The one who took the hit wasn’t Zhao Qingsnow, but Purple Lightning in the distance. Qingsnow had baited the hook with herself, showed a gap, and ate the bolts to lull them.

The instant Purple Lightning peeled away, Qingsnow shaped more than the icicles that pinned the Tang saber and Purple Lightning. She sowed needle-fine ice, hidden in ink-dark night, beyond night vision’s reach.

Those needles kissed Purple Lightning’s old wound. Unhealed flesh tore like wet paper. Bone-deep cold ran through her veins like winter riverwater. Her midair body hitched. The arc in her palm jittered, spitting dull sparks.

Qingsnow seized that hollow beat. Frost in her hands became a cage. She wrapped Purple Lightning, then, with Mana near solid, hauled her in as a shield and caught the falling Tang saber.

The saber-wielder faltered, knuckles white. She felt the front ice wall was thin, a frost window she could cleave, Purple Lightning and all. But the blade was already committed. She bled power off the strike.

The saber’s drop slowed a breath. Qingsnow took the beat, gathered all her strength, and, ice wall and captive together, hurled them at the girl with the Tang saber.

The girl sheathed and punched in one flowing tide. The saber bit air, but her fist hit like a hammer. The ice wall burst. She hooked Purple Lightning free in a spray of shards.

Cold gnawed Purple Lightning’s joints; her motion turned stiff as rime on reeds. In the breath the wall shattered, Qingsnow crossed ten meters a step. Ice crystals swarmed the sky, more than stars.

Qingsnow moved to finish them. Then her heart clenched like glass in frost. A black shadow skimmed from the horizon and dropped like a cannonball. She felt the knife-edge of danger, wheeled, and loosed a volley.

The shadow was armor-hard and arrow-fast. In seconds it was on her. The house under Qingsnow burst into a yawning crater. She reacted like a spring, caught a hanging beam, and, with a surge of Mana, vaulted back to the roof.

She looked down. The house was pure black. Even cold moonlight couldn’t wash the dark. No—wrong. Moonlight fell straight and silver. It wasn’t dim. It was being eaten by darkness.

The smell of blood spread through the rooms like iron rain. Odds were the shadow had smashed the sleeping landlord and painted the dreamer red.

Darkness twisted into spikes. They punched through the beam with a spear’s scream, rushing for Qingsnow’s brow. She had to dive, give up the high roof like a king yielding a hill.

She understood. This was the “third one” the intel hinted at. She’d thought three was a bluff, that only Purple Lightning and the saber girl were real. She hadn’t run. She’d even planned to question them about the Old Woman.

Now the third had stepped from the dark.

Qingsnow had to pivot and guard against an unknown defender.

But needles of black were already set where her boots would land. She’d seen a power like this—those ink-thorns felt akin to Lu Shi’s shadow. Darkness and shadow, same cold root.

Her ice couldn’t touch spikes born in the ground’s shadow. So she spoke a Magic Spell, made herself float, slung icicles around street trees, and swung away into the empty greenbelt woods.

Fighting here would only hurt nearby residents. As an Order Keeper, she wouldn’t let that horror happen twice.

Entering the woods meant letting go of the spearhead. Night vision was handy, but it failed against darkness-aspected skills. She had to borrow moonlight and feel for Mana to dodge black strikes. Under trees, moonlight was a rumor. It was a hard loss.

She couldn’t hover at the edge either. Purple Lightning had shaken off the stiffness and was closing. The girl with the Tang saber wasn’t slow; she’d be only seconds behind.

Outside the trees, she’d face all three at once and be driven bleeding back into the grove. Better to step into the forest now, set snares before they gathered, and steal time.

Even one against two pushed Qingsnow thin. With the third one’s weight added, she’d last only a few minutes at best.

Ancient frost, descend to the now. Eternal ice, break and bite—Frostbite Fang. Return and freeze all things.

Qingsnow strode like a falling star as a bulwark surged from the earth. Before it sealed, she slipped inside her Frostbite Fang. The great ice jaw closed, leaving Purple Lightning and the saber girl outside.

This ice wouldn’t crack so easily. Even if Purple Lightning cast a Magic Spell, it would take at least two solid hits to open a wound in Qingsnow’s Frostbite Fang.

Purple Lightning knew that bite all too well. Her sister had died to this strike—merciless and clean. She’d joined this hunt to avenge her. Yet Qingsnow kept wringing life from a noose-tight corner.

The wall would take the two some time to break. The chase fell to the shadow.

The shadow knit into human shape before the Frostbite Fang. She wove herself a coat of night and slid her hand through the ice as if through smoke.

A dying struggle, nothing more.

To her, Qingsnow had run into the perfect hunting ground. The grove was nearly moonless. This was her home river. She could take Qingsnow alone.

The woods weren’t large, barely a dozen acres. A Magic Maiden could cross them in minutes. With a flight Magic Spell, even faster.

Frostbite Fang covered only half the trees, maybe less.

Qingsnow had no plan to sprint straight through. Too obvious, too simple. She’d play with the hunter under the boughs—and wait for the Old Woman.

At the treeline, she checked her phone. A message from hours ago. Kaneko said the Old Woman was already racing toward her. If Qingsnow held one to two hours, they’d link up.

If only she could burn an hour or two here. With that thought, she found firm soil and drove ice spikes deep.

Then another place. Same trick. Again and again. When she sank the last spike, she sealed herself inside it. She started shaving one section of wall thinner, to paint a false escape.

The ice killed her heat like a winter tomb. Even a thermal or life scanner pressed to the block wouldn’t find her. This was the survival craft that brought her back from expeditions alive.

Qingsnow vanished from sight. That surprised the shadow. The dark marker she’d laid on Qingsnow was blocked by another Mana and lost its needle-true pull.

She paused. Darkness wove into a net. She hauled an ice spike up from the roots of the earth and crushed it to powder. Solid through. Empty.

She thought it through and saw the thread. Qingsnow had lowered her own temperature, wrapped herself in ice, softened her steps, and seeded many spikes to crash the Fang’s temperature—faking her presence inside.

Her real body was creeping toward a thinned wall. Maybe she’d already reached it, eating the ice grain by grain, ready to shed her shell.

But the shadow had read the play. She felt one section’s Mana draining, slow as seepage. Odds were Qingsnow would be there. She merged with the dark and slipped through the woods.

In minutes she reached the far ice face. Nothing waited there, only a great block of ice—solid as a mountain.

Did she already get out? No. She must still be inside. If she were gone, I’d feel her.

Her eyes fell to the many spikes. In a breath, she saw the answer.

Qingsnow was delaying. She hid among the spikes’ numbers, faking a clean escape. Her true body was still within that forest of ice. Break every spike, and the fox would show.

The plan was blown. Shadow under the trees twisted, hardened to a net, and began dragging buried spikes out one by one.

Qingsnow had driven them deep. Pulling all of them would cost time.

Even found out, she stayed calm. This was enough time to move. She didn’t rush; she still sat a little off the Mana source.

She would bank Mana, then, in one breath, burst through spike and net and slide to a new den.

The first spike was nearly free. Time enough. She chose to move. The spike melted open, and she shot out.

The moment her head cleared, her pupils knifed down to points. Her mouth opened, disbelief raw.

The shadow stood not far ahead, as if she’d been waiting at the mouth of a burrow. Mana swelled around her like a storm. One blow, meant to kill.

Surprised? Didn’t see that coming? This is your own method, dear. You scattered yourself in the dark, hid the loud Mana, let one little thread fatten, then sped the draw—waiting for your face to show.

It’s called waiting by the stump for the rabbit. Set the snare. Let the prey deliver itself.