Night Frost crept up to Level Fourteen, heart tight like a string in winter wind, and she wanted to gripe; the corridor looked normal, yet each step dragged like mud. The shortcut turned into the long road, and she only made it after grinding through a maze of false ease.
Level Fourteen was smaller than Thirteen, a chamber like a clipped moon; she could see the end in one glance. It couldn’t exceed four hundred square meters, she judged, and with machinery and storage biting into space, the room offered only two to three hundred to breathe.
The floor was pure black, a night lake polished flat; Obsidian Stone powder had been mixed in. Because of that, the ground felt iron-hard and damped the flow of Mana and any Abyssal Aura like a muffled drum.
If she went down, Level Fifteen would likely be a room sealed by Obsidian Stone, a dark vault worth a small fortune. She remembered a black market boss and his high-purity obsidian house; the moment she stepped inside back then, the outer Mana vanished like mist at sunrise.
Precision machines clicked and sang, knitting scattered parts into a single arm; Night Frost didn’t understand Mechanical Arms, but a steam cylinder stood out like a heartbeat. It was a steam-driven Mechanical Arm, and time had scrawled personality onto it.
Electroplated lines glimmered like river scales, austere motifs cut with quiet force; they whispered to Night Frost that this arm was a man’s tool, or a man’s treasured piece.
“How is it? I designed this Mechanical Arm myself,” a voice rolled out from the depths, heavy as iron rain. “It’s weaker than the market’s best, but once it joins my core, it erupts with power.”
Bootfalls thudded from the far end, each step a hammer on black stone; a man wrapped in thick metal strode into light. His body threw back a cold metallic sheen, and he unlatched one arm with ease, swapping in a fresh-forged piece from the bench like changing blades.
It was the same model, so the fit clicked fast; he raised his hand slow, he punched slow, everything moved like a glacier. Yet when that slow fist cut the air, the space around it tore, and sonic booms rippled in waves.
White-hot steam jetted from a shoulder seam like breath from a geyser; the arm sagged under heat like softened steel. Disappointed, the man detached it, crushed it out of shape, and tossed it into a corner full of dead metal, a graveyard of good intentions.
Special crews would come collect the scrap; the metal would go back to the furnace and back into production, a circle saving time and ore like a prudent winter store.
Even if the recycler was picked by the boss with care, he, the deputy boss, signed off with both hands and both feet; every department shed resources that needed gathering.
But when the chosen man arrived, doubt pricked like thorns; he feared that chunks of Mechanical Arms would leak to other companies. The chance was small, yet caution was his tether, so before every pickup he ruined finished waste and shredded wrong blueprints.
That way, the recycler got nothing useful—only a heap of scrap metal, and melt it as you like, it wouldn’t yield much.
Seeing Night Frost still, he walked closer, heat like a forge-front gust; on both sides of the central furnace, seams of patterns split, revealing the Crimson fire of fossil fuel roaring inside.
The walls slid open with a stone whisper, exposing wide hidden bays on both flanks, all cut from Obsidian Stone like a night fortress.
“Madam, please,” he said, voice steady as an anvil. “Since you’ve come here, you’ve made ready to fight me. For the honor of the Divine Cult Modification Center and for the dead, I won’t hold back.”
Annoyance rose in Night Frost like bitter tea; she hadn’t wanted to come, but the fish-monster manager sealed the Level Thirteen passage for laughs, drowning the water route. She was forced into this “preparation,” a reluctant blade drawn.
Still, she wouldn’t run; a caged life wasn’t her fate. Only the proper route led out, and she had to pass Level Fourteen to ride the elevator straight to the surface.
She was sure no Magic Maiden guarded that exit; Senior Wang had said the Order Keepers built only the first nine levels. The later floors were raised in secret by the Modification Center, a hidden root beneath a stone.
The Seekers might know, but the ones hunting her were Order Keepers; the elevator mouth would likely be clean, a quiet shore.
Machinery roared like a storm; the furnace core in the man’s chest burned like a sun behind steel ribs. The bred energy flooded his body, turning his aura scorching; steam near him would scald on touch, a white serpent coiling.
He moved fast into the Obsidian Stone bays, a black corridor swallowing him; Night Frost felt a press like deep water. The purity was high; most outside Mana went silent, and she had only the thin air within the doors to slowly refill her core.
“Let me introduce myself,” he said, voice like rolling thunder. “I’m Xu Zhou. It might be the last name you hear.” He admitted she was strong, the mood hard as quartz. “You cut down two managers. Your strength sits near the top of Cantata Two, a thorny opponent. I’m not easy either.”
Xu Zhou strode out, furnace steam feathering from his chest; his knuckles tightened, edges sharp as chisels, and the punch sliced air like a blade, driving straight at Night Frost.
He moved fast, swift as a falcon drop; Night Frost barely slipped past, cheek stinging where a metal edge kissed skin. A strip of flesh would be gone, she thought, and hoped the scar wouldn’t mar her face.
Her eyes fell to the black floor; a pale scratch lay on the Obsidian Stone, thin as frost line. She swallowed; if a fist that marks obsidian had met her, her bones would sing with breaking.
Xu Zhou’s speed was a flood; his attack came fierce, like a squall drumming a tin roof. He wanted a quick victory, to seize the tempo; each punch howled, and the storm chased Night Frost across the room. She could only dodge, no openings blooming.
That path led to a slow squeeze and a bad end; she drew her Spear, and Black Flame condensed into Array Patterns that climbed its shaft like wild vines.
The Spear cut arcs that left afterimages, a ghosting dance; she thrust at Xu Zhou just before his punch. He reacted quick, slipping to the side, and her Spear met his fist with a ringing clash.
She didn’t know what metal he used; it was stubborn as a mountain. Even with Black Flame riding the Spear, she couldn’t pierce his knuckles.
Xu Zhou’s body was machine from neck to heel, only the brain left soft; she couldn’t read his face, only his flow, the rhythm of steel.
He glanced at his fist; a small melted pit marred the metal, a moon bite on iron. He understood. Ordinary heat-proof alloys wouldn’t stop Night Frost’s Spear. A few more strikes, a bit more power, and she might pierce the metal of his furnace core.
That would be a wound beyond repair.
If the furnace core were punctured, inner and outer pressure would level like still water; without pressure, most of his mechanics would fall silent, gears starving. Worse, cold air could rush in, heating would go uneven, and the core might blow—an iron flower of ruin.
But he wouldn’t slow and tiptoe; caution would feed her chances. A cyborg didn’t rely on fists alone; gun barrels and cannon muzzles across his frame weren’t ornaments, they were iron throats.
The fish-monster manager had drifted to Level Fourteen, sitting far back like a spectator on a riverbank. He watched with gleaming eyes, more excited than the fighters.
“At last, it’s starting! A man’s romance!”
Xu Zhou’s barrels swung and locked on Night Frost, iron thistles bristling; twin ammo belts spilled from his back and fed the hungry guns. The furnace core churned like a storm mill, and with each round slotted, unease rose in Night Frost like a tide.
She didn’t sit idle; she pushed attacks between the feed, but Xu Zhou moved during loading, and the furnace surged his command speed. His barrels stayed intact, and each pass added fresh cuts to her skin, a tally of iron.
The guns finished loading, and the first shot cracked like thunder; Night Frost snapped her Spear, splitting the bullet aimed at her brow, a flick of fire and steel. Xu Zhou’s eyes widened a fraction, but the game had turned.
Multiple barrels bloomed flame, blossoms of war; dozens of rounds, growing by the heartbeat, swarmed for Night Frost like locusts. No matter how she slipped, some bullets found flesh, and she lifted fire walls on the spot, trying to keep the lead rain outside the gate.
Bullets met flame and hissed, but what of the cannon?
A high-explosive shell punched through layers of fire like a boar through brush and bloomed before her with a brutal flower. The shock didn’t budge Xu Zhou’s heavy frame, but it tore Night Frost off the ground, spinning her, senses reeling like a bell rung hard.
Her wounds weren’t deep, but the sting bit like winter chilies; a few bullets had kissed her, shallow, hot. At the shell’s burst, she had wrapped both hands in defensive Array Patterns; the blast left her arms shredded and raw, but she still carried a blade of will, a fighter’s breath.
Xu Zhou’s face didn’t move, but inwardly he clicked his tongue; her defense matched her attack, both fierce as burning iron. To weather his full bullet storm and a shell packed with high explosive—he felt a thread of respect for this young Magic Maiden.
From the outer bay, the fish-monster manager cried out, thrilled, and let out a long breath; thank the tides he hadn’t picked a fight with Night Frost. If she could eat a special shell and stand, he would have been nothing but fodder.
Night Frost wasn’t shocked; she had taken a missile before, a sky-spear from the Black Dragon. She trusted her Array Patterns to stop ordinary shells, a faith forged in flame.
What did surprise her was the room; after so many blows, the chamber stood unscarred, a black fortress holding the storm at bay.
