The man and the woman both blanched; urgency hit like a cold wave. In minutes, water climbed like icy vines, wrapping their shins.

Water licked the man’s neck joint; his Mechanical Arm had a gap at the collar. Once flooded, it was a snakebite he couldn’t treat.

He chose retreat like a shadow slipping back. The woman would handle Jiujiu. On a lakebed, water would choke his neck crack, and his heavy gear would drown him.

This depth wasn’t fatal to a Magic Maiden of Cantata Two; calm as moonlight, the woman should pin Jiujiu cleanly.

He could dump Xun Xun here like a stone. Most of him wasn’t modified; he was ordinary. After the flood, the pressure would pulp him.

Steam hissed around Jiujiu’s calves like ghosts. Lava met cold lake; heat fled like startled birds, and a bone-deep chill moved in.

Before the lake filled, the narrow space favored the woman like a tight alley. Jiujiu’s lava, steeped in water, lost its burn. The Miao blade finally had teeth.

Steel whispered; the woman turned her wrist like a swift. The Miao blade traced a half arc, lantern light striking a cold silver flare.

The silver flare split lava like butter, etching a scarlet line on Jiujiu. The woman pressed, stabbing again and again, chopping lava into flying shards.

Patterns flared on Jiujiu’s arm like opening flowers. Magma surged free and kissed the water. It ran along the surface like oil, spreading outward.

The woman flickered through the flood like a wisp. She gripped the Miao blade and wove through the water. Her feet tapped and borrowed buoyancy, leaping to dodge molten collision.

This wasn’t a room; the rising lake was a hungry mouth. Water swallowed the lava. Heat mixed with cold and set slow, a black shell caging the molten core.

Water climbed to thigh roots like a tide. The woman bled Mana to keep speed. A higher tide would drag her down like mud.

She sheathed her Miao blade in heavy Mana like stone. She skimmed the surface and rushed Jiujiu. The custom blade parted water and flesh; Jiujiu lost an arm like a snapped branch.

Fire burst from the stump like a wick, then the cold snuffed it flat. Jiujiu felt no pain; the limb seemed not hers, a discarded glove.

The woman had burned through Mana like dry kindling. Walking on water cost speed and breath. Yet the lake rose to their heads, and Jiujiu still breathed.

Jiujiu angled for Xun Xun like a moth for a lamp. He was ordinary; pressure would crush him. A stone sheath from Jiujiu only bought a minute.

Even so, time was a grinder. He’d drown or be pressed to paste.

Mercy wasn’t on offer. The woman wrapped herself in Mana, a thin membrane like fish skin, enough for a few breaths underwater.

She drew back the Miao blade and chose a lighter weapon. A weightless Mana blade bloomed like moonlight. It slid through the lake and slashed for Jiujiu near Xun Xun.

Jiujiu’s thigh took another bite, crimson in the blue. She didn’t stop. She dove to Xun Xun, caught his arm, and kicked upward like a salmon.

At the black glass throat, torrents rammed inward like ocean breakers. They slapped Jiujiu’s face, clawed her body. In her hands, Xun Xun lay rock-wrapped and dim, his breath a dying ember.

Behind, the woman hunted like a barracuda. Her strange Mana blade snapped from her arm. It ignored drag and found Jiujiu with needle precision.

Jiujiu’s lower belly was nearly holed; lava leaked like a wound. Water hugged it, hardening it to stones. The current hurled them like shells at the woman.

She had to parry, arms ringing like iron. Jiujiu seized the gap, gripped cracks beside the glass, and dove headfirst through the roaring vein.

The crushing push fell away like a dropped weight. Jiujiu saw a ghostly glow rising, and the rippling mirror above like living silk. Hope opened like dawn. Then a Mana blade spat from the hole.

Panic struck first, a drumbeat. Jiujiu raised rock in a rush. Air’s promise loosened her guard for a breath. A hasty wall couldn’t stop a readied strike. The woman had waited for a kill.

The blade split stone like dry bark. It flew for the Magic Stone in Jiujiu’s chest. Break it, and the lava river would go cold forever.

A pity, the woman thought, like rain on ash. She had wanted an artwork. A pity, it would slip away.

As she loosed the blade, a shape latched on with desperate strength. The bodyguard who’d come with Xun Xun dragged her like an anchor.

The Mana blade veered, luck grinning like a fox. It struck Xun Xun’s Mechanical Arm instead. Stone shattered off, but the newest alloy refused to part.

In the end, she fell short; fortune turned its back. She shot the breath-starved guard a stormy look and kicked him off like dead weight.

Veins stood on his face like roots. Pressure crushed in. Water poured through nose and mouth like sand. Soon he’d be a common corpse, another nameless stone.

She looked back through the black throat. The two figures were gone, no ripple, only a blank, cold lake-face.

Jiujiu ferried Xun Xun, skirting fish like a shadow, climbing toward daybreak. Pressure eased like a loosening fist. She breathed him air and held his thin flame.

“This is... light.”

Xun Xun squinted. The glow grew like a lantern nearing. From the dark bed, he saw freedom. His lungs beat like a burning drum.

He wasn’t a diver. He wasn’t a champion. A minute was his wall, and the wall began to crack.

Freedom hovered close, a dragonfly on water, just out of reach.

Fear sank first, heavy as lead. Then warm lips pressed his, passing air like spring wind through reeds.

Jiujiu saved him again.

Shame flared first, hot as coals. Xun Xun didn’t dare open his eyes. Men and women shouldn’t touch so freely. He chose to stay “asleep” a breath longer.

They broke the surface; sunlight spilled like honey over their heads. Ragged as strays, they still saw the true sun, ringing bright.

Xun Xun hacked twice, spitting lake water like scattered pearls.

Luck crouched nearby like a cat. The lakeside pavilion stood close. Jiujiu hauled him there. Minutes later, they slumped, wrung out in body and spirit.

Xun Xun’s face went paper-pale. Skin at his shoulder joint wrinkled white. His Mechanical Arm hung dead, energy drained like a dry well. His clothes were soaked; his short hair drooped like wet grass.

Jiujiu fared better. The Lava Heart steamed her dry like a hidden kiln. One arm was gone. A blade had holed her pale belly. Yet the Lava Heart had sealed the wound tight.

Embarrassment pricked first, a needle in the heart. Xun Xun looked away, then glanced back. Jiujiu hadn’t noticed she wore only a scrap for modesty. Spring shone at him, uncurtained.

Her limbs were stone, cliff-hard. Her torso still held hills and valleys, soft as dunes.

Her eyes caught his like sparks on tinder. Shyness flushed up; she covered herself with a sharp move.

One arm wasn’t enough; heat surged like a tide. Lava crept from within like a living mantle.

“You look again?!”

Xun Xun obeyed at once, eyes shut like shutters. Soon, stone flowed over Jiujiu, a thick shell from neck to toe, wrapping her tight, leaving only her head.

“Back at the lake… did you feel anything?”

Her voice trembled like a plucked string. Color warmed her cheeks. She’d been bold enough to give him air; now she was shy as the girl next door.

Caution came first, then acting. Xun Xun swallowed the truth. A knuckle to the head felt certain. He feigned confusion and blinked at her.

Relief washed her like a small wave. She let the matter drift with the current.

Their teasing blew off the gloom like morning wind. Then Xun Xun looked at the dark lake. The bodyguard who came with him... he didn’t even know the man’s name. In the end, the man had blocked the woman; the blur said so.

Gratitude weighed like iron. Xun Xun forced himself up, bowed to the lakebed, then thanked Jiujiu. Without the guard and Jiujiu, he’d be a nameless sinker.

Resolve settled like stone. He wouldn’t return to the family. He’d live on his own. He had no plan, only air, and that meant freedom.

Reality bit like frost. They needed help. Their wounds were bad. Both were close to empty.

He sifted memory like pages. One address glowed like a last candle. He led Jiujiu along the path and left the woods.

Jiujiu drew eyes like a bonfire. Xun Xun had no choice. He stole clothes from a door line and left a pure silver necklace as payment. It felt light, cheap beside a life.

The clothes and a bedsheet barely hid Jiujiu’s stone shell. To most, she’d look strange. Night dropped fast like a curtain. They slipped into the complex like quiet ghosts.

Xun Xun asked Jiujiu to wait outside, a shadow under the eaves. He stood at the landlady’s door. Anxiety thudded like a drum. He lifted his hand and knocked.