Jett’s head tilted by Emma's word, her pale gray eyes sliding to her. For a heartbeat she said nothing, her thoughts caught in hesitation.

  Do we? She wondered. My strength… would it even matter? Unless I use that…

  Her gaze drifted. Beyond the swirling frost and ruptured earth, her eyes caught the distant shimmer of the great frost wall of Xin Region, faint but visible even through the storm. The sight reminded her, she was home again.

  Jett exhaled, her decision sealing within her like a blade being sheathed. She turned back to Emma, voice firm despite the quiet tremor buried beneath.

  “Then it seems… we’ll have to join.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell with one long breath. Then her gaze softened as it fell upon Ron, her younger brother, who stood a step behind them, silent, his gray eyes wide as they followed the furious battle.

  “Ron.” Her voice gentle,

  The boy glanced up at her, hesitant, yet obedient. She held his eyes, steady and calm, though the tension at the corner of her lips betrayed her heart.

  “Go. Wait for us in Xin.”

  For a moment Ron said nothing, but his throat bobbed as he swallowed. He knew. Staying meant becoming a burden, and burdens in frozen battlefields like this, meant death. He nodded, wordless, and lowered his head.

  Turning, his boots crunched against the hard crust of snow as he began to walk, slow at first, as though reluctant to let go. His shoulders trembled, and just before he broke into a run, his voice drifted back to her, carried on the biting wind.

  “…Take care of yourself.”

  Jett’s body stilled. Her eyes trembled faintly as those words stabbed into memory, pulling at something she had long buried, something she did not wish to recall, most especially in this time she want to use something of that day. Her hand curled tightly into a fist within her coat’s sleeve, nails biting into her palm. But she forced her expression still, swallowing down the ache.

  Her gaze followed the shrinking figure of her brother as he ran toward the distant frost wall. She drew in a breath, her lips parting into a forced smile, her voice little more than a whisper against the gale.

  “I will…”

  Her eyes then turned back to Emma, who stood steady at her side, coat flaring in the storm. Their gazes met, and Jett’s face regained its steel.

  “I’ll go first. You join when the moment is right.”

  Emma’s eyes narrowed with understanding. She gave a single, sharp nod. Jett returned it, and with that, the silent pact was made.

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  Jett’s boots pressed against the snow as she began to move. The winds seemed to still for her as she advanced, each step calm, intentional, carrying her closer to the maelstrom of battle.

  Before her, Dan and Liz fought relentlessly against the Eradicator. Dan’s collapse aura burst outward with every strike, shockwaves cracking the frozen earth beneath. His dark coat whipped violently around him as he clashed with the armored figure, blow for blow. But each of his attacks, no matter how heavy, seemed to be negated, the strikes doing nothing to the Eradicator.

  Beside him, Liz was a flame in the storm, her emerald eyes sharp and cold as her hands directed waves of power that nullified the monster’s strikes, making every swing meaningless, before it could connect.

  And yet, the Eradicator only grew stronger, its presence swelling with every clash, the green smoke thickening until it coiled like serpents around its armored frame.

  Jett’s eyes narrowed as she saw this, before drawing in one steady breath that escaped her lips,

  And in that moment, something shifted.

  From the stillness of her frame, a flicker appeared, calm, faint, serene. Almost unseen.

  An aura whispered from her body, rippling out like a disturbance upon untouched water. Her pale gray eyes began to glow faintly, the light thin and ghostlike beneath her lashes,

  Whoooosh...!

  A sudden gush of icy wind whipped through the battlefield, its chill cutting deep into existence. The currents coiled and circled around her slender frame, growing more violent with each passing second, like a storm building in a confined cage. Her coat flared wildly, its beast-pelt texture snapping against the sharp wind.

  Jett’s pale gray eyes narrowed, her lips parting slowly, as she opened her mouth and muttered in a calm voice, each word rolling like the low murmur of a chant intoned across eternity.

  “I speak to the one that precedes existence…”

  Her right hand trembled ever so slightly, knuckles tightening as the air around her made a sharp crackling sound, reality itself answering the pull of her words. The frost-laden air curled inward toward her palm, swirling like it obeyed something greater than mere gravity.

  “The null unshaped by form… the silence unbroken by sound…”

  Her arm lifted higher, each motion deliberate, measured, as though forcing its way against a hidden weight.

  CRACK...!

  The atmosphere split where her hand was raised. A fracture spread in the fabric of existence, like as if existence itself was like glass to punch through, Beyond the crack shimmered an absence deeper than mere void.

  Jett’s breath steadied. With unflinching resolve, she pushed her right hand into the fracture, plunging into the wound carved in absolute existence. The very edges quivered, sparking faint distortions as if reality itself recoiled.

  Her voice rose slightly, steady but carrying strain.

  “O blade of dissolution… forged in the absence before foundation”

  CRACK....!!

  “You who unravel the threads of ideas and concepts…”

  Her fingers curled into the fracture, pale skin glinting faintly in the otherworldly light spilling out.

  “Whose edge divides absolute existences from all things…”

  The words spilled out, but as her hand went deeper still, a sharp, seething pain suddenly surged inside her head. It stabbed like needles piercing behind her eyes. She faltered, shoulders trembling, jaw clenching as she stifled a gasp.

  Her body went rigid, breath hitched... yet in that very instant…

  A voice surfaced. Soft. Soothing. Familiar.

  “Take care of yourself.”

  The whisper caressed her mind, warm against the piercing agony.

  Her focus wavered the moment the voice entered her mind.. Her expression dimmed, pale gray eyes flickering as her consciousness drifted into memory…

  A memory from six years ago.

  A memory she could never escape.

  A memory that left a hollow cavity inside her heart..

  A memory that throughout her life till now

  Can never be able to heal..