Everything happened so fast that no one could’ve predicted it.

  One heartbeat, they were preparing to destroy the dungeon core—breathing in the oppressive spiritual pressure of the 19th floor, weapons trembling from the force of the conflicting energies—and the next heartbeat…

  The real threat revealed itself.

  The true problem was not the dungeon core.

  It was the girl standing before it.

  She looked like she’d stepped out of a painting—long black hair cascading like liquid ink, green robes shimmering with the glow of spiritual energy—but her expression was ice-cold, almost empty. No hatred. No confusion. Just the blank, terrifying neutrality of someone who had already chosen violence.

  But her eyes…

  Sharp as blades.

  Focused.

  Deadly.

  Vel felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Instinct screamed danger before her mind caught up.

  Then it happened.

  A flicker in the air.

  A drop in temperature.

  A whisper of displaced wind.

  And she vanished.

  Not with a sprint. Not with magic. Just—gone.

  All she left behind was the faint shimmering echo of a flower-shaped afterimage drifting where she had stood.

  “Where—?!” Sunette barked, half-stepping forward with her shield raised.

  Lilian barely had time to gasp, “Luim—hold on!” as she fired off a Restore spell at him.

  The golden light slammed into Luim’s chest just as—

  Shhht—!

  A rusted sword cut upward from behind Lilian’s ear.

  Lilian yelped and rolled aside, gown scraping the stone floor, air hissing as the blade missed the back of her head by a breath.

  “Behind—!!” she cried.

  Vel reacted immediately.

  She lunged, trying to tackle the girl from behind, arms outstretched. “Stop—stop! This is a misunderstanding!” she pleaded—not screamed—pleaded, because every instinct told her the girl would only grow more aggressive if provoked.

  But her hands grasped nothing.

  The girl dissolved again.

  A soft pulse of fragrance with the same image of a flower followed.

  Vel blinked—she was gone.

  A heartbeat later, she reappeared within the formation of the Vanguard Knights. Right in the center of them. Her rusted blade moved like a thread pulled by fate—arcing, slicing, knocking shields aside, smashing armored men off their feet faster than anyone could react.

  “In the middle—inside—SHE’S INSIDE!” a knight shouted, words breaking into a grunt as her foot slammed into his chest, sending him skidding across the floor.

  “Shields up! KEEP YOUR GUARD—AH!” another yelled before her palm tapped his wrist, turning his sword swing aside and flipping him backward with impossible ease.

  Her movements were barely visible—just flashes of green cloth and the blur of a rusted sword.

  Sunette, dragging Lilian back, cursed under her breath. “She’s moving like a phantom—get behind me!”

  “Sunette, I need room to cast—!” Lilian gasped.

  “You’ll get it when we survive this!” Sunette snapped, slamming her shield down and covering Lilian with the full width of reinforced steel.

  Agitha joined her, hammer raised. “Stay close! Do NOT break formation! She cuts through armor like parchment!”

  “I noticed!” Lilian squeaked, breath shaking.

  Vel tried to take aim, but the girl was always near someone—always positioning herself so an ally blocked Vel’s line of fire.

  “She’s—she’s using us as shields against my arrows?!” Vel hissed. “What kind of monster fights like this?!”

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  “Don’t shoot!” Sunette barked. “You’ll hit allies—!”

  “I CAN’T shoot!” Vel snapped back. “She keeps—moving—behind them!”

  They were losing ground rapidly.

  In less than fifteen seconds, the Vanguard Knights were all on the floor, groaning or unconscious.

  Only Sunette, Agitha, Lilian, and Vel remained upright.

  Cilian and Luim were still down, breathing heavily from the paralysis-like aftereffects of her first strikes.

  “Cilian? Cilian—can you stand?!” Lilian called desperately.

  “I-I’m trying—” Cilian grunted, forcing his body upright inch by inch through willpower alone.

  Luim groaned. “Damn… what did she hit me with? My limbs feel like lead.”

  The girl paused only long enough to assess the battlefield—eyes flicking over who was conscious, who wasn’t, who was trying to get up.

  Then she moved again.

  Lilian felt it before she saw it—an air displacement behind her, a shiver up her spine. Her body moved on instinct.

  “She’s—!”

  A sword appeared behind her head again.

  Agitha reacted instantly, raising her shield. Clang! The metal rang through the hall as she blocked the blow.

  “MOVE!” she roared, shoving Lilian behind her with all her strength.

  Sunette slammed her tower shield forward, stepping in from the right. “Now! Now!” she shouted, coordinating with Agitha.

  Agitha pressed from the left. Vel loosed an arrow behind them to try and cut off escape.

  “Corner her—she’s trapped!” Sunette yelled, but even as she spoke, the girl’s movements blurred.

  Her strikes came next as she suddenly changed her stance. Not fast—but precise, strong, punishing, relentless. Each blow of her sword slammed against Agitha and Sunette with force just enough to stagger them back a step, then another.

  “Ugh—she’s strong!” Agitha gritted her teeth, feet skidding slightly on the stone.

  “Keep the formation! Don’t let her—ah!” Sunette stumbled back under a strike that cracked the floor beneath her boots.

  The girl pressed forward with uncanny speed, pushing them back fraction by fraction. Vel’s arrow glanced off Agitha’s shield after the girl dodged it. “Impossible!” she hissed, panic creeping into her voice. “She’s… pushing through us?!”

  The two paladins, forced backward by the sheer power of each strike, found their space shrinking. The girl didn’t wait—she slipped between the narrowing gap, her movements a flash of green and rusted steel.

  “She—she’s through us!” Agitha gasped, raising her shield to follow.

  “No! Not her—Lilian!” Sunette shouted, realizing where the girl was heading.

  Before anyone could stop her, the girl appeared in front of Lilian. Instant. Too fast to dodge.

  “LILIAN!” multiple voices screamed as the first strike hit.

  The girl’s fists struck.

  Not hard, but with speed and precision.

  Lilian only felt the fists against her after they all landed. But—nothing.

  She didn’t fall.

  She didn’t move.

  She couldn’t.

  Her breath froze in her throat. Her limbs turned to stone. Her eyes widened, locked open, unable to blink.

  “S-sunette…” Lilian whispered—except no sound left her lips. Only her eyes moved, trembling in raw terror.

  “She’s paralyzed!” Agitha shouted, grabbing Lilian and dragging her back.

  Vel, trembling, raised her bow again.

  “Get—AWAY FROM HER!” she screamed, pure rage tearing through her voice.

  She fired—

  But before the arrow traveled a meter—

  CRACK

  Her bow shattered in half as the girl appeared beside her with a slicing motion.

  Vel screamed in shock. “S-She—my—!”

  The rusted sword descended like a guillotine toward Vel’s head—

  Then everything went black for her.

  “VEL!!” Sunette shouted, voice breaking.

  That was when Luim roared back to life.

  “ENOUGH!!”

  He enveloped his body in Qi—visible, roaring arcs of blue-white energy—and charged.

  His boots cracked the stone floor from the force of his push.

  “SUNETTE! AGITHA! PROTECT LILIAN!” he barked.

  “Go!” Agitha shouted. “We’ve got her!”

  Luim’s charge hit the girl like a thunderclap.

  He unleashed a rapid barrage of blows—fists, elbows, knees—so fast that sound blurred around them. His strikes should have shaken the walls.

  But the girl didn’t block.

  She didn’t dodge.

  She redirected.

  A tap to his wrist.

  A nudge to his elbow.

  A gentle push on his palm.

  Each movement is subtle. But profound.

  Like a river carving stone.

  Luim’s eyes widened. “She—she’s redirecting my strikes?!”

  He intensified his Qi. His fists glowed. His gauntlets hummed. Dust lifted from the ground under his feet.

  He struck again, faster.

  This time, she raised her sword.

  The first blow he landed against it shuddered down the blade. She stepped back. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

  Luim grinned savagely. “Got you.”

  He struck again.

  She blocked again.

  Another step back.

  A third, a fourth, a fifth—each strike pushing her back a fraction.

  “Keep going—Luim!!” Agitha screamed.

  Cillian was nearly upright now, using his sword to leverage himself, but still sluggish.

  “Luim—careful—!” he called hoarsely.

  But Luim didn’t hear him. He was fully focused, adrenaline roaring.

  The sixth hit landed.

  Then the seventh.

  The eighth.

  She blocked each strike flawlessly—but now she was bracing harder.

  Luim finished his ninth strike.

  He roared, “THIS ENDS—!”

  He never finished.

  A cold chill raced up his spine.

  He sensed movement beside his head—a blur.

  CLANG—BOOM—!

  His body sailed sideways across the hall. He felt his bones vibrate. Stone rushed toward him. Then—

  Darkness.

  The last thing he saw was Cilian, sword raised, blocking the blow that should’ve taken Luim’s head clean off.

  Cilian gritted his teeth. The force rattled through his entire arm.

  “What… power…?” he gasped.

  The girl stood before him, sword still pressed against his own. Her expression blank. Unflinching.

  But her eyes—

  Her eyes were terrifying.

  Not because they glared at him.

  Not because they showed anger.

  But because of how they moved.

  He had noticed it during her clash with Luim: she was never focused on the opponent in front of her. Her green eyes darted everywhere. At first, he thought she was searching for something, but now he understood.

  She wasn’t looking at her opponents.

  She was tracking the battlefield.

  Every fallen knight.

  Every movement by the paladins.

  Every breath Lilian tried to take.

  Every twitch in Vel’s unconscious body.

  She wasn’t seeing them.

  She was seeing the flow of the fight itself.

  Cilian felt his stomach twist.

  “Who… are you?” he whispered, breathless, overwhelmed.

  But he didn’t expect an answer.

  Yet she spoke.

  A gentle, melodic voice—soft and utterly at odds with the cold beauty of her expression—brushed his ears like a calm breeze through leaves.

  Just a name.

  “Ling Xulian.”