Arknights: The Cycle of Light and Darkness

"Ah!!!"

Accompanied by the heavy operator's wail of fear, anger, and pain, the sharpened arrowhead easily penetrated the gap between his helmet's eyes, then accurately pierced his right eye.

—The assailant was, naturally, Qingjin.

Almost at the instant she was caught, she lowered her breathing frequency to the absolute minimum. The broken arrowhead, shortened to a length even less than a dagger, was tightly wrapped around her hand with strips of gauze. It was precisely in that moment, when the heavy operator believed he had triumphed and his guard was lowest, that Qingjin attacked decisively.

Fast, accurate, and ruthless—a blow meeting all the standards of an assassin's strike, precise and unerring.

"Ugh, ahhh, ahhh!!"

The excruciating pain of his eye being pierced caused the heavy operator to let out an inhuman howl. The deliberately shortened arrowhead, besides being easy to hide in her palm, also prevented him from pulling the deeply embedded blade out.

"You wretched girl... I'll kill you!!"

With a furious and despairing roar, the Ursus man fiercely slammed Qingjin against a nearby wall. The small, green-clad figure almost embedded into the wall under the immense force. The intense pain nearly caused the Kuranta girl to faint.

"Qingjin!!"

Without the obstruction of the large shield, Platinum finally managed to rush to Qingjin's side.

"Cough, cough, cough... Did you see that... Platinum? I... I can do it too... the things you can't..."

Despite her body almost falling apart, Qingjin surprisingly felt no fear, only a sense of detachment.

"You... don't talk yet..."

Dropping her bow, Platinum frantically pried loose the rocks around Qingjin's body, then reached under Qingjin's armpit and pulled her out of the wall. Platinum's lips trembled slightly: "Alright!... It's fine... just a small... slight... injury..."

Qingjin gently shook her head, letting go of her left hand.

"Although I really want to comfort myself like that... but... it's no use... it's hopeless..."

"!!!"

Platinum, who was about to pull her hand, trembled violently.

Qingjin's left hand was covering a huge wound. Blood profusely oozed from her waist, where she had been pierced by rock, already staining half of her green-clad body. Meanwhile, the heavy operator's wails were steadily weakening.

"No need... to finish him off... he's dead for sure."

Smiling, Qingjin gently pressed down on Platinum's bow with her right hand, and spoke faintly: "'Green Jade Marrow'... something renowned alongside 'Pegasus Vision'... it's not something cheap goods can compare to..."

Green Jade Marrow, a legendary power mastered by Qingjin, renowned as much as Platinum's Pegasus Vision. Some said it was a hidden weapon, others a poison, but no one could truly explain it—because everyone who had witnessed it had died.

"Fir... first, stop the bleeding!"

Platinum frantically pulled out gauze from the inside of her clothes, trying to stop Qingjin's bleeding. However, Qingjin's face was already pale from blood loss, and her body temperature was steadily dropping.

"It's... it's too late... It's impossible that only that one person came after us..."

The weak Qingjin stopped Platinum's futile efforts, using her last strength to say: "Use my arrows... then hurry and go... escape!... You can definitely do it... if you're alone..."

"No!... I will never—"

—However, at that very moment, an extremely furious voice echoed from afar:

"Run?!... I don't think any of you will escape!!"

— — — — Divider — — — —

The proud dragon's gaze swept over the snarling, barking curs; the mere pressure was enough to make cowards wet themselves with fear. Ao Jue, as the Great Yan First Prince, was naturally no ordinary person.

From a young age, he had begun to learn how to master his bloodline power, and with the palace's finest Imperial Guard instructors teaching him martial arts, this young First Prince, at the tender age of 19, possessed combat prowess comparable to a general, and was even hailed as the prodigy among Great Yan's younger generation.

And now, this genius had met his match.

What he had initially thought was merely a barking dog flaunting its strength had transformed, in a flash, into a fierce tiger capable of threatening him. And just as he was about to slay this fierce tiger, he was startled to realize that what stood before him was not a tiger at all, but a ravenous, eyeing dragon!

Ao Jue felt a sense of crisis he had never experienced before, an intuition stemming from his very bloodline.

With a swish, he drew the sword from his waist, a blade long unsheathed, and pointed it remotely at Revy. The First Prince had made up his mind: no matter the cost, he absolutely could not let this man leave this territory. Even if he had to abandon everything in his hand... because Ao Jue vaguely felt that, compared to his Seventh Brother who had become "that way," if the man before him lived, he would become a nightmare that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Although it's a measure born of desperation, I must say, to have the backbone to face me head-on, you are indeed worthy of being 'that one's' son."

"Whether I am the Dragon's son, you will soon find out."

Ao Jue's face was covered in frost, and battle armor formed from dragon qi had begun to emerge on his body : "In this Great Yan, no one has dared to disrespect me, who has activated the true dragon bloodline. You will be the last, and the only one!"

"—Oh? Really... no one dares to disrespect you?"

A low voice resonated.

"That is natural—" Ao Jue spoke halfway, then suddenly froze. He realized that the owner of the voice was not the Sarkaz before him. And—the voice was exceptionally familiar.

The next second, his pupils dilated in terror—

"Then—What about

朕 (Zhèn - I, the Emperor)?!!"