Surrounded by frozen air and fog, Ghost of Winter’s godlike presence could be felt from the far reaches of the fallen city of Verge. The air around her froze from just her breath and her skin radiated a strange icy fog.

  She had landed right in front of the knight with specks of zenshi dancing in her round grey eyes.

  Her silver hair now looked pure white and her eyes glowed a silver hue when she used her ability to create an ice falchion. She channeled a lot of zenshi into it to harden its surface and transformed it into a weapon worthy of sustaining this battle. The idea of using her forged weapon had crossed her mind, but the fear of having it destroyed lingered in her mind.

  She gave the battlefield a quick scan. Then faced the bulky knight with a confident look.

  ‘House Feng will conquer this dungeon.’

  With that thought, everyone charged at the steel knight with a confident look now that one of the two strongest captains around had arrived.

  Luna and Valentine continued their relentless attacks against the creature. The pair moved in sync, not needing to tell each other where to move and where to strike. They were both fluid and deadly with their movements as they fought turning them into a deadly force all on their own.

  And when Len joined, their force turned even deadlier as they battled the steel knight.

  Luna kept slashing at its armor in search of a weak spot where her enchantment could work. But her inability to see or track signs of enchantments had finally given her a reality check. Her sword kept on bouncing off the armor, rendering her sword’s enchantment useless.

  The same happened to Valentine. Though his short swords seemed to scratch the steel surface. Out of the three, Len’s sword dealt the most damage thanks to the zenshi imbued in it.

  Meanwhile, above the battlefield, Gail’s golden eyes were glowing like two bright suns as they followed the knight’s movements. He channeled more divine energy into the bow in his hand and a light arrow manifested between as he fed more and more energy, aiming for the knight.

  Once it fully manifested, he uttered some words before aiming for the moving armor and freeing the magic arrow.

  At the same time, Luna, Len, and Valentine created some distance between them and the steel knight as Gail’s magic arrows plummeted and pierced through the supposed-to-be-indestructible armor. It stopped halfway through but Gail wasn’t done with his attack yet.

  “Explode!” his command cut through the battlefield like a sharp sword and the arrow detonated into an explosion of golden energy.

  Ghost of Winter quickly created a wall of ice to protect her companions against Gail’s explosive power.

  Crack!

  Despite its strength, the force behind the energy blast was strong enough to create cracks in the ice wall, proving that it wasn't as resilient as they thought.

  ‘Considering the amount of energy Len uses. This shouldn’t be possible.’ Luna noticed the small cracks grow on the ice as it protected them from the explosion. Was Gail’s Aura as powerful as ice to a certain degree?

  Before she answered that thought, the blast ended and Ghost of Winter charged at the staggering steel knight with her weapon ready to strike. Unfortunately, it had only lost its wielding sword arm to Gail’s explosion.

  While staring at the steel Cursed Creature, a strange uneasiness dawned upon Luna. The Creature had lost its arm. This was supposed to be an advantage...

  Stolen novel; please report.

  'If it is. Why do I suddenly feel uneasy?' her eyes darted left to right as she searched for what caused this feeling. The hairs on her body stood again and her heartbeat got faster.

  Then after seconds of deep thought...

  Something suddenly snapped in her mind and her eyes widened when she sensed a foreign power in the air that instantly alerted her. However, foreign wasn't the right word to use for this power because she had felt it before. Only this time, the power was much more intense.

  ‘Qi…there is a great collection of qi in the air.’ She gasped when she recognized the energy bringing this foreign attack to life.

  Without saying anything to Valentine, Luna’s body moved on its own and the world came to a halt in her mind as she ran toward her sister because the attack was aimed at her.

  ‘A powerful attack is coming. She can’t dodge it.’ Luna panicked as she moved with a desperate look in her eyes and a sword gripped in her right hand.

  When she caught up to Ghost of Winter, Luna pushed her out of the way and put Katana forward to block this single, powerful attack.

  The world moved again and her black sword shattered the moment it tried blocking the invisible slash coming in her direction. She was surprised to see the Forged weapon shatter into a rain of black specks of steel with so much ease. When its powerful enchantments broke, she was blown away by the zenshi embedded in it.

  And to make it worse, the attack managed to hit her.

  A split second later, Ghost of Winter gasped when she realized her sister had been blown away.

  ‘When did she…’

  She didn’t get to finish that thought because her attention was immediately drawn to the approaching one-handed knight. It picked up its greatsword with its good arm and faced Lena.

  She gritted her teeth and attacked. She had no idea what had just happened but she knew that this battle would only be over when this thing was defeated. She didn’t want to ask herself if Luna was okay until this creature had fallen.

  Meanwhile, Luna landed a few meters away from her former position.

  And instantly….

  She was already regretting her life decisions once the effects of her heroic actions kicked in. Her entire body was in terrible pain as her face remained on the ground.

  Why wouldn’t it be?

  There was a bloody laceration on her abdomen where the qi attack just happened to graze. Was graze even the right word for it when she was so close to being split in two if it wasn’t for the sword?

  She remained silent and tried her best to maintain her breathing to avoid losing her consciousness right now from all the blood loss. She trembled, trying her best not to think that she would die in a place like this….

  ‘Gods. What did I do to deserve this treatment?’

  Soon, she was watching the fight from the ground and in a pool of her own blood.

  As expected, Gail, Len, and Valentine were now holding their own against the steel knight.

  Even though it had just lost an arm, the abomination moved perfectly and was forcing everyone to give it their all as it swung its greatsword with deadly intent. Behind all its maneuvers, you could tell this creature was mimicking a powerful swordsman.

  Much as she would’ve liked to give it some thought, Luna found it difficult to focus will all this pain coming from the bloody wound near her stomach. It felt like someone was using a hot iron to torture her…

  ..trying to burn her life force away.

  There was a loud Boom when Gail launched more trick arrows at the knight. It shrugged off his attacks because of how little his reserves were at this point.

  Valentine was doing his best to keep up, but the fatigue was very visible on his face. It was clear he was close to his limits.

  From how things looked, only Ghost of Winter seemed to putting up a worthy fight against their current adversary. Her face maintained a stern and stoic look, but her eyes burned with fury that could destroy a city if she wanted to. If she were a fourth gate user, this fight would’ve been leaning more on the side of humans.

  Luna carefully observed the fight as Ghost of Winter turned into a white fog once again. Her falchion flashed, striking the creature’s armor, and disappeared before the knight reached for it.

  While she confused the knight with changing forms, Gail dropped from the sky and flew directly into the growing fog where Valentine, Ghost of Winter, and the steel knight were engaged in a life-or-death exchange.

  The handsome ascender was gone for a while before bursting out of the fog with the steel knight in his powerful embrace. He might not have been as powerful as Darkness, but it was necessary to push him further if they were to win this fight.

  When he was high enough, Gail braced himself and dived down with the knight still struggling to free itself. It went as far as crushing one of his arms. But the ascender swallowed the pain and plummeted both himself and the knight into red earth, causing a miniature earthquake that sent the entire city trembling.

  Luna didn’t see what happened next because the fog grew even more and swallowed both Gail and the Knight.

  The sound of their clash continued to play throughout the battlefield for a while. And for the cursed creatures still standing, Darkness destroyed them with a bright smile on her face like a child playing with her toys.

  Her love for chaos was both baffling and terrifying from a normal view standpoint.

  Finally, when the fog disappeared, the three soldiers were the only ones left standing and the steel knight was no longer moving. Its steel body was now white after Len used her ability to transform it into a sculpture.

  The steel knight had been defeated. However, it hadn’t gone down without a fight.

  …Gail’s right arm was twisted. His skin was torn and revealing the bloody mess underneath.

  Valentine was almost uninjured apart from a deep neck wound he was pressing against with his left hand.

  And Ghost of Winter was missing a good chuck of her stomach. But, instead of a bloody mess, she had replaced it with white ice to prevent blood loss.

  She stared at the frozen knight for a moment with an inhuman expression before blinking back to her senses and her face quickly masked itself with deathly concern. Her eyes started searching the battlefield for her sister who she saw getting blown away earlier.

  When they landed on the small girl lying in her blood, tears welled up in them, and she ran without thinking of the pain in her abdomen.

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic…I’m alive. But my sword.’

  Luna thought to herself as the image of her sister got larger and larger.

  The fight for the Siege Tower had come to an end.