It hit them—a storm, hell or heaven, no one could tell. Skyler, Roxy, and Zoe pushed through: skin-cutting chill, bone-cracking wind, into a white void—the inside of a planet-sized freezer.

Nothing but snow and ice. No life. No sound except the shrieking wind, clawing straight into their chests. Every step sank deeper, as if the world itself wanted to keep them trapped here forever.

Zoe was the first to spot it. “Look—there!” she cried, delight bursting wide, the way a kid unboxing a rare capsule toy.

Roxy narrowed her gaze, unimpressed. Her vision wasn’t bad, but in this bleached wasteland, even a satellite lens would fail. “I don’t see a damn thing,” she muttered, voice flat.

“There! Right there!” Zoe jabbed her finger again—this time the horror showed itself.

The fourth Warden—The Frostblossom. A name delicate enough for perfume. A face anything but. A monstrous bloom, blue-violet petals twisted into jagged steel prongs, its heart bristling with hundreds of ice spears primed to fire without needing a signature on delivery.

“Shield!” Skyler barked.

Roxy moved faster than the command, flaring a triangular wall of mirror-dimension. The spears slammed into it, skidding off instead of skewering them into frozen kebabs.

But the shield was no fortress. The barrage kept hammering. The cold itself seeped through—an invasive, merciless cold. Roxy’s lance darted back in retaliation, but each strike whiffed, spinning away, swallowed by the storm.

Skyler ripped open a dimensional gate, calling down meteors—bright lights, nothing more. They fizzled in the blizzard, useless.

“At this pace, we won’t last much longer…” Roxy’s lips were pale, drained of color, her shoulders trembling though she’d never admit it. The blazing woman of Eden had a weakness, and the frost had found it without mercy.

Skyler tore his hood off, draping it over her shoulders before pulling her against him. Strange that he dared. Stranger still—she didn’t shove him away. Warmth wasn’t in the numbers, but maybe warmth was never about temperature in the first place.

And then Zoe—reckless, stubborn Zoe—made the boldest, dumbest move of the night. She broke from cover, sword raised, sprinting straight into the storm.

“Zoe, don’t—!” Roxy’s scream cracked the air, too late.

Click. A sound sharp enough to freeze bone.

Zoe froze solid in an instant, her body encased in crystal-clear ice. A statue of pink hair and half-finished bravery.

“No—damn it, you stupid girl!” Roxy’s tone shredded itself raw. She pulled her shield tight, shattering spears midair just to cocoon Zoe’s frozen form, but cracks were already spidering through the barrier.

“Do something!” she snapped, intent cutting deeper than any lance.

Skyler didn’t wait for a second order. He yanked Zoe back with spatial force, hands trembling as they touched the block of ice. He tried everything—heat particles, warped dimensions, every trick in his arsenal. Nothing worked. The ice refused to melt, refused to even flinch.

“Zoe, hold on…” The words were simple. Ordinary. But in that moment, they were everything he had left to give.

If this damned thing thought it could take Zoe again…
Skyler would drag it out of hell itself and grind it into nothing.

Something shifted. The air around him hardened. His body trembled—not from the cold, but from rage burning with love, grief fused with defiance.

And in that collision of fury and devotion, his shell cracked.

Skyler Everhart…was being forced into the Fifth Dimension.

In Zoe’s subconscious—where the line between thought and dream blurred beyond recognition—an empty plain stretched to infinity.

No light. No sound. Only a chill that gnawed straight into her marrow.

Ever since the fox had been wounded in that fight against Trinity—when Fergo hijacked his body—Nine hadn’t appeared again.

Zoe tried not to show it, but inside she was unraveling. The hush between them—a farewell unspoken

Just as her mind began to sink deeper into that abyss, a silhouette appeared in the distance.

Her focus flickered with hope.

She ran—panting, drenched in sweat despite the frost biting her skin, caught between reality and nightmare.

And there he was—Nine. Curled up, small, fragile. Not the majestic nine-tailed beast she remembered, but a bundle no larger than her arms.

Zoe dropped to her knees, scooping him up the way a mother might hold her newborn for the first time. All nine tails folded against her embrace. She whispered, trembling yet tender:

“Come back, Nine… don’t leave me alone again.”

In that instant, the world flipped—frames rewinding faster than film in reverse.