Mika obeyed, walking at the side of Calina and dropping Iyuna to the ground. The girl's eyes gazing to the ground, deranged, as drool drips from her chin.

"What's more demented than a young girl whose father left her helpless as a group of knights savagely massacred dozens?" Calina bends down and holds Iyuna's cheeks while looking into her lifeless eyes.

"I mean, look at her. She's practically hollow."

The King backs away and looks at the silver-haired knight in bewilderment.

"N-no, you wouldn't."

"Not like you cared about her, you shit-stain of a father." Calina's insidious grin falls back toward the girl.

"Hey, girl. I know you can hear me." She shakes the girl's head in between her palm.

"I watched as you killed those men in that alley. You're pretty tenacious… If you join the Phoenia Empire, we won't kill you nor your fucked up father. All you have to do is see if you can take that scroll over there."

Iyuna's eyes roll upwards toward Calina.

"S-scroll…"

"So you can speak… Yes, scroll." Calina points towards the parchment situated on the granite table.

Calina unties the girl and pulls her up from the ground.

The girl stumbles towards the table, reaching her hand out.

A portion of frost starts to erode up Iyuna's arm, causing cuts and frostbite. Her skin starts to puff up and darken as blood and puss start to pour from large blisters.

"I don't think that's suppose to be happening." Ryu looks in disgust at the girl's grotesque arm.

"Wait." Calina ordered as she continued to watch the girl.

Iyuna's index finger falls from her hand and shatters upon reaching the parchment.

「What is it that you seek, young one…?」

Iyuna gaze shifts forward as the room suddenly becomes dark. A large woman wearing all white with a distorted mask hunches over her.

"I don't want to feel pain anymore… I'm tired of being weak and unloved…."

The large woman bends her knees and rubs the child's head.

「If you grant me your vessel, you can feel all the love you'll ever need. I will grant you power so that you'll never have to rely on anyone ever again.」

Beads of water roll down Iyuna's cheek as she smiles faintly.

"T-that sounds wonderful… What's your name?"

The woman stands, and her mask breaks in half, showing her demented face with an eerie smile and white beady eyes.

「… Yokamono.」

A large puff of cold air extrudes from the young girl as the parchment fades away, causing a blue tattoo to start to form on the child's arm.

Ryu covers his arm as he backs away from the intense wind. "The hell is going on."

"GAAH!" Calina turns to the right and looks at Mika, glancing at her legs.

Frost starts to build up around her legs as it shatters, leaving her to fall onto the ground.

"MAKE IT STOP!" Mika yells in torment as her body starts to darken and bruise, leaving cuts and puss to secrete from her face.

"The hell?!" Ryu's arms start to frost as they fall from his torso and crash onto the ground.

"GAAAH!" He falls to the ground yelling in pain as his body freezes solid.

The King, at the edge of the room's, head cuts clean off and shatters onto hitting the ground. His body lay frozen still.

The room brews a snowstorm that causes a blizzard to crash from inside the room to the outer castle walls. Clouds start to form around the kingdom as a downpour of large ice shards crash into the city below.

The citizens and buildings are either struck with frozen shards or shatter into pieces ushered by the blasts of frozen air.

Calina looks down at her hands and feet as her armor starts to rust and break apart. She looks up towards the girl as her blond hair turns a light blue.

The silver-haired knight's entire body froze up, and eventually, she's unable to move.

Iyuna turns towards the knight and laughs. Her eyes turn from hazel to a light blue, with her pupils morphing into snowflakes.

"You actually think that you'd be able to control someone with this much power?"

Calina sports an ambiguous expression as her face starts to freeze solid.

The blizzard stops spurring as the entire room is covered in snow and ice.

Ryu and Mika are frozen solid with ice connecting them to the floor. Their faces are crying in grief and torment from the pain they suffered, being frozen to death.

Iyuna walks towards her father's corpse. His head laid on its side in a frozen cube of ice.

"Sorry… Papa.." Beads of ice wash from her eyes as she holds the cube near her chest.

—CRACK CRACK

Iyuna looks behind her. Calina's frozen corpse starts to crack as reminisces of ice fall to the ground.

Calina's lower arms shatter, and new limbs start to bulge from the holes in her arm.

Her face breaks from the ice as she takes a deep breath and flexes her arms.

"DAMMIT!" She exclaims as she starts to move the rest of her body. The ice covering her armored torso shatter and reveal the blackened and frostbite body beneath.

"The hell… Are you?!" Iyuna gets up from the ground and backs away in fear.

Her face, torso, and legs start to rejuvenate, restoring the color to her palish skin. Her armor starts to regenerate back in rays of light as her eyes shift towards the young girl.

Iyuna takes another step back, and she clenches her fist. "No… NO… NOO!"

She steps forward, and a large remnant of ice in the form of shards is cast from her feet.

Calina bends down and cuts her frozen legs off, jumping towards the side.

"How are you still alive?! You monster!" Shards of ice appear around Iyuna as they're hurled towards Calina's legless body.

She ducks and weaves, using her arms as the shards shatter behind her. Calina's new legs start to sprout from the gashes in her thighs.

Iyuna falls to the ground in shock as Calina stands on her feet with her armor regenerating onto her newly formed limbs.

"I know who you are… I remember a group of soldiers coming here after their nation was ravished… They talked about a woman with silver hair who never seemed to die… Like she was immortal."

Calina, fully healed of her frostbite and frozen body walks over to the paralyzed girl.

—CRACK

Along her way, she steps onto her comrade, shattering his head. She continues forward, undaunted towards the pieces of him lying on the ground.

She looms over the girl with eyes of hazel steel.

"…Phoenia's Silver Dagger…"

. . .