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The moment the simulation chamber activated, Kira found herself surrounded by an endless stretch of frozen wasteland. The sky above was stormy grey, thunder cracking like a beast awakening in the heavens. She stood alone, breath visible in the icy air, heart pounding.
Her body trembled—not from the cold, but from the sudden realization that she was truly alone. The silence was unsettling, until it shattered.
The ground around her rumbled.
She turned.
A pack of monstrous beasts burst from the fog. They weren't ordinary creatures; they were constructs of soul energy—hulking predators with glowing red eyes, jagged tusks, and thick fur that bristled with icy mist. Five of them. No, six. All charging straight for her from different angles, cutting off escape.
Kira clenched her fists and summoned her soul armor.
In a flash of light, her crystalline-blue soul armor materialized over her body—sleek, elegant, and cold as frost. A shimmer of ethereal energy circled her wrists and shoulders. Then, as if summoned by instinct, her soul weapon appeared in her grasp: a translucent bow, its limbs carved from glacial crystal. It hummed with latent power—but had no arrows.
She raised it anyway, stepping back, breath steadying.
The beasts roared, their monstrous limbs digging into the snow as they prepared to strike.
Kira dashed to the left, barely dodging the first swipe of a claw. She rolled behind a jagged ice spike, only for another beast to leap over it, crashing toward her.
She fired a shot with no arrow—nothing but force—but it bounced off the beast's thick hide. Another lunge. Another dodge. Her heartbeat raced. She wasn't fast enough. She wasn't strong enough.
Three beasts surrounded her now. Another flanked from the rear.
She was being hunted. Like prey.
Kira gasped and jumped backward, but one of the beasts clawed her side. The armor held, but the impact knocked her hard into the snow.
She lay there for a second, panting. Cold creeping through her body—not from the environment, but from fear.
Then she remembered.
"Draw. Visualize. Release."
Leo's words echoed in her mind like a mantra. Soul skills weren't meditated into existence—they were born from the soul's will. She had to create it. She had to believe it.
Closing her eyes, she reached deep into her soul sphere. She felt the cold—not around her, but within her. It wasn't fear. It was power. Ice was in her blood. Precision was in her nature.
She drew that power.
She visualized it—not as a shield, but as something sharp, something that would strike true.
Her bow pulsed.
A glowing blue arrow materialized in the bowstring, pure soul energy sculpted into frost.
Her eyes opened.
One of the beasts roared and leapt at her.
She released.
The arrow fired with a shriek of freezing wind, slicing through the air.
CRACK!
It hit the beast mid-air. Ice exploded from the impact point, encasing the creature instantly in a pillar of frozen death. The beast dropped, frozen solid before it could even scream.
The others halted.
Kira stood slowly, eyes glowing with blue soul light. More arrows formed, faster this time.
Another beast charged—she released. Frozen.
Two more tried to flank her—two arrows, two shots, two frozen monsters shattering into frost shards.
Breathing heavily, but standing tall, Kira lowered her bow.
She stared at the battlefield of frozen beasts.
A small smile played on her lips.
"That's my Soul Skill," she whispered. "Frost Arrows."
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