[Amid a metallic downpour, her perception pierces a sniper scope three kilometers away,]
Lin Yao’s fingertips brushed the silver-tier armor over her chest. Beneath its plates, the crystal core throbbed like a living thing.
It was her third year as an armored warrior, and the first time she had encountered the legendary “Iceblade War God” on a mission.
Frost encrusted Su Chen’s armor. Wherever his blade flashed, the ability users trying to seize the crystal core shattered into ice before they could even scream.
She had thought this reaper would treat her like the other teammates and skewer her wrist with an icicle for approaching without permission. Instead, he suddenly paused, and a faint blue light glimmered from the armor’s core.
“Can your perception predict the trajectory of an attack?” His voice was colder than his blade, but his fingertip landed precisely on the weakest joint in her armor. “Next time, this is where they’ll cut through.”
After that night, golden-tier armor blossomed with patterns never seen before beneath her hands, while the War God’s armor core began adjusting its parameters for her of its own accord.
Her teammates glared and accused her of “pulling strings,” but none of them saw him shelter her inside his armor on a stormy night when she was gravely wounded. His warmth seeped through the gaps in the plates, making her ears burn red. “Lin Yao, you should see yourself when you fight. You shine brighter than the crystal core.”
It wasn’t until an old, bloodstained pocket watch fell from a hidden compartment in his armor, revealing a photo of a baby with a crescent-shaped birthmark on her neck that matched the red mole on the back of hers perfectly; it wasn’t until a traitor’s poisoned dagger came for her back and his ice blade moved faster than
