The climb was brutal.
Snow lashed at their faces, biting through their cloaks like knives. The world beyond three steps was nothing but white, the storm closing in so thick that sound itself seemed muffled.
Ling Han led, his blade drawn, occasionally slashing at tree limbs to mark their path.
Ruo Han kept close to Xiyue, every sense stretched thin—searching for the sound of pursuit beneath the wind's scream.
It came without warning.
A low thrum, more felt than heard, running through the ground beneath them.
The next instant, the snow exploded to their left—figures bursting from the white, masks gleaming faintly in the stormlight.
"Go!" Xiyue barked at Ling Han, shoving Ruo Han behind him as steel rang out.
Ling Han hesitated a heartbeat too long, eyes darting between them—then a fresh wave of masked warriors crashed in from the right, cutting him off.
The storm thickened—unnaturally so—and within seconds, Ling Han's shape was swallowed whole by the white.
"Xiyue—!" Ruo Han began, but a shadow blurred in at his flank.
A single masked fighter, taller than the others, moving with an eerie precision—every strike fast, economical, deliberate.
The lieutenant.
Xiyue caught the first blow on his blade, the impact shivering up his arm.
The man's mask was different—etched in black across the steel, the lines curling in the shape of a serpent devouring its tail.
"You shouldn't have been here," the lieutenant said, voice distorted beneath the mask.
"But now you'll save us the trouble of finding you later."
Xiyue's lips curved in something cold. "You're welcome to try."
The fight was tight, the snow swirling so thick it seemed to press against them like a wall.
Every strike came in close, blades flashing in bursts of silver before vanishing back into the white.
Ruo Han stood ready, fingers curled at his side—not on his sword, but on the faint hum of his spiritual power, waiting for the one opening Xiyue would make.
Because in a storm like this… one chance might be all they'd get.