The burly men tailed Night Frost to the bend, just as she’d planned. They hit the corner and lost her trail, while she crouched inside a room at that bend, palms slick with cold sweat, clutching a silver Key.

The day she got the Key, Night Frost had chewed on one brutal question: in a nearly sealed room, what could hold back a swarm? After a long grind of thought, old military drill lessons rose like smoke.

She set her stage. She yanked wiring from the wall’s corner, let the sink’s overflow creep across the floor like dark canals, then floated a skin of cooking oil on that water. With the trap glistening, she slid out through a hole she’d carved low in the wall.

Wiring sparks fire when shorted; oil turns a spark into a prairie blaze. The last move was simple and cruel: lure them inside, then lock the jaws.

The white-clad brutes prowled the nearby street, all stubborn vow and dogged breath, unwilling to rest until Night Frost was theirs. All she had to do was kick up noise—then they’d swarm like hornets. So she did.

She hurled a metal kettle. It hit the tile with a shrill clang that scraped the nerves. Outside, white coats gathered, boots thumping, stopping at the door like a tide against a cliff.

While they staged up, Night Frost slipped to a nearby house and dragged back more oil, the bottle heavy and slick like captured moonlight.

They looked hulking, but some brains lurked under those muscles; not all were meatheads. Even so, they had no idea what she could rig inside a sealed room. Solid fighters, sure—terrible homemakers.

They shouldered the door. One brute stepped in first—lucky man; his sole missed the spread water.

The second wasn’t lucky. He hit the electrified puddle. Current climbed his wet cloth shoe like a snake, ran his frame, and pale-yellow arc light flickered over his skin. He convulsed, foamed, then collapsed into the water with a dull thud.

The sharper ones spotted a cut wire soaking in the puddle and shouted for everyone to back off. Too late. The oil skin had reached their boots. Night Frost’s fingertip bloomed a tiny flame; in a breath, it raced over the oil like foxfire.

Fire climbed their soles; Night Frost didn’t mind pouring oil on the fire—literally. She widened the wall hole she’d chiseled, hefted the neighbor’s oil, and with every ounce of strength, flung it inside like a storm jar.

She didn’t need distance, only entry. Midair, she popped a low-grade shrapnel grenade inside the oil barrel. It burst. Fire-rain spattered down, stinging like molten hail, and the room turned into a screaming kiln.

With the brutes tangled in heat and smoke, Night Frost bolted down the street with Yin Chen Yue on her back. Running wasn’t a plan; she needed a pocket of safety.

The drug’s bite was rising, or maybe the sprint had burned her reserves. Her head swam like a boat in storm chop. She needed a hideaway now.

A few brutes who’d dodged her trap charged up behind, breath like hammers. Night Frost ran as fast as her lungs could drum, but they clung like leeches to her heels.

They wanted Night Frost, not baggage. For speed, she looped wide, dropped Yin Chen Yue back home, told a neighbor to guard him, then led the brutes on a dizzy circle through the underground district.

The white-clad brutes were sick of her. She was a mouse under the cat’s paw—always in reach, never in hand. The drug dosage had been heavy, yet she showed no sign of folding.

Their brothers were gene-modified, but even steel bends under repeated tricks. The shock had cost them a few, and those oil-fires had cooked skin raw. Strong genes knit a lot back together, enough to keep them on her trail.

Night Frost frowned. They started with so many men and still had so many. Aside from a few knocked out, she’d scored little. Those buckets felt like a wash.

Were they “life-savvy” brutes across the board? No way. They were cheating.

Her head grew heavier, like iron sand settling. Who knew how much drug they’d cooked into the dishes? She’d only taken two bites—no wonder the flavor had gone off.

She had plenty of tricks left, but she couldn’t show them all now. Expose everything, and future escapes turn into dead ends. Hold back now, and she’d end up in their hands, and what then—she didn’t know, and she didn’t dare picture it.

They closed in, relentless as surf. Her calves puffed from the run; her speed dipped, stride by stride.

Two carved bugs in her pocket thrummed, primed like arrows on a string. When the brutes got close, she’d throw without blinking.

“Watch out!”

Someone barked from the side. Night Frost’s vision blurred, but ahead a towering brute in white stood waiting. Muscles bunched like cables, stance low, arms spread—a tiger poised to swallow a lamb.

No time to thank. No time to stop.

If she didn’t stop, the road would keep unfolding beneath her feet.

Brutes behind, brute in front; there was no brake she could touch. Tossing the bugs was the only clean line.

She stuffed all her Magic Stones into the bugs. A shoddy activation Formation lit up, the carvings swelling into a giant beetle’s spectral bulk. The wooden beetle seemed to breathe, its phantom beating thin wings, the buzz needling every ear.

That vast shadow quenched the lamps on both sides, and its bulk sealed the street like a boulder in a gorge, blocking the brutes snapping at Night Frost’s heels.

On the other side, a low-grade shrapnel grenade burst, and dust smoked up like a curtain. Splinters that should’ve bit flesh bounced off the brute’s iron-hard muscles.

Night Frost dropped low and sprinted tight, sliding past his stance under his hips like a dart under a gate. At the same time, her enchanted left leg smashed into the brute’s groin, then she rose and hammered his back with a follow-up kick.

He locked, then toppled in slow motion, face kissing stone with ugly devotion. A bad face got worse.

Hitting vital spots always draws sharper crits; that truth never ages.

Her kick hadn’t been gentle. He’d need time to recover certain functions, if he recovered at all.

With the pursuit blocked, Night Frost tucked herself into a corner alley, lungs burning, breath slow. She was close to empty. She could only hope they’d miss this nook.

She yanked down the boxes stacked on both sides, found a slit, and wriggled in. She stuffed the visible cracks with cotton scraps like winter plugs.

Time slid past. Night Frost sagged and blacked out, the drug’s drowsy tide seeping through every limb. From here on, fate held the reins.

Lin stood on a rooftop, a black-haired woman, Chu Qing, at his side. They’d seen it all. The giant beetle had carried a smear of Abyssal Aura, and it had truly shocked them.

The bug wasn’t much to them, but it arrived like a cliff wall—blocked every pursuer and killed a few.

Those men had injected inferior gene serum pilfered by Chu Qing. Not strong, but stronger than street folk—enough to face the First Symphony head-on.

Night Frost’s bug cut down a few in a single exchange, its mandibles shearing bodies at the waist. No question—it hit with First Symphony power, even if only for one strike.

Give Night Frost better materials and more time, and she could craft Monsters at Cantata Two. Pair that with current synthetic human tech, and mass-producing a Magic Maiden stops being fantasy.

According to the Doctor, Night Frost’s strength is sealed by the bracelet on her wrist. Just now, her kick flared clear Mana ripples. Not weak. The kick landed heavy.

She fled too hard, likely under the drug’s sway. Without it, Night Frost could handle one-on-two, even one-on-three.

Her Mana isn’t fully locked. Or her Mana simply exceeds the bracelet’s ceiling.

“I suddenly think she’s a talent. If she’d work under me, I’d welcome her… and she’s not exactly friendly with the Doctor.”

Chu Qing sounded reluctant; Night Frost’s blend of force and craft could become a major pillar.

“So, are you still holding me down? Your people won’t find Night Frost. Let’s call it here and do our own jobs. I won’t tell the boss about tonight.”

Lin spread his hands, helpless. When the white coats made their move, Chu Qing had pinned him in place. It suited him. If Chu Qing stayed off the field, he didn’t need to step in—mutual restraint like two hooks locked.

Chu Qing’s face was cool, but Lin read anger and dissatisfaction braided in her brows.

Chu Qing turned away. Lin was right; the plan had failed. No need to keep tangling him up. After seeing Night Frost’s tricks, without Cantata Two, bringing her down for good was a dream.

“I advise you not to touch anyone besides Night Frost, if you still want to stay here—especially—”

She was about to leave when Lin tossed in that addendum. Irritation bit her. She cut him off, dropped a few perfunctory lines, and walked away. Whether she took it to heart—only Chu Qing could answer.

“If I knew that secret, would I be taking orders from this guy? Ridiculous.”

Chu Qing paused, murmuring back toward Lin, her words like a thorn tossed over a shoulder.

“Sometimes chasing a spectacle gets you burned… Lin… and even if you tell the boss, it won’t change a thing.”