Yuki dropped from the open cargo ramp of the aircraft with a wide, unrestrained grin carved across her face.

  Below her stretched the endless white of the North Pole, an ocean of ice and fractured glaciers. She was falling fast, accelerating relentlessly toward the frozen surface, kilometers of empty air tearing past her body as gravity seized her without mercy.

  And she loved it.

  The wind screamed around her, ripping at her clothes and whipping her long white hair into a violent storm behind her. Her icy-blue eyes were locked on a single point far below, a distortion in the world itself.

  The rift.

  It wasn’t massive yet. Just a wound in reality carved into the ice, glowing faintly with unstable energy. But Yuki could see it clearly, unmistakably.

  A deep, electric excitement surged through her chest as she plummeted through the sky.

  Her intercom crackled.

  “Yuki,” Rikin’s voice came through, strained but controlled. “I know you’re strong, but this is a blight. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for backup?”

  Yuki reached up casually, tapping the device at her ear as if she weren’t moments away from becoming a meteor.

  “What’s the fun in that?!” she shouted back, laughter lacing her voice as the wind howled around her.

  On the other end, Rikin sighed, long and tired, but pushed past her stubbornness.

  “Alright. Finish this quickly. We’ve issued a Code Omega.”

  Yuki’s grin vanished.

  For the briefest moment, seriousness cut through her expression like a blade.

  “…You’re kidding,” she said, her tone sharp. “That’s only happened once.”

  There was a pause.

  Then Rikin spoke again, his voice tight with unease. “Yeah. I-”

  Static crackled.

  “-shit,” he continued suddenly, panic bleeding through. “Yuki, finish this now. Barbatos and Alexandria have been intercepted by a seventh stage rift.”

  Yuki’s eyes widened.

  Then, slowly, the grin returned.

  “Roger that, boss.”

  At that exact moment, something crawled out of the rift.

  The ice around the gate cracked violently as a colossal form emerged, a massive wolf, towering nearly five meters tall. Its fur was pitch black, yet it burned like smoldering firewood, embers glowing beneath its hide. Heat shimmered around its body, warping the air.

  Its eyes burned orange, alive with fire.

  Yuki’s smile twitched into something uneasy.

  “Well,” she muttered, “shit.”

  The wolf reared back and roared, the sound thunderous enough to fracture nearby ice. As Yuki continued her freefall, the creature opened its massive jaws. A brilliant orange glow gathered within its throat, energy condensing violently.

  Then it fired.

  A beam of searing heat ripped upward toward her.

  Midair.

  For an ordinary person, dodging would’ve been impossible.

  But Yuki wasn’t ordinary.

  Grinning sharply, she summoned a slab of ice beneath her feet in an instant. The moment it formed, she kicked off it with explosive force, launching herself sideways as the beam screamed past where she’d been.

  The heat scorched her skin slightly.

  The beam however, did not stop.

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  “Tch, persistent,” she hissed.

  Another ice block formed beneath her, she jumped again, this time downward. The beam followed, tracking her with terrifying precision.

  Block, jump and twist.

  She formed ice platforms in rapid succession, spiraling around the beam, using her own falling momentum and precise footwork to circle it. Each near-miss sent waves of heat washing over her, melting her constructs seconds after she left them.

  Seconds stretched.

  Finally, she dropped low enough.

  Her grin sharpened.

  A massive greatsword formed in her hands, its blade sculpted from pure, enchanted ice, beautiful and deadly. She summoned one final block beneath her feet, muscles tensing as she compressed all her momentum.

  Then she leapt.

  Hundreds of meters vanished in an instant.

  She raised the blade high and brought it down with everything she had, aiming straight for the wolf’s skull.

  But the strike never landed.

  Her eyes widened in shock as the blade evaporated mid-swing, dissolving into steam before it could even touch the beast. The sheer heat radiating from the wolf’s aura annihilated it effortlessly.

  “Oh, shit.”

  The wolf turned with a snarl and lashed out, its massive tail smashing into her with brutal force.

  The impact sent Yuki flying like a cannonball across the glacier.

  She twisted midair, slamming her legs into the ice and carving a trench as she skidded to a halt, snow and shards spraying violently around her. She coughed, spitting blood onto the ice as she pushed herself upright.

  The wolf stood hundreds of meters away, embers flaring brighter.

  “So,” Yuki muttered, wiping her mouth, irritation flashing across her face. “You’re heat, huh?”

  Her earpiece crackled again.

  “Yuki, fall back now,” Rikin barked. “That’s a heat-based spawn. In literal terms, it’s your perfect counter.”

  Yuki tapped the device once.

  And the channel went dead.

  She rolled her eyes.

  A scythe of pure ice formed in her hands, its curved blade shimmering dangerously.

  “I’ll decide what I can and can’t kill.”

  She launched forward.

  The distance between her and the beast vanished in a blink.

  The wolf snarled, maw glowing once more as it prepared to fire. Both of them roared, predators colliding, neither willing to yield.

  The beam erupted again.

  Yuki sidestepped at the last possible instant.

  The beam tore through the glacier behind her, carving straight through solid ice and plunging into the sea below. Water boiled instantly, steam exploding upward.

  Yuki didn’t look back.

  She surged forward, leaping up toward the wolf’s head. Twisting midair, she drove her heel straight into its jaw with devastating force.

  The impact cracked like thunder.

  The wolf was launched backward, skidding across the ice.

  Yuki landed lightly, already moving again.

  “If I can’t hit you with my ice,” she said, baring her teeth as she sprinted after it.

  “then I’ll just beat you to death.”

  A maddened grin tore its way back across Yuki’s face as she surged forward once more.

  The wind grazed her tanned skin like claws, roaring past her as she accelerated beyond what should have been possible. In the blink of an eye, she crossed the shattered ice field, closing the distance between herself and the massive wolf almost instantly.

  The beast was still recovering, its enormous body skidding across the ice, embers flickering unevenly along its burning fur.

  Yuki smiled wickedly.

  'Got you.'

  She charged, boots cracking the frozen surface beneath her with every step,

  And then the wolf looked at her.

  Not with rage.

  Not with pain.

  Something changed about it.

  The empty glow in its eyes intensified, then collapsed inward, only to ignite again, brighter than before. Its entire body flared, embers exploding outward as every ounce of heat it possessed was released at once.

  The heat screamed.

  A shockwave of pure heat erupted from the creature, tearing across the battlefield like an invisible wall. Glaciers didn’t just melt, they ceased to exist, collapsing into steam and boiling seawater in its wake.

  Yuki was caught dead center.

  “What the hell was THAT?!” she yelled as she was hurled violently through the air, her body spinning uncontrollably as heat scorched past her.

  She twisted mid-flight, barely managing to stabilize herself. Through blurred vision and rising steam, she spotted the wolf once more, and her breath caught.

  Its eyes were gone.

  Hollow sockets stared back at her for a fraction of a second.

  Then new eyes formed, blazing orange and more vicious than before.

  Yuki hissed sharply as she landed atop a fractured glacier, ice crunching beneath her boots.

  “…Regeneration too, huh?” she muttered, irritation flickering across her face.

  She barely had time to shift her stance.

  The wolf launched itself.

  The sheer speed of the creature was monstrous, its massive form crossing the distance in an instant. Yuki saw it coming.

  She reacted,

  Too late.

  Pain exploded through her body as the wolf’s jaws closed around her arm.

  There was a wet, sickening sound.

  Yuki screamed, not in fear, but in shock, as she was thrown backward, her body skidding across the ice. A clear trail of crimson splashed violently against the white surface, staining the frozen world in red.

  She rolled to a stop and stared.

  Her arm lay several meters away, severed cleanly.

  Her eyes widened. Her breathing hitched. For a moment, her body trembled, not with pain, but with something far more dangerous.

  Then she laughed.

  A low, unhinged sound escaped her throat as her lips curled upward once more. Madness and exhilaration twisted together behind her eyes.

  Ice surged forward.

  Her severed arm was encased instantly, freezing solid before shattering violently into countless shards, its destruction echoing directly into the wolf’s mind as psychic feedback.

  At the same time, ice exploded outward from her shoulder.

  Thick almost unbreakable ice.

  It layered and reshaped itself rapidly, sculpting bone, sinew, and muscle from enchanted frost. The glacier beneath her feet groaned under the pressure as the formation completed.

  Yuki flexed her fingers.

  A new arm emerged as the ice shattered and fell away in chunks, clattering against the frozen ground.

  Fully restored.

  She rolled her shoulder once, testing it, then looked up at the wolf with a feral grin.

  “Alright,” she said, voice dripping with anticipation.

  “Now we’re getting started properly.”

  She lowered her stance.

  The air around her crackled with cold ice.

  And this time, she was smiling for blood.