Xu Zhou wasn’t weak; with raw firepower he held the field. Several cannon barrels leveled at Night Frost. Even if she could block, how many shots could she take? One shell had already turned her arm to blood-misted ruin. More would rip her apart. This was his production hall—no way it lacked extra ammo.

Night Frost eyed Xu Zhou’s broad, hulking frame. The hump on his back had to be an ammo bay. Compared to that single shell, his bullets would be many. For a mechanical cyborg with no Mana and no Spatial Box, the bay’s size decided how long and how hard his storm could last.

To keep suppression, bullets were the steadiest rain in a duel; shells were rare, saved for airborne or massive foes. Those battles were full-scale wars, with supply lines like rivers.

She guessed he had at most two shells in the hall; the rest were bullets. Common rounds could pin her down; to kill her, he’d need special bullets or shells.

Xu Zhou’s ammo would always need a moment to reload—when a barrel ran dry, or the bay emptied. Once the bay ran out, he’d scramble to mount a fresh box. That gap would be Night Frost’s window, a crack of dawn inside the barrage.

Night Frost raised a Formation, a translucent lattice catching the rain of lead. It wasn’t high-grade, but three layers stacked gave her a shell she could trust.

Xu Zhou felt the Formation’s bite. His bullets thudded into arrays and firewalls, sparks caged like moths. Night Frost’s Mana bled away, so his fire wasn’t wasted, but it wasn’t hurting her much.

Xu Zhou hadn’t planned to burn rare ammo. Those rounds cost a small fortune; wasting them on Night Frost felt pointless. Then a new order chimed through the smoke—his boss wanted Night Frost taken alive. She carried a Key to the original world.

Before that, Xu Zhou only wanted payback—face for the Modification Center, and rage for his colleagues. No special rounds. But the boss’s message cut cold. He stopped holding back. He started planning a quick kill.

Night Frost’s Formation and her Magic Layer were both magic-side shields, Mana woven into semi-transparent glass.

In First Symphony, the Magic Layer was brittle, like frost over a pond. At Cantata Two, thickness and control varied. Its guard sat in a strange band—above First Symphony, sometimes up to resisting heavy fire.

There’s a quiet rule among Magic Maidens: if her Magic Layer can tank the lowest-tier firearms at activation, her Mana and control are already solid. Add a Magic Spell or two, and most tricks on the tech side can’t touch her.

Tech wasn’t useless, though. In recent years, the tech side surged forward. It birthed weapons both expensive and brutal. In the bay behind Xu Zhou, below the rack for two shells, sat a bullet shaped unlike the rest.

It was bigger than the common rounds, with a raised, knife-sharp tip—a thorn meant to pierce the world. It was Xu Zhou’s custom armor-piercing round.

He’d taken a 12.7 mm AP round and replaced its core propellant with Mana slurry. An Abyssal Aura primed the blast, launching it like a cursed comet. At the tip, he packed Obsidian Stone powder to sever Mana on contact.

There was a lower substitute—the viscous slime Night Frost had seen before, the stuff that corroded a Magic Layer. But its workflow was fussy, its price higher than Obsidian, and its bite weaker. Almost nobody used it.

With Obsidian powder, the AP round would hit a Magic Layer or a Formation’s skin, then spit black dust outward. It would paint the target spot in Obsidian, closing a near-sealed ring like a dark halo.

Inside that ring, Mana and Abyssal Aura reacted, a coiled storm detonating. Because the blast bloomed on the side without Obsidian powder, the mixed explosion hit from inside out—double impact on a Magic Maiden’s Magic Layer and flesh.

But Night Frost was different. Her Formation made four layers. Even if the first three sat close together, even if the AP round punched through them and exploded clean, the damage would be small. It’d only crack that turtle shell.

Crack it, though, and Xu Zhou’s bullet rain would finally reach skin. Heartache was a luxury he didn’t feel. All he heard was the furnace’s roar, the iron heart telling him this was the right choice.

While Night Frost’s focus was elsewhere, a helper arm on his back slid the AP round into the right barrel. That barrel lined up on her shield. The special round flew with the rest, a hawk among sparrows.

Night Frost barely kept pace under the downpour. She knew three layered Formations were tough, but this many bullets made doubt pool in her gut. The arrays relied on plates; she didn’t trust their true limit.

Since moments ago, the outer layer had been wobbling like cracked ice. A few more bullets, and it would break.

She was already weighing fresh Formations when a crisp ping rang from the outer array. It was followed by two sharper clicks. Her eyes snapped up—

A bullet longer than the rest, with a crueler, needle tip. At its tail, black dust sprayed in a plume. It cut Mana like winter ash—Obsidian powder.

Obsidian fogged her sight. A cold unease rose from the pit of her stomach. She could run—but there wasn’t time. The bullet bored through the Formation, reached her face, and lacquered the array in black in a heartbeat. Then it blew.

Fire swallowed the Obsidian house whole. Tongues of flame leapt, eager to eat Night Frost down to bone.

Pain flared. All three Formations shattered at once, like great panes of glass dropped on stone. Under the special AP round they were paper-thin. Her Magic Layer caught part of the blast and almost failed too. Luck held—the body took little.

What the hell!

Seeing her shields gone, the fierce firepower washed over the hall again. Night Frost had to raise a wall of fire, catching bullets in a moving curtain. Her Mana burned like oil.

The rain kept her from closing. Xu Zhou drifted backward on purpose, widening the river between them. His ammo felt light; Night Frost could sense the stream thinning.

This looked like her opening.

Blood-soaked arms pulled a Spear out of the flame. Blood hit the floor and bloomed into Black Flame. Night Frost drew those flames back, lacing them around the Spear like hungry vines.

She moved with the spear like a nimble cat, threading through the sparse bullets. But when she reached Xu Zhou, she found no checkmate—only black mouths of barrels, all already aimed at her head.

Xu Zhou had moved away by design, forcing her to abandon the turtle tactic. She wanted out so badly. He used that urgency to make her drop her Formations.

She fell for it, walking the path he’d paved. It wasn’t for nothing he’d cut his bullet count to bait her in.

His bullets were low. But now he was ready to kill Night Frost.

Every chamber spit sparks. Bullet tips gleamed cold, and the chill of killing intent crawled up her spine.

Faced with the next wave, she stopped caring about costs. She hurled the flaming Spear at his chest and kicked hard with her right foot, body leaping sideways.

Bullets punched through one of her arms. Blood trickled from the hole like a red spring. Her spear, thrown with everything she had, pierced the joint between Xu Zhou’s arm and shoulder.

Night Frost’s eyes lit up; the path to victory had just assembled itself in a flash.

Xu Zhou was out of bullets. He hadn’t taken her down. He’d lost an arm, and the furnace’s power ran close to empty. He had to pour energy into keeping his balance.

Night Frost’s arm was useless too, but she steadied herself fast. She opened a blood-stained palm. Countless spear points aligned toward her hand, not forming a ring, but orbiting, waiting.

She whispered. The sound was small, yet rang like a bell. Behind her, a dragon’s shadow coiled, blurred, with dark-gold eyes burning.

“Yu—”

A gunshot cracked. A Mana bullet punched through her lung. If her surface Magic Layer had still held, Xu Zhou would’ve had her. Too bad—

Am I going to die here?

She turned toward the shot. A man in a black suit stood there, a tall top hat cutting a silhouette like a grave marker. Behind him, a woman kept only one eye open, cold and watchful.

In front of them, a masked man held a mage-tech pistol. Xu Zhou stoked the furnace and strode toward the masked shooter.

“Boss!”

The masked man gestured for him to keep eyes on Night Frost. She was hit, but her life was stubborn. She was Cantata Two. She wouldn’t fall that easy.

Then he turned, smiling.

“Lu’an, take this Rouge Rabbit lady to the parlor. We’ll have a proper talk about gene tech.”

“And Xu Zhou, you and that guy handle this Magic Maiden. Sorry for the mess, Ms Feng.”