In the end, my body will come back to me, like a river finding its bed.

The ‘Night Frost’ had no Magic Stones, only common Magic Spells and a clumsy copy of Night Frost’s core spell, yet Night Frost was still driven back like leaves before a gale.

Spikes surged from the earth, metal congealed into Blades around them, and Night Frost’s command of flame braided through it all, three streams of Mana pooling in her hands like converging rivers; weaker than Chu Qing, but far beyond what Night Frost could handle.

A golden Spear lunged, the air shivering like a plucked string; its sweep etched cracks through space, three colors flaring along the shaft like stormlight on steel.

Night Frost raised a hand, a wall of fire blooming like a sunrise; Crimson Gold Flame swallowed the Spear, only for the point to punch a smoking hole and drive on like lightning.

Array Patterns flashed across her palm, and she caught the Spear bare-handed; her Magic Layer shattered on impact like thin ice, earlier Patterns snuffed out like candles in rain.

Even broken, the barrier bought a heartbeat; the Spear still carried unstoppable weight, but just as it should’ve pierced her palm, it unraveled into tri-colored Abyssal Aura and pounced like a hungry fog.

Night Frost lifted her hand to sweep the ill omen aside, but the black mist coiled tighter like wet silk, trying to yank her mind into the Abyss.

This is—

Agony tore up from her soul like a rift through bedrock; she pried her eyes open to strangers in white coats, their whispers a murmur like moth wings near her ear.

A fist-sized white sphere hovered before her; she tried to speak, but her throat was an unstrung instrument—no cords, or too young to sound a note.

“Time’s about up. Let’s begin.”

The leader dabbed the corner of his eye and spoke to the silver-haired girl beside him; their faces were familiar yet strange, like faces from a dream she couldn’t place.

A scalpel gleamed and opened the chest of the Night Frost in the tank like slicing thin glass; the pure-white sphere sank into her heart, fine Array Patterns floating and sealing it like a cocoon, and every nerve in Night Frost screamed no.

Pain raked her body, and her soul curled like a scorched leaf; in that inner depth, an uninvited guest arrived with the white sphere, wandering and swelling like a rising tide.

Her territory shrank to a pinprick; the enlarging soul shoved Night Frost into a corner of the Abyss, and she lost the sense of her body like a kite with a cut string—fingers she once could move no longer belonged to her.

“You’ll stay here.”

That soul slammed an invisible door, and left her squatting alone; only endless dark remained, quiet as snow.

A giant screen hung before her like a pale moon, all she could ever see; she pressed her palm to it, aching to crawl out of the dark and touch the world beyond with her own hands.

One year… two years…

She lingered in that drought of night, boredom a slow poison; she wanted to die, yet whenever she pictured the light outside, she burned to break out and live.

She hammered the barrier until her soul came away in shreds like torn silk; she gave up and lay there, limp as driftwood in a black sea.

By twelve, the body’s master soul swelled like a storm cloud, leaving not even a sliver of dark for her; it crushed her, the dark swallowed her, and her awareness faded like embers in ash.

In the end, she wasn’t her anymore.

“You’re already dead.”

Night Frost’s body staggered in the black fog like a candle in wind; the first to fall, though, was the ‘Night Frost’ in black and gold, collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.

Night Frost stood quiet within the Abyssal Aura, uncertain as a traveler lost in mist.

“Hah… at last.”

She opened her eyes; her Crimson Gold Magic Armor was veined with eerie violet like bruised lightning, and she waved the fog aside; wings woven from flame unfurled, Black Flame in her left, Crimson Gold Flame in her right, and she hovered over the Abyss like a burning star.

Her presence climbed tier by tier like a drumroll, hinting at a break through Chapter Three.

She lost.

“No, she hasn’t lost yet.”

Laughter, light and brittle, echoed through the barren underground like wind through ruins; Ms Feng peeked out, worry glinting like dew in her eyes but nothing more, while Crimson sat easy against a wall, face calm as still water.

The one above looked down; not a face showed fear, only a strange hope for Night Frost, like lanterns in fog—and yet Night Frost had died long ago; pinning hope on a dead soul was folly as bright as frost in noon sun.

“Yu Yan…”

She chanted, and the Mana and Abyssal Aura of the whole pit bent to her like reeds in a current; she meant to kill everyone down here and fire a salute for her new birth.

Crimson Gold Lances hung under the vault like a forest of thorns; they thrust out from the Abyssal wall, countless points aimed at the crowd, and at one word they’d fall like rain, turning the pit into a sea of fire.

“All things burn… killing slash!”

Her form hitched, a beat off the rhythm, as two rune-scarred shells punched through the Abyss like meteors; she’d flaunted too loudly and drew the wrong flock.

They were Magic Maidens from District Two, scouting the Abyss like hawks over a gorge.

No matter; they were weak, even with a leader there were only two at Chapter Two, while ‘Night Frost’ had brushed Chapter Three and held the whole Abyss like a net.

“I’ll start the rites with you!”

As they crossed the threshold, the Abyss knit shut under her hand like healing skin; Crimson Gold Spears pointed down and fell without mercy like a storm of nails.

“It’s a Fallen One!”

They saw her in the air, Abyssal Aura at her fingertips like ink on water; they saw the swarm of spears and scattered fast, Mana hardening before them like glass.

The weak were skewered, shields and all, pinned like insects; only the two at Chapter Two held, though one took a Spear and fled to a corner, battered as a broken wing, while the other stood firm, her Magic Armor strange, tied to her art like roots to soil.

“Run, run as much as you want!”

‘Night Frost’ spread her palm, and Abyssal Aura surged like a tide; a giant hand rose from the ground and closed over the District Two Magic Maidens like a cocoon.

“I hate people who shred quiet like dogs in a shrine.”

A Crimson Gold Spear stabbed through a rift like a needle through cloth and cleaved the wounded Chapter Two in half; the other was thorny, but she lacked the bite to break this black fog.

“But I should thank you—your souls will pave my last step.”

Her Magic Armor streamed back like a black river, the night sky poured into her body like smoke; in her sight loomed a vast door, chain-laced and rust-bitten like an iron grave.

Abyssal Aura rammed it like a battering ram; the first chain snapped in a clang, then the second, then the third, like thunder in a canyon.

Endless souls poured into her like migrating crows; only one chain remained, and all she needed was to kill Crimson, then step into Chapter Three, then use the Key in that body and become the only god in this Abyss.

“Mm…”

Night Frost opened her eyes; she floated in the dark like a leaf on night water, not knowing where she came from or where to go, and all she wanted was to drift into her ending.

She had tasted ten years of loneliness like cold tea; now even death felt acceptable, a clean release like snow.

She looked at the light-screen; Magic Maidens died in “her” hands like straw, too easy.

It shouldn’t be like this.

That isn’t me.

Memory rose like dawn; the body’s original owner had seized it, leaving her soul to shoulder the pain and drift in the dark like a lost ghost.

Her name might be Lingchen Yao, or Ling Shuang, or simply Night Frost, but it was never her.

Guilt did nothing in this night; you fight to live, because life is the first order, like breath before speech.

She wanted the body she’d tended for a dozen years; if it was stolen, then take it back, like spring reclaiming a frozen field.

“I’m not perfect. I carry faults and sins. But I want to live. Call me selfish, call me shameless…”

“If you want to take it, you’ll have to crush my soul first—grind me until I can’t fight back.”

Scarlet ribbons unspooled from her core like silk, forging a crimson stair; it stretched from the brow of Night Frost’s body outward like a bridge of dawn, and she set her foot on it, climbing step by step.

“Countless people wait for my return—not for you.”

Crimson opened her eyes; she flung every drop of Mana and will she’d saved like a flood, sending it up the crimson stair that touched the sky, pouring it into the brow of Night Frost’s body.

Night Frost climbed, reached out, spread her fingers, and caught what held Crimson’s Mana and pure spirit like seizing a lifeline.

Her soul rose, and the Crimson Gold Flame coiling her skin surged inward like a river in spate, gathering over her spirit like a crown.

The pure-white sphere in her chest resonated with her spirit and Crimson’s power; a thin crack split like ice, and pure Mana blew the Abyssal Aura around her away like chaff.

“What did you do?!”

The ‘Night Frost’ soul howled in the dark, arms grabbing to drag Night Frost off the stair and smash it to rubble; but the growing fire licked like a dragon, and she dared not step forward—keep this up, and she’d lose the body’s reins.

She had done so much, victory close as a heartbeat; how could that frail girl turn the tide like a pebble starting an avalanche?

Night Frost was spent, her soul almost ground to dust!

She was the one who held everything—so why did the future offer her only loss?

It isn’t fair!