hallucinating; how come I’m seeing a beautiful girl… right before I die?

Night Frost wanted to plant her fist in his face, a thunderclap to silence nonsense, but she swallowed it like a bitter pill in a dry throat.

He’s hanging by a thread; one punch, and it isn’t worth it, she told herself, the thought cold as shade.

Don’t know why, but she kind of looks like Lingchen Yao… damn, maybe I really am seeing things; he vanished, probably died in the disaster.

Xun Xun’s voice hitched, like a string pulled too tight, then paused in a knot.

We only lived together a few months, but I knew he was a poor soul and a decent guy; how can someone like that die so early?

Black lines practically scribbled over Night Frost’s forehead like ink bleeding in rain; for a breath she didn’t want to save him, and her knuckles itched.

She held the urge down like a lid on a kettle; the Crimson Gold Flame bloomed from her palm, wrapping the sludge on his arm like a sunrise catching frost.

Hngh—aaaargh—aaah—!

The sound ripped out of him like cloth tearing; pain bit up his nerves like ants boiling from a nest, hot and merciless.

The sludge seemed to wriggle with its own life, trying to crawl off his arm like leeches fleeing salt and sun.

Heat drained the moisture in a snap; the mud baked into hard black-gray clods, brittle as charcoal, and cracked under the fire’s breath.

I—still haven’t had it out with him; am I going to die here? I only want to chase my dream; why do they get to strangle it in the cradle?

He ground his teeth; a wet sheen blurred his eyes like rain on glass, and tears sprang only to hiss into steam in Night Frost’s heat.

She opened her mouth, then closed it; she said nothing and let his words fall like leaves into a dark pond.

Those women aren’t kind either; they keep egging me to break with my father, to push out anyone they can; they want the spoils for themselves.

If they want to profit, let them go fight; why drag me in? I don’t want that burden; I’d rather live plain, like grass by the road.

He didn’t finish; he slumped into a clean faint, falling silent like a candle pinched out.

Night Frost pieced the meaning together like shards in a bowl; his father wanted him locked down to inherit, while his mother or siblings wanted him in open conflict to fish in muddy water.

So this is a great clan, she thought, dry as winter wind; three people split into eight cliques, faces smiling while hearts hide thunder.

If there’s profit, every hand reaches in like crows to grain, kinship be damned, she mused, a bitter taste like smoke on the tongue.

She drew back her flame; the corrosion on his arm had paused for now, quiet as embers under ash.

A hard choice pricked her like a thorn: return Xun Xun, or not.

His words rang clear as a struck chime; he didn’t want to go back, or he wouldn’t have run, like a bird kicking open its own cage.

But the bodyguards were still hunting like dogs on a scent; if their masters learned he was missing, the whole city would sweep for him like lanterns after dark.

Carrying Kaneko was already a weighty stone in her sleeve; add Xun Xun, and it wasn’t just District Twenty One’s branch chasing, but wealthy clans too, a storm building over open sea.

She weighed it like a scale in her chest; the bond of less than three months of campus life had ended the moment she pulled him from death’s mouth.

She decided to return him, cool as a blade choosing its sheath; there was no reason to keep carrying him forward.

She had just hoisted Xun Xun when muddy fingers clamped around her arm like roots gripping soil; the sudden grab startled her like a night bird’s cry.

His eyes snapped open, a flare of bloodshot red; he stared up at the pine needles above, gaze breaking at the edges like ice under strain.

She tugged twice, firm as a tide, but he wouldn’t let go; more force would hurt him, and his refusal rang clear as iron.

He really doesn’t want to go back, she sighed, soft as wind; fine, wait till he wakes, then decide, she thought, letting the thought settle like dust.

She left the park with him; staying was like standing under a falling roof, and danger beat its wings in the air.

She could feel the disturbance like ripples on a lake; the Order Keeper of District Twenty One was surely on the way, swift as a storm line.

She carried Xun Xun into a quieter patch of woods, a little distance from the lake’s sheen, where the Magic Maiden and Monster’s battle wouldn’t break like a wave over them.

When the pain dulled like coals cooling, Xun Xun woke and finally took in the strange trees around him, tall as lances in the hush.

He remembered the feeling of being moved, like driftwood borne along, but the hurt had clouded thought like smoke, and now the grove was clearer than the pain.

You are… who?

His lips cracked around the words like dry earth; he stared at Night Frost’s face and memory flickered like a lamp in wind.

He remembered that glimpse after he fled that damned basement; he’d thrown a teasing line at a beauty he caught in the corner of his eye, light as a pebble in a stream.

You… saved me?

He remembered that strange substance chewing his arm, pain like fire ants, and then a figure wrapped in flame rushing in, a comet across his sky.

After that, everything was fractured, like a mirror dropped; he thought he’d seen Lingchen Yao, and a swarm of faces he loathed, shadows crawling on the wall.

Night Frost nodded, a line of displeasure on her face like frost over water; she wanted to clock him, clean as thunder, and end the chatter.

Xun Xun didn’t know what he’d done until his gaze tracked down his arm; his mud-caked fingers were locked around her forearm like a clamp.

He yanked his hand back at once, a stung eel; his apology was clumsy but earnest, and Night Frost’s face eased like clouds thinning.

She saved you, and you grab her—accident or not, he thought, wanting to punch himself, a rueful grin like a cracked plate.

If her temper were worse, half my body would be in the dirt already, he mused, cold running under his skin like a stream in shade.

Your life’s not in danger, but your hand…

He’d already felt something wrong, a hollow where sensation should be; he raised his right hand, a fist armored in dried sludge like a gauntlet of ash.

Where the mud didn’t cover, he touched charred meat, black as burned bark; there was no pain now, empty as winter air, and hope felt thin.

Night Frost had no other method; if that sludge kept eating, it wouldn’t stop at one hand, and he’d end like those poor people outside—just a puddle with no breath.

She murmured an apology, light as a falling leaf, but Xun Xun waved it off like smoke; in this age, flesh could be remade in steel, and living outweighed everything.

I planned to leave home today… never thought it’d go sideways like this, he said, the words drifting like dust motes in a sunbeam.

I really miss those two months on campus; it was the first time I fought for something myself, the first time I tasted the sweetness of leaving home.

He worried at the blackened arm, peeling the hardened clods Night Frost had baked, layer by layer, like shells from a boiled egg.

Underneath, bone showed where flesh had been eaten, white as a shard of moon, and his breath hitched like a snagged thread.

I thought it didn’t matter, but once I went back, those dorm days were golden; if I could, I’d return to those two months, like walking into spring again.

But one of us went missing, and the other three scattered like birds; a single disaster turned every dream into foam on a broken wave.

Tears slid even as he spoke, falling like warm rain; he had grown in a family of bright smiles and shadowed knives, where action for “interest” was fed to him like bitter medicine.

He envied other kids running wild under open sky, like sparrows in blue air, while he got piled under studies, tangled in quarrels, swept along by feuds like driftwood.

He longed for freedom, a clear wind on his face, but he was too weak—no means, no power, no wealth—and the ladder felt like a snake.

If he had to use those very things to buy freedom, how would he differ from the people he despised, masks over masks like lacquer on wood?

His goal?

He knew it clearly as a mountain line at dawn; his family dealt in both black and white, threads knotted to every side like vines on a wall.

Even if he sat on the family throne, trading fame, fortune, and power, he’d find the chains were forged from the same metal, cold and bright.

Those things choke freedom like ivy on a tree, beautiful and strangling, and the thought left a taste of iron.

In this last month, he’d realized that right now he was most free, because he could still chase freedom, like running toward a horizon no one owned.

Kaneko stood to the side like a quiet pine; she watched Night Frost and Xun Xun talk, ears tilted to the woods, listening for footsteps like ripples in grass.