[You’ve been passed the Puppeteer’s soul upon Mire’s death.]

[Mire entrusted you with her death wish. Weight of your soul elevated by 1.]

Those words hung before her, telling her what had dug into her brain without permission. Yet, she could not understand them. The pain and the fact Mire died muddled her thoughts. Mire was gone, just like that, whispering a sorry for a grievance, Amaryllis knew not, but it scared her heart. Mire looked sad for what she did, but she just died, taking the clown with her and saving Huan’s life. It made no sense.

The chilling sensation grew with each beat of her weary heart. Shards of glass burnt through her nerves, numbing them soon after in the deadly coldness, which shrank the skin on her sore bones. She knew instinctively what it was.

“No,” she murmured. Did Mire do this? Why?!

Slowly, her skin transmuted. She felt it — the hardness of the chilly skin. The pain, as the transformation took place, was splittingly cold as they devoured all the senses, numbing yet painful to her soul. She froze, unable to scream or even breathe properly, as the frost corrupted her lungs.

Her lustrous obsidian skin glowed under the moonlight, and she lost control over her limbs, losing them to the frost.

The blackness crawled into her eyes. For the first time, she realized what her sister felt when she looked at colors. Slowly, something consumed her mind as she gazed at the dazzling moon above. Its burning glow pierced her eyes, smoldering everything within.

“Aaa…” She barely managed to groan in agony. Unable to shut her eyes anymore.

Why is this happening to me? She wondered one more time.

The ground beneath her turned black, and the air glowed white as the moisture turned frost. The sharpened, icy grass dug into her skin. She barely felt it.

[You are afflicted with Blackfrost.]

“Amaryllis,” a voice rang in her ears — muffled and drowning. But it was not the voice that was drowning, but she, in the pain.

The ice continued to crawl forward from all directions, freezing everything in its wake.

She wanted to close her eyes and look away from the blazing moon. The pain was overwhelming. She was frozen. Turned into a glowing obsidian crystal statue, mouth hung open. Still, the body continued to quiver, to show it still hosted a life.

The black ice twisted and molded into a yet-to-blossom lotus. It swathed the ice-sculpted body, finally hiding her from the world, yet the flower was transparent; it dimmed the moon but failed to veil the light. The colors. And the agony it brought.

The sight itself was breathtaking if the watcher lacked the knowledge of her suffering or didn’t care. The other three seran watched it happen without any twisted glee. Gisella with horrified eyes, but Huan was still limp on the ground, recovering his strength to move again.

“Amaryllis,” something about the voice felt familiar. She couldn’t remember it. Pain left no room to think long enough to place a finger on who it was. “Give me the puppeteer’s soul,” it said.

Take it!

Amaryllis screamed in her mind. The soul didn’t matter anyway. A part of her knew Mire wanted her to use it for something, but she couldn’t be more lost. What was its purpose? She did not even know Mire had the puppeteer’s soul.

This was the end for her. Even if she survived, there was no life ahead. No one would pay for her prison, and that came after surviving this place. Why should she care about something so stupid?

“You will lose it once I take it. Are you sure?”

Take it.

She felt even more sure as she felt something vanish from her mind. Her mind felt lighter. Some sort of burden lifted from it.

A warm rush coursed through her body, slowly melting away the pain. Her muddled thoughts cleared away. The world shifted. The moon vanished. Everything vanished. The darkness swallowed them all. It was comforting. She felt no pain here.

“Amaryllis,” the soft, childlike voice chimed, ringing with joy that she didn’t believe existed.

The voice rang close to her, but the darkness didn’t let her see anything. “Fia…” she mumbled. She could speak again. She hadn’t known how much relief that would bring her. Her heart thumped in relief. She tried to tame it, tell it everything would go wrong again. But it refused to listen to her.

“Heyo,” Fia said, not sounding so energetic anymore. “Things changed drastically in the last few hours, didn’t they? I am sorry, it’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Fia. Having a weapon couldn’t have changed a thing in this place,” Amaryllis assured her, “Where am I? What happened to Huan and Gisella? And those children?”

“We are inside your soul. Your body is still in the same place outside, and those things continue to gawk at you,” Fia chuckled.

“Inside my soul?”

“Well, to be precise, I used the energy I gained from consuming the Puppeteer’s soul to create a temporary soul realm, a reflection of your inner soul. It’s not what I expected, but we can work with it,” the voice floated from the right to the left side. “First… I cannot save you. There’s no way to control blackfrost. I am sorry,” Fia mumbled in a small voice, filled with guilt.

“It’s not your fault,” hearing Fia’s sad voice pained her even more. She didn’t do anything to feel guilty. And Amaryllis couldn’t just expect someone to have a solution that has plagued this world for centuries without rest.

“But… I can temporarily allow you clarity. I felt your desire to help. Even if we never formed a bond, I’m still your familiar, and before we part ways, I wish to help you once,” Fia placed something soft on her head. “I can allow you five minutes of clarity. Use blackfrost however you wish. It can kill anything that has a soul or any other conceptual form of life. By that, I mean you can kill Seran without soul-forged weapons.”

“Is that why you needed the puppeteer’s soul?” Amaryllis asked. Perhaps this was her last conversation with someone she had never seen and probably would never.

What about my sister? That fear gnawed at the edge of her consciousness. She had to accept her powerlessness. If I save them… they can take care of her, she told herself. She didn’t trust them, but she would rather meet her end with that hope than nothing.

“I don’t know why. I just know I need someone’s soul to do anything,” Fia didn’t elaborate. “Farewell, Amaryllis.”

“Wait, why are you helping me?” Amaryllis asked. She knew she should trust Fia. Yet, a part of her wondered if there was something she wanted.

First of all, how did Mire even know this could happen? She certainly knew more than I did with the way she said sorry. Amaryllis squeezed her eyes. It’s nothing. It’s a coincidence. She couldn’t have afflicted me with Blackfrost.

What if she did? And this creature pretending to be a friend wants to use you for something? Mire is alive for all you know, a dark voice whispered. Amaryllis tried to ignore it but failed. It could be true.

“I don’t know. Maybe I should know….” Fia mused, her childlike voice filled with confusion. She couldn’t have a malice even if she tried to. “I don’t know why, maybe because you’re kind and warm, even if your soul realm is anything but that.”

“I’m not kind,” she replied through her clenched teeth. “I’m just vain, nothing more.” This place was a reflection of her soul. It showed nothing but darkness. It couldn’t have been more accurate. It had no relation to what people would call kind or warm.

“We both know that’s not true, but you should focus on the task at hand. Good luck. You’ll see things differently now. Farewell, Amaryllis.”

“Farewell, Fia…” Her heart tightened. She hadn’t even seen the spirit yet, but she felt melancholic at the thought of never seeing her again.

She blinked once. The darkness vanished. She saw the moon again, the stars, the clear sky. Yet, they didn’t bother her anymore. But she saw no color. Just black outlines of white canvas. That’s how she managed to provide me with clarity. But… it should be black, right? I shouldn’t be able to gaze at white.

She looked down at her hand. They were white. One was fine, but the other looked like a marble statue crushed and glued back together — covered in webs of cracks. She tried to close it, but pain was still ever present. She could not use it anymore.

[Unique condition Afflicted: Inversion of Frost.]

Why was she even seeing this notification? She had never gotten any notification before coming to this place.

She tried not to dwell on those. She had to neutralize all three serans before the time limit expired. She pushed herself to a sitting position. Her eyes searched for the creatures but landed on the shawl first.

Mire’s shawl. The floral pattern was still visible on it, a bit of blood from the punches the Puppeteer made her throw.

She decided to believe Mire had not afflicted her with Blackfrost; that would be absurd. She had a chance to save those children and the two who still lived, maybe because Mire had decided to give her the soul. There was no point in even thinking of blaming. What would that do now that Mire was dead?

She grabbed the shawl, hoping it would not freeze, willing the mana in her hand to reel back in, just in case, and picked it up. It didn’t freeze.

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As soon as her hand touched it, she felt clear, like she had been blind her whole life. The mana in the air, the ground, the channels where they gathered, everything she could feel.

For a moment, she saw everything in the place, from fence to fence. She knew where they were — the four switches to open the door, the emergency exit that she predicted, and… she saw it, felt it — the mana inside the children in the box. It was no different from Huan or Gissella. They were as alive as them as she was.

Her heart quivered with rage once more. And sadness for what those innocent souls had to witness. Why?

Mire left this for me… Her hand tightened on the soft, comfy fabric. She knew everything all along — about these hidden demons, the exit, And how unfair this assessment was. We were never supposed to pass it.

Now, ‘her let’s try not to die’ felt much heavier. She had known how inevitable what she wished for was.

How fast did all this happen? she wondered, standing on her feet. How quick was her conversation with Fiya? Her frayed nerves had returned to normal. Not as normal, but more like glass instead of flesh. Harder and capable of handling rougher mana use. Her heart still felt pain as she drew upon mana, but she could. I am not still abandoned.

They also noticed her standing but dared not approach. Their eyes didn’t show any apprehension, but Amaryllis could tell they didn’t want to be in contact with her. She smiled.

A frost that decays everything with the concept of a soul or life. That’s absurd power, isn’t it? If someone is strong enough, can they resist it?

She let out a white, frosty breath. How was she supposed to take care of them? She had never used magic before if you could even call it that.

She stood in the bloomed lotus of blackfrost. Finally realizing what had happened around her.

The white lotus, or black, she knew not, but was three meters in diameter. Its petals stood erect like a freshly unfurled lotus.

She tried to move the frost around her and willed it to change its shape. She felt a connection through her feet that touched its nucleus. It sucked her mana.

She had the power to control it, but it required focus. She had a lot of it. She tried again. The petal of the lotus extended, shaky, but it did. She felt the mana squeezed out of her heart. But it was filled as quickly by the ambient mana—like a sponge, her heart absorbed it.

The twisted petal formed into a long arrow. She flattened it and made the edge sharper. It took effort, but the creatures finally decided to move away from her.

Forcing mana recklessly into her limbs, She broke the makeshift sword of blackfrost. The amount of mana her body handle increased her speed and strength to a painful degree. Her nerves burned once more, but she no longer cared.

Having almost unlimited mana and knowledge that she only had five minutes before everything would turn into darkness broke any shackle that may have restrained her from doing something as insane.

She shot forward at the seal. It was massive, and she couldn’t see the color anymore, but she could see all the human limbs grafted into its body. No place on it had smooth skin, and the face plunged into the ground like a pool.

She dashed for it. Since it was the biggest target, she assumed killing it would be the easiest.

The creature pulled out its face and looked at her. She halted involuntarily. This wrinkly human face with a perverse grin revolted her frozen heart. It looked nothing like a seal.

She shook off that feeling, but the seal moved faster than her, swimming at her with its fin prepared to cleave her in half. She jumped to the side. Ground froze beneath her as she rolled away. It gave her an idea. A stupid idea, but she had to try it.

The frosted surface beneath her feet expanded as she willed with, consuming more mana from her. Her eyes glimmered with thrill.

She dashed again, her fragile ice sword laced in black mana. A mist swayed around it. Her newly opened sense tracked the other two creatures. They were going for Gisella and Huan. Amaryllis couldn’t let that happen. Huan was completely exhausted, with barely any energy in him. And she didn’t want him to do something as stupid as Mire.

Gisella had recovered some mana by now, but she stood no chance against the ventriloquist. Still, Amaryllis decided to trust that Gisella could survive longer and went for the magician who was on Huan.

The magician wore a suit — classy and fitted perfectly — a walking cane in his hand and a beaver hat on his head.

“My, what’s the rush?” he said, noticing her approach. He pressed his cane on Huan’s wound. Huan howled in anguish.

Her jaw clenched as she threw the blade with all the strength she could muster. It moved back, dodging. He had to. And it confirmed that he knew he’d die if she managed to wound him. This may not be a good thing, but it made him cautious and should keep him from hurting Huan foolishly again.

She didn’t waste her time taunting and gloating at his disadvantage. Neither did she know how much time was left. It would have helped her if there was a timer, but that was too much of a game-like feature to ask for.

She dashed again, ignoring Huan’s horrified look as he saw her. She had not thought of it before, but he might be like one of her classmates, calling blackfrost-afflicted people monsters — Seranborn.

The magician thrust his cane forward. Its metallic pointy end shot like a bullet at her face. She ducked, never halting from her pace.

Her hand extended to grab the magician’s face. It moved with grace, stepping away easily against her coarse amateurish moves. She tried again. It reminded her of the puppeteer’s taunt. She didn’t relent, channeling more mana into her limbs to increase her pace. Her hand almost grabbed the face, but his leg split, and he went down. It was the hat that came in her grasp.

A snake slithered out of it and bit down on her arm. She felt the pain, but poison pooled before it could enter her nerves, freezing, just like the snake itself—frozen by the blackfrost. She crushed the hat and then the snake.

The magician whistled, bouncing away on a bunny. Amaryllis shook her hand, trying to mold the ice into a sword with her mind, but she had no idea how the element worked. She couldn’t wait for the ice to pool beneath her feet and manipulate it.

She felt it beneath the ground. Not the magician. He was all smiley, a distraction for the creature beneath to come and devour her and him at the same time. She waited for it. They didn’t know she possessed all-seeing eyes now, and she could use them to at least kill the seal.

The magician saw her still and raised his cane again. She channeled mana beneath her feet, and the ice expanded, creating spearheads filled with mana beneath the ground as she waited for the creature. It was almost here. The cane expanded. She had not thought he could do that. She didn’t know if the blackfrost would work if she moved. She didn’t dare to risk it.

She raised her broken hand to take the brunt of the hit. Just as the cane was about to touch her hand, it swiveled. Amaryllis took half a second to realize he was aiming at Huan. She abandoned her plan, which the magician had already guessed, and dashed to save Huan. Not toward the cane, that would be foolish, but for the magician.

He smirked and jumped in the air, far too high to make any sense, on a pigeon, far too hideous to be called one. He stood on it, whistling. The seal also changed direction at the last moment and shot diagonally at Amaryllis from beneath the ground.

She stopped, looked behind her, and saw the maw of a human but the size of a dinosaur coming at her. Her heart thumped. Calm down. Everything felt slow. She jumped to the side.

Tak! The maw snapped shut.

The mouth clamped down in the empty air, and she landed on the grass and slid, freezing everything into smooth glass.

I am fine, she thought, but hurry overtook her senses. She had no time to dwell on it.

She pushed herself up, giving up on the idea of creating a sword. She’d punch it out of existence faster.

The creature tried to move into the ground again. She lunged at the last moment, managing to grab its split fishtail. The white frost spread on it. It tried to pull her, but she held on to it. It couldn’t tug her inside the ground. The portion she held of the tail crumbled as it sank into the ground.

She shifted her attention to the magician, subconsciously feeling where the seal went. It would come out again, she knew.

Gisella… She felt her mana sinking, but this situation didn’t afford her any moment to look her way.

The magician had a new hat on his head. He took it off and bowed, shoving his hand to the elbow, remerged inside it as if a bag, and pulled out a massive hammer with a giant boulder on its head.

At the same time, the seal shifted and shot up again, but not at her, a little farther.

The magician grinned and flung his hammer where the seal would come out. With every flip, the hammer grew larger and heavier, enough to call it a truck. The seal shot out and interrupted it with its head, tossing the hammer higher. It flipped as the hammer fell.

Amaryllis’s eyes widened as she realized what the seal was about to do, but it was too late. She never actually had the chance to do anything against this. It all happened in a matter of seconds.

The seal walloped the massive hammer with its half-broken tail, which shot like a bullet at her. She couldn’t dodge it.

Can I take the hit? Wait, is my body even stronger than before or fragile as glass? she wondered.

She had no choice but to take it. She channeled mana, hardening her skin. A layer of frost covered her body, rough and edgy.

Then, she felt the lightning tingle in the air. Her head snapped to where Huan was, but he moved faster, appearing in front of her.

Lightning roared on his blade as he swung it, obliterating the boulder. There was a deafening cackle of thunder. He turned and grinned with his bloody, swollen face before collapsing to his knees. He coughed out blood.

Amaryllis looked at the magician, she was worried about Huan, but she had no time to show it.

The magician showed no visible shock at what happened, still under the belief he held the upper hand. He was wrong.

She learned something under pressure. She controlled the excessive ice on her body, moving it like a liquid into her hand. Creating something she could hold still proved to be difficult, but she managed to extend her fingers into claws. She had no time to know what she did, but it was an elemental alteration skill.

She bolted at the falling seal first, hurried and reckless. Her legs burned with the coldness of mana. She ground the pain in the back of her mind and continued.

The seal fell on the floor, rippling it like water.

The ripples froze as soon as they came in contact with the ice beneath her feet and crumbled like solid ice twisted. A few fine shards dug into her body, but the pain was suppressed as soon it roared.

The magician threw something at her. She bashed her clawed hand, batting it away.

I cannot kill anyone with those two working together. How do I separate them? she wondered. She felt Huan’s lightning spark again. An idea blossomed in her mind.

Clenching her teeth, she grabbed the nail with her broken hand. Her eyes twitched at the imagined pain, but she broke it. The pain was more than she had imagined, but she could withstand it because of what Fia had done. She grinned madly. The pain vanished in a blink. She tried to grow another one. The pain lasted for a mere second.

She threw the nail at the magician’s pigeon. He dodged it rather sharply. The bird flapped its wings. She flung the second nail. Broken and shot another.

He danced around them, but he had been too focused on her. Huan zipped behind him in a blink, plunging his blade into the magician’s back and the pigeon, nailing them. They collapsed onto the floor.

She cared little about getting the kill. Their death was her only objective. The magician raised his face, staring directly into her eyes, his lips split into a twisted grin. His neck crushed as it twisted.

He tried to bite at Huan’s face. Huan let go of the sword and fell back, falling on his butt.

Amaryllis went blind panicked, and rushed. Her nerved burned. When her vision returned, she had stabbed the remaining two claws into his back. His body instantly turned to ice. His eyes widened in shock as if he had not expected it. But still, he lacked any fear of death itself. She watched him crumble like a sandcastle without making a single noise or attempting to save himself.

Amaryllis shifted her attention to the seal. It had sunk into the ground, but it was not running away. It circled.

She created the spearhead under her feet and waited patiently. She knew the seal had nothing new. She felt Gisella’s mana almost vanish, but she held herself still. She couldn’t risk it. She focused all her attention on creating the spikes, jamming mana into them.

The seal felt her still and blasted upward, opening its jaw.

Amaryllis waited and waited, feeling it coming at her. And, at the last moment, she willed the spears filled with mana to extend like roots. The seal never realized it. Perhaps it was stupid without the magician. The spikes rent its body. Amaryllis sensed the seal crumbling and vanishing without a trace.

She sighed and looked at Huan, who was trying to stand up. Her senses finally focused solely on Gisella.

The ground was a mess after the ripples that the creature had created. Like an ant crawling on a messy, creased-up blanket, she ran toward Gisella.