The moment the circle tightened around her, March felt the old instinct rise up her spine like a cold draft slipping beneath a door. There were too many of them to count comfortably — Masters with disciplined stances and steady eyes, Awakened disciples whose bodies thrummed with cultivated power. Their robes fluttered in the heat rolling off the massive cauldron behind them, and for a fleeting second she wondered if she should have kept her bow. Then she exhaled slowly, and the air around her fogged.
The temperature began to drop.
Her Dormant Ability was always stirring, subtle but eager, drinking in cool air without waiting for permission. Strength coiled into her limbs, quiet and steady. Then her Awakened Ability followed, no longer slow and cautious the way it had once been. As an Ascended, she did not need to coax winter into existence. She could command it.
Frost crept across the stone beneath her boots in delicate crystalline veins, spreading outward from her like the first cracks across a frozen lake. The Masters noticed. One of them barked an order.
They attacked all at once.
March did not retreat. She stepped forward.
A spear lunged for her throat, its wielder precise and unhesitating. She pivoted, catching the shaft under her forearm and driving her fist into the attacker's ribs. Ice exploded from her knuckles on impact, a pink-tinted bloom that snapped across his torso in jagged lines. He staggered, breath bursting from him in a ragged wheeze, and she followed through with a rising elbow that shattered his jaw.
Another came from behind with twin sabers. She ducked, feeling steel whisper over her hair, and drove her heel backward into a knee. Bone cracked. Before the swordsman could fall, she seized his collar and hurled him into two advancing Awakened. The collision sent all three skidding across a thin sheen of ice that had formed underfoot, their footing compromised before they even understood what was happening.
She was already moving again.
A Master with a hooked blade slashed low. She leapt over it and landed inside his guard, palm striking his sternum. Frost burst outward from the point of contact, racing across his robes and into his skin. His expression twisted in shock as cold devoured warmth faster than his cultivation could compensate. She pivoted and drove her knee into his face, the impact accompanied by a brittle snap.
More pressed in.
It would have been overwhelming once. It should have been overwhelming now. Instead, as the temperature continued to fall and the air grew sharp in her lungs, she felt stronger with every passing second. The cold wrapped around her like an ally. Her muscles moved with clarity and brutal efficiency that had been carved into her by the War Maidens of the Second Nightmare. They had not allowed hesitation. They had beaten grace into brutality, and brutality into survival.
She looked ridiculous. She knew she did. Light pink hair whipping through freezing air, a dress fluttering above frost-slick stone, fists encased in crystalline gauntlets glowing faintly rose as she punched seasoned Awakened into the ground. The contrast might have been funny if it were not so lethal.
An Awakened lunged with a spear, thrust aimed directly at her heart. She sidestepped and caught the shaft with her left hand, her right palm slamming flat against his chest.
For an instant, reality shifted.
The man's body flattened into a two-dimensional glass panel, as if he had become an image pressed between invisible sheets. His features froze mid-snarl, depth stripped away, reduced to something fragile and brittle. The effect lasted less than a heartbeat.
March struck.
Her fist crashed into the glass-like surface, and the world snapped back to three dimensions in a violent recoil. The Master's body reconstituted just in time for the force to travel through him without resistance. The impact obliterated his internal structure. He collapsed instantly, dead before he hit the ground.
She blinked despite herself. That had been… better than she thought.
Her Awakened Ability had evolved. Freezing was no longer merely about immobilizing flesh; it was about altering the state of existence itself, compressing the target into something breakable before restoring them in the same motion as the killing blow. It was precise, horrifying, and efficient.
There was no time to dwell on it.
Two Awakened attacked in tandem, blades flashing. She ducked under one and twisted away from the other, feeling steel slice through the air where her neck had been. As she pivoted, the cold surged outward in a visible wave. Frost climbed their legs in thick sheets, anchoring them momentarily.
One of them broke free first and swung.
March stepped aside at the last possible instant.
Behind her, a mirage flickered into existence.
It was the spear-wielding Master she had just slain, his expression locked in that final snarl. The phantom version of him completed the thrust he had attempted earlier, spear lunging forward in perfect replication of the saved moment. The Awakened who had just missed March had no time to react. The spectral spear pierced straight through his chest.
As the illusion struck, another image overlaid it — the moment after the Master's death, when his body had crumpled lifelessly. That collapse replaced the mirage in a seamless transition, and then both images vanished entirely, leaving only the newly dead Awakened on the ground.
Her Ascended Ability.
It did not simply freeze and shatter. It recorded. It saved the before and after of a frozen enemy's actions and allowed her to load them later, deploying those captured instants like weapons of their own. Time, cut and spliced into a blade.
Someone shouted. Another rushed her from the side.
She met them head-on.
A flurry of fists and elbows followed, ice-laced blows landing with brutal precision. She moved through them with ruthless economy, every strike purposeful, every dodge measured. Frost spread across the battlefield in widening rings. The stone beneath their feet cracked under expanding ice, turning the arena into a treacherous expanse of slick crystal.
In the distance, thunder cracked — not from the sky, but from the sea.
March risked a glance.
Fu Xuan and Dan Shu were no longer on solid ground. They raced across the surface of the water as if it were stone, Saint-level power allowing them to defy the ordinary laws of movement. Waves exploded upward around them with every clash, towering walls of spray illuminated by bursts of violet and gold. They moved too fast for the eye to track fully, colliding and separating in violent arcs that churned the sea into chaos.
A Master tried to capitalize on her distraction.
His blade cut toward her side.
She caught his wrist mid-swing, ice snapping up his arm in a thick sheath. With her other hand, she grabbed his shoulder and twisted, using his own momentum to slam him into the ground. The impact cracked the ice beneath him. She drove her fist into his temple, and the frost encasing him shattered outward in a lethal spray.
Another Awakened tackled her from behind.
They hit the ground hard, sliding across frozen stone. He tried to pin her arms, but she shifted her weight and rolled, bringing him underneath her instead. Her forehead slammed into his nose. Blood splattered across the ice in a vivid arc. She followed with three rapid punches to his throat, each one encased in freezing force that stiffened muscle and ruptured vessels. He went limp beneath her.
She scrambled back to her feet just in time to see three more approaching in formation.
Panic clawed at her ribs. There were still so many. Her breath came out in sharp clouds. Her hands trembled — not from cold, but from adrenaline. She did not feel composed. She did not feel legendary.
She felt terrified.
And yet her body did not falter.
She stepped into them.
The fight blurred into a relentless sequence of motion. She slid under a sweeping blade, rose with an uppercut that shattered teeth, spun into a backhand that sent an Awakened skidding across the ice. Frost thickened with each passing second. The temperature plummeted so rapidly that even the cauldron's residual heat struggled to compete. Ice crept up the legs of those who lingered too long in one place, slowing them, stiffening them.
She used that.
When one Awakened attempted to retreat and regroup, she surged forward, pressed her palm against his chest, and flattened him into glass. This time, instead of striking immediately, she stepped aside as another disciple lunged past her. She then drove her fist into the frozen panel at an angle, restoring him to three dimensions in the exact moment her blow landed. His body exploded backward into his ally, both collapsing in a tangled heap.
A blade grazed her shoulder, slicing fabric and drawing blood.
The sting barely registered. The cold intensified around the wound, sealing it in a brittle crust. Her Dormant Ability drank deeper, feeding her strength as the environment sank further into winter. Her movements grew heavier, more forceful. Each punch carried weight disproportionate to her size.
One by one, they fell.
Some shattered under direct blows. Others died to mirrored moments summoned by her Ascended Ability, spectral echoes of their comrades striking from impossible angles. The battlefield became a gallery of frozen corpses and fractured ice, a silent testament to a girl who looked like she belonged at a party rather than in a war.
At some point, she realized she could no longer hear organized commands. Only scattered cries. Only the sound of her own breathing and the distant, cataclysmic clash of Saints over the sea.
She did not stop until no one remained standing.
When the last Awakened dropped, March stayed in her stance for several seconds, chest heaving, fists still raised. Frost radiated from her in a final pulse before slowly stabilizing. The cold lingered, but it no longer intensified.
Silence settled.
She turned in a slow circle.
Bodies lay scattered across the frozen ground, robes stiff with ice, expressions locked in shock. There was no movement among them.
Her hands trembled as the ice around her fists receded.
Then, her jaw dropped.
"Who the heck did that?!"
The realization crept in reluctantly.
She had.
A splash thundered behind her.
Dan Shu's body flew through the air and slammed into the side of the massive cauldron with enough force to shake the structure. Metal groaned but did not break. The Saint slid down its curved surface, robes torn, blood staining ornate fabric.
Fu Xuan landed lightly on the frozen stone moments later, her expression composed but her breathing slightly uneven. She approached the fallen Saint with steady steps.
"Surrender."
Dan Shu coughed, blood staining his lips. His gaze drifted unfocused toward the distant silhouette of the Ambrosial Arbor. His voice came out ragged, barely coherent.
"The Ambrosial Arbor's descent… will bring us undying bodies… The one who gave us the Stellaron… said that… Phantylia… the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus have fulfilled our promise… You, Lord Ravager… must do the same… Now. Quickly."
March tilted her head.
Lord Ravager.
The title associated with the Emanators of Destruction.
Before she could process the implication fully, movement brushed the edge of her vision.
Tingyun walked past them with the casualness of a woman doing her errands.
An alarm blared in March's mind, memories snapping into place with sudden clarity — odd remarks, subtle manipulations, moments that made zero sense, thoughts that had slipped away too easily. Fu Xuan stiffened as well, amber eyes widening fractionally.
Neither of them moved.
It was not paralysis of the body, but of comprehension. Their minds rejected the conclusion even as it formed.
Tingyun stopped near Dan Shu and clicked her tongue softly.
"Ah ah, little pawn, must you force me to intervene directly? I'm loath to flout my philosophy of Destruction. Never mind. It would seem the time has come for other means of dismantling the Xianzhou from within."
She placed a hand over Dan Shu's chest. Golden light flared.
She continued lightly.
"What a shame. It would have been nice to observe for a little longer. You have been granted the gift of Abundance, so surely you could handle the blessing of Destruction?"
The light intensified for half a second.
Then Dan Shu's body exploded.
March flinched back as blood and fragments scattered across the frozen ground. Tingyun blinked slowly, examining her hand as though mildly inconvenienced.
"Too much? Oh, well—"
A shadow detached from the chaos behind her.
It moved faster than thought.
Tingyun spun instinctively, but the attacker was already gone from that position, reappearing behind her in the same breath. A black longsword pierced straight through her chest, clean and unhesitating, the blade emerging from between her ribs.
Sunny.
He did not pause.
A stiletto manifested in his other hand, and he drove it into her neck. Then into her torso at precise points. Then upward through the base of her skull. Each strike was efficient, clinical. Final.
Tingyun's body collapsed in a spreading pool of red.
Sunny stood over her, expression unreadable. Then his gaze sharpened faintly as something registered.
"Dormant human…?"
The Nightmare Spell's voice echoed in his mind.
[You have slain a Dormant human, Tingyun, Anti-Martyr.]
[You have received an Echo.]
Sunny's pupils dilated, though, it was impossible to tell with how they blended in with his void-like irises.
'—Ah.'