"Everyone, run toward the stairs right now. There is another Awakener on the roof who will get you all to safety," Jerry ordered, drawing two desert eagles from his waist. "I will hold them back."

The survivors nodded before rushing into the mall through the broken wall. Meanwhile, the trolls entered the coffee shop, shattering the glass door without any resistance, as though it had never existed at all.

"Jerry! What do you think you are doing?" Tom’s sharp voice crackled through the earpiece. "You need to run as well. You can’t beat those monst—"

Beep.

Jerry crushed the earpiece and murmured, "I’m sorry, Tom. If I turn back now, these monsters are going to catch all of us."

He turned his gaze to the incoming trolls and muttered, reloading his guns, "Let me show you what happens when you mess with a human."

With a sudden jolt, he raised both arms straight out and fired a rapid series of bullets in the blink of an eye. Each round leaving the muzzle blazed with a bright glow, a comet-like energy wreathing them as they flew.

The bullets struck the trolls directly in the eyes, each one landing with a thunderous explosion. Their massive jaws opened in wet snarls, producing sounds closer to dying beasts than anything human. Grey blood seeped from their eyes as they began hurling the chairs and tables of the restaurant in all directions.

"There! They are blind now," Jerry exclaimed, clenching his fists. "I can leave n—"

Just as he turned to go, the massive service counter came flying toward him.

There was no time to dodge. Just as the impact was about to hit, a hand seized him by the head and wrenched him to the floor. The counter crashed into the wall behind where he had been standing, punching clean through it.

"How many times do I have to tell you to study your monsters carefully," Tom muttered, having appeared beside him. "Trolls have insane regeneration."

Jerry ignored the obvious lesson and demanded, "What are you doing here? You should have taken the survivors out!"

"Ha! You think I would let you have all the glory?"

Jerry released a long sigh of defeat before turning his attention back to the trolls. All three had already fully healed.

"Seriously, how are we even going to defeat them," Jerry muttered, reloading his guns.

"Let’s figure that out after defeating them," Tom replied with a smirk, unsheathing his sword.

As before, Jerry targeted their eyes with his bullets while Tom engaged at close range, going after their joints.

After several seconds of relentless strikes, Tom shouted, "We need to run no—"

Before he could finish, a massive fist, half the width of his torso, came swinging toward him. Knowing he could not dodge in time, he drove his blade forward to intercept.

Crack.

The blade snapped in two, and the fist connected with him head-on. His body went airborne, slamming into Jerry, and the two of them were sent tumbling through the broken wall and back into the mall.

The trolls loomed over them with mocking smirks, vapour curling from their wounds as they healed right before their eyes.

"Je-Jerry... y-you need to run," Tom muttered, pulling off his gauntlet, handing it to Jerry.

"I will nev—"

"Listen to your superior for once!" Tom shouted, coughing up blood. "M-my stomach is already destroyed. Get the survivors out while I keep them busy."

Before Jerry could even move, the troll at the centre lunged forward at terrifying speed, its massive fist hurtling toward them, breaking the sound barrier around it.

Jerry slowly closed his eyes, completely resigned.

"So this is how it ends," he murmured.

In the split second before the fist could connect, the surrounding temperature dropped at an abnormal rate. The air turned biting and sharp, and snowflakes began drifting down inside the mall as a low, melodious voice echoed through the silence,

"Sword of Snowbane: Chapter One.

Gentle Touch."

When Jerry opened his eyes, the troll before him had been turned into a statue of ice. The frost spread across every inch of its massive frame, locking it mid-swing, its expression of savage fury preserved beneath a crystalline shell. Behind it stood a breathtaking, ethereal woman with snow-white hair, dressed in a long silken white robe of loose sleeves, her skin shining even brighter than the moon hanging in the sky.

With an elegant movement of her hand, she slid the sword back into its sheath. A soft click echoed through the mall as the hilt met the scabbard. At the same moment, the frozen statue behind her crumbled to the floor, shattering into countless pieces.

"A-an angel," Jerry murmured, unable to tear his eyes away from the Snow Goddess, Nymeria.

"Tch, now I understand why Taranis became so perverted," Nymeria muttered, fixing a sharp glare on Jerry. "Men here wouldn’t stop staring even when they are on the verge of death."

Jerry’s breath hitched under Nymeria’s piercing stare. Yet instead of fear, a strange and entirely different feeling stirred somewhere inside his chest.

Nymeria paid him no further attention, turning her focus to the remaining two trolls.

From her presence alone, the primal instincts of both trolls activated. Something deep within them recognised that the figure standing before them outclassed them in every conceivable way. Their earlier smirks dissolved, and a rare expression of genuine fear carved itself across their faces.

Without even realising it, their bodies pivoted and they turned to flee. But before either of them could take a single step, Nymeria unsheathed her sword and swept it in one clean horizontal arc.

A thin white line appeared across the neck of each troll as they ran. After a couple of strides, their bodies pitched forward and their heads rolled across the floor. No blood spilled from either the bodies or the severed heads, every cut sealed completely in ice.

"Tch, I have wasted far too much time here," Nymeria muttered, sheathing her sword. "I need to find Taranis quickly."

With that, she took a single step forward and vanished, leaving behind a swirl of drifting snowflakes that slowly dissolved into the air.

"Tom," Jerry murmured, completely bewildered, his cheeks flushed red. "I think I have fallen in love again."

"Y-you bastard, I’m dy-dying here..." Tom snarled between coughs of blood. "T-take me out of here."