Chapter 167: Blood on the Frozen Ground

Ellen’s eyes blazed with hatred as she stared at the pale woman before her. "You monsters are so damn annoying, you know that?" She spat, nocking another arrow with fluid precision. "You just make me want to put a hole through your heads even more."

Lilith’s smile didn’t waver. "By all means, try." Her voice was soft, almost kind. "Though I wonder whose head will sprout holes first."

Sovereign Silk erupted from Lilith’s fingers in a spreading web that filled the space around Ellen. Threads crisscrossed in complex patterns, weaving a cage of nearly invisible strands that slowly contracted, shrinking Ellen’s available space inch by inch.

Ellen’s eyes darted, tracking the threads, calculating angles. She loosed an arrow—it sliced through two threads, but three more replaced them instantly. Another arrow, another gap—closed just as fast.

’She’s not even trying to hit me,’ Ellen realized, cold understanding settling in her gut. ’She’s herding me. Controlling my movements. She disappeared into her own web, and now I can’t find her.’

Lilith’s voice drifted from everywhere and nowhere, layered with subtle psychic pressure. "You rely on distance. On precision. On the clean shot from shadows." A soft laugh echoed. "But in here, in my web, there are no shadows. There is only me."

Ellen’s eyes widened. ’She’s not a close-range fighter—she’s saying I’m the one at disadvantage!’

She spun, loosing arrows in every direction—wild shots meant to clear space, to force openings. Each one was caught, deflected, or simply absorbed by the endless threads. And with every movement, every step she took, the web tightened. The space shrank.

Until finally—

Ellen froze.

She couldn’t move. Threads wrapped around her ankles, her wrists, her throat—not tight enough to kill, but tight enough to hold. She was suspended, limbs spread, utterly captured.

Lilith materialized before her, stepping through her own web as if it were made of air rather than razor-sharp silk. Her crimson eyes drank in Ellen’s trapped form with visible satisfaction.

"Useless," Lilith murmured, almost gently. "Those who enter my web do not leave."

Ellen’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl. "A lowborn monster like you talks pretty big for someone who’s about to lose."

But her mind was racing, screaming. ’This is worse than I thought. Way worse. She’s not just playing with me—she’s savoring it. I have to do something.’

Her body shifted.

It was subtle at first—a slight lengthening of her limbs, a visible ripple beneath her skin as bones dislocated and reformed. Ellen’s training as an assassin had included techniques most would call barbaric: joint separation, bone rearrangement, the ability to compress or extend her frame beyond natural limits. It was agonizing, crippling if done wrong, but it let her escape bonds that would hold any normal person.

Her arm twisted, the bones in her shoulder grinding as they slipped past each other. The thread around her wrist loosened—just enough. She pulled free.

Lilith’s eyes widened slightly—not with fear, but with genuine interest. "Oh? A body modification technique. How... intriguing."

Ellen didn’t wait. She was already moving, her freed limbs twisting and pulling, her body flowing through gaps in the web that shouldn’t have been large enough to accommodate her. Bone clicked against bone, muscles screamed, but she emerged on the other side—bloodied, breathless, but free.

She rolled, coming up with her bow already drawn, an arrow nocked and aimed at Lilith’s heart in a single fluid motion. A thin, bloody smile crossed her features.

"Turns out the tables turn fast, monster."

The arrow released.

It flew straight and true, faster than any before—a killing shot, perfectly aimed, backed by months of hatred and training.

And stopped.

Three inches from Lilith’s chest, the arrow simply... halted. Hanging in the air as if caught by an invisible hand. A faint shimmer surrounded it—the Barrier-Touch Bracelet, activated without a thought, its protective dome flaring for just an instant before fading.

Lilith’s head tilted. Her smile, if anything, widened.

"No," she said softly. "They don’t."

Ellen’s eyes went wide. "What... that’s impossible! That arrow could pierce dragon scales!"

Lilith’s threads moved.

They weren’t gentle this time. They snapped out with predatory speed, wrapping around Ellen’s limbs, her torso, her neck to squeeze. The body modification technique that had freed her before was useless against this—threads that tightened with every movement, that found every gap and filled it, that wrapped around her bones and pulled.

CRACK.

Ellen’s scream was involuntary—a sharp, agonized sound as her shoulder dislocated again, this time not by choice. CR-CRACK. Her ribs shifted under the pressure. Her legs buckled as the threads around her knees tightened.

And Lilith...

Lilith closed her eyes.

A soft, ecstatic sigh escaped her lips as the sounds filled the air—the wet pops of joints separating, the grinding of bone against bone, the desperate, choked gasps of a predator finally becoming prey. Her expression was one of pure, transcendent bliss.

"Ahhh..." Her voice was a whisper, reverent. "That sound... that beautiful sound. The music of a struggle reaching its end. There is nothing quite like it."

Ellen’s vision was going dark at the edges. She could feel her body failing, her techniques useless against this monster’s relentless, beautiful cruelty. Through the haze of pain, she saw Lilith’s face—that serene, ecstatic smile—and understood.

She had never been the hunter. From the moment she’d aimed at Adam, she had marked herself as prey.

The threads tightened one final time.

CRACK.

Ellen’s body went limp.

Lilith stood amidst the carnage, her chest rising and falling with slow, satisfied breaths. The threads retracted, letting the broken corpse crumple to the ground.

Then she turned, her eyes finding Adam across the battlefield, still locked in combat with Derek. A small, satisfied smile curved her lips.

"One down," she murmured. "Now... who’s next?"

Meanwhile...

Ignis hurled another blazing fireball at the shimmering barrier surrounding Westin. The flames splashed against the magical shield like water against stone, dissipating harmlessly while the mage stood untouched behind his protective dome.

"Hey! Stop hiding behind that shield and fight me properly!" Ignis roared, her fists clenching with frustration. "Face me like a real opponent!"

Westin’s lips curled into a thin, condescending smile. "No, I don’t think I will." He raised his hand, and a lance of concentrated flame shot toward Ignis with surgical precision.

Ignis twisted, the fire grazing her shoulder. Her scales held, but the heat seared through—not enough to wound badly, but enough to make her hiss with pain.

’He’s making me play defense,’ she realized, anger bubbling in her chest. ’How dare he! I’m a DRAGON! I don’t run from fire!’

She surged forward, her body becoming a comet of flame as Cinder Dash carried her across the battlefield in an instant. Her fist, wreathed in solar-white fire, slammed into Westin’s barrier with the force of a meteor.

BOOM—CRACKLE!

The barrier shuddered, ripples spreading across its surface like water disturbed by a stone. But it held. Westin didn’t even flinch.

"Useless," he stated calmly. "You cannot break my defenses. I have spent decades perfecting my craft while you..." His eyes swept over her draconic features with clinical disdain. "...you simply exist. Burning whatever gets too close. No technique. No refinement. Just raw, brutish power."

Ignis’s eye twitched. Her flames flared hotter, the air around her beginning to warp from the intensity.

"Raw power, huh?" Her voice dropped, layered with draconic resonance. "Let me show you what raw power looks like when it stops holding back."

She raised both hands, and the air itself seemed to catch fire. Solar Corona—her ultimate area technique—began to build, the temperature skyrocketing as she prepared to unleash everything she had.

Westin’s eyes widened slightly. He threw up additional barriers, layering them frantically as he recognized the danger.

But Ignis didn’t release the attack.

Instead, she stopped. Breathed. And smiled—a feral, predatory expression that made even the confident mage take an involuntary step back.

"You know what?" she said, her voice calm in a way that was somehow more terrifying than her earlier rage. "I’ve been doing this wrong. I’ve been trying to break your shield like it’s a wall."

She cracked her neck, flames still wreathing her body but no longer building toward an explosion.

"But walls don’t need to break. They just need to... melt."

Westin’s eyes widened. "You wouldn’t—"

Ignis’s flames shifted. The white-hot solar fire that surrounded her changed, becoming something denser, more focused. Not an explosion—a sustained, relentless blaze that pressed against his barriers from every angle at once. The temperature climbed. And climbed. And climbed.

Westin felt sweat forming on his brow. His barriers, designed to deflect impact and disperse magical energy, weren’t meant for this—a sustained siege of pure, unrelenting heat. The outer layer began to glow. Then crack.

"You’re insane," he gasped, pouring more mana into his defenses. "You’ll burn yourself out before you break through!"

Ignis’s grin widened. "Maybe. But you’ll break first."

The battle of attrition had begun. And somewhere in the back of her draconic mind, Ignis realized something she hadn’t expected: she was enjoying this. The challenge. The push against an equal. The chance to prove that she was more than just fire and fury.

’Adam would be proud,’ she thought, and pressed harder.

Westin’s barrier groaned under the pressure. A single hairline fracture appeared near its base—barely visible, but there. His face, already pale from mana expenditure, went white.

’This girl... she’s not just strong. She’s relentless.’

Ignis saw the crack. Her eyes lit up.

"Found your weakness, Stupid mage."

She gathered herself, all her remaining power focusing into a single point—a lance of solar fire, denser than anything she’d created before. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t refined. It was pure, concentrated draconic fury given form.

"SOLAR LANCE!"

The beam shot forward, impossibly bright, impossibly hot. It struck the crack in Westin’s barrier—that single, tiny flaw—and drove through.

The barrier shattered.