On the northern side of Stellar, the dungeon entrance pulsed violently, then tore open with a jagged shriek of magic.

  From the rift, a massive silhouette unfurled, jagged wings spread wide, obsidian scales gleaming in the light, eyes glowing with a molten, feral heat.

  Frostina’s eyes widened.

  The exhaustion that clung to her bones didn’t matter.

  She saw the danger immediately.

  Iori was a knight. Strong, but grounded. She had no spells for aerial mobility. If this wyvern decided to ascend and rain hellfire down from the sky, the town would burn. No sword could reach it. No arrow would pierce it.

  Unlike Yuki and Glacia, who had learned Ice Step, no one here could ascend.

  No one… except Frostina.

  But her body screamed in protest. It hadn’t been ten minutes since she last sat down to rest. She was still aching, still drained.

  And yet…

  The wyvern’s scream tore through the air like a shockwave. Dirt flew, ears rang, and players were thrown back across the field, scattering like leaves before a hurricane.

  Frostina gritted her teeth and shouted for the first time.

  “Attack its wings! Don’t let it fly!”

  Even as her voice trembled, it cut through the air like a whip.

  The players, still dazed, didn’t hesitate. Not after what they’d seen her do earlier.

  All of them rushed forward.

  All but one.

  FireFlame, slumped on the ground, glared blankly at the leaderboard before him. His name there hadn’t moved.

  As the roar’s force faded, the others surged toward the wyvern. Frostina ran too, though her steps faltered.

  Her legs felt like stone. Her vision swam. A sharp, splitting pain stabbed through her skull, but she didn’t stop.

  If she could make a single hole, just one, it might ground the wyvern. and Iori would handle the rest.

  She veered toward its left side, cutting through the chaos. Her speed slowed. Her breath caught. Her stamina was nearly gone.

  The wyvern, unbothered, stomped forward, its wings spreading wider. It began to flap.

  The tanks reached it first, throwing themselves into its path. Spells struck its limbs. Swords carved glowing trails through the air as they slashed at the right wing.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  The wyvern’s scales were too thick… and the players’ damages were too low.

  With a furious shriek, the wyvern launched into the sky.

  “No—!”

  Frostina leapt forward without thinking.

  She grabbed the edge of its left wing as it rose, her fingers digging into the armored membrane.

  But she couldn’t concentrate. Her vision swam. The spell wouldn’t come.

  The wings beat with gale-force strength. Frostina’s body jerked and swayed in the air, still clinging stubbornly to the beast.

  Then… It threw her.

  With one massive flap, the wyvern tossed her into the sky like a ragdoll.

  Cryssa, silent until now, soared after her in panic.

  (“Kyaaaaaa!!!”)

  Wind screamed in Frostina’s ears as her body spiraled upward.

  She groaned as the pressure pushed against her chest, her back, her skull.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Ugh…!”

  She tumbled higher, above the wyvern, as it angled toward the town, preparing its breath.

  From that height, she could see the entire field below her… and the town in the distance.

  The wyvern was rising.

  As gravity claimed her, she flipped open her tome with trembling fingers, her other hand stretched downward.

  The cover pulsed with power. A frost rune blazed on its surface.

  “O icy winds, howl through my soul, freezing all in thy cold control—”

  Frostina’s incantation was barely audible, a whisper of effort against the wind.

  But the spell answered.

  She poured every last shred of mana into her outstretched palm.

  Her vision dimmed.

  Her limbs trembled violently.

  And still, she forced more.

  She ripped mana from the air, pulling it into her body, even as it scorched her veins.

  “Arrghh—!”

  Pain exploded in her skull like lightning.

  But she didn’t stop.

  The moment her falling body aligned above the wyvern’s head, she cast it.

  “Frost Sentence—”

  The tome surged with icy light. Not just the cover, but the entire book glowed, alive with chilling energy.

  “Cryo… Requiem!”

  Her palm slammed into the wyvern’s skull.

  At first, it barely worked.

  Only thin threads of frost crawled across the surface of its armored head.

  Frostina’s lips quivered.

  But then… the spell shifted.

  The tome pulsed once. The Frost Sentence activated.

  Then—

  The mana detonated inward.

  A blast of cold light erupted from the pages like a nova of frost. Glowing runes spiraled outward in a whirlwind of icy glyphs, spinning around her arm, her palm, her entire body. The air warped with pressure. Wind howled like screaming spirits caught in a blizzard.

  From the contact point on the wyvern’s head, a spike of frost lanced inward, then split like lightning through glass.

  The wyvern’s eyes went wide. Its roar choked in its throat.

  A bloom of crystal spread through its skull. Frozen threads tracing the exact structure of nerves, bone, and sinew.

  Its brain turned to frost.

  Its teeth, to glass.

  Every nerve in its skull iced over with microscopic detail, like frost etching over a mirror.

  The spell not just freezing it, but preserving it in perfect, deathly detail.

  The rest of the body remained untouched, but that was all she needed.

  The wyvern’s wings stopped.

  Its breath died in its throat.

  And the entire beast plummeted.

  It crashed to the earth, its frozen skull skidding across the ground until—

  It stopped inches from FireFlame, who still sat dazed on the dirt.

  Frostina’s body struck the frozen head and tumbling forward, until, by sheer luck or fate, she slid into a seated position atop the wyvern’s snout.

  Her head lolled forward, hair falling across her face like a curtain of shadows.

  Her dark eyes blinked slowly.

  And then… she looked down.

  Right at FireFlame.

  He hadn’t moved.

  Still sprawled on the dirt, half-covered in dust and disbelief, eyes locked on the thing before him.

  The wyvern’s frozen head loomed like a monument to humiliation, its jagged maw halted inches from his face, every tooth glazed in ice.

  A lone girl perched at the very top of that frozen snout, like a queen on her icy throne.

  Frostina.

  Her hood had fallen back during the blast, and now her black hair spilled out, tousled, frost-kissed, and drifting in the cold breeze. The glow from her tome still shimmered faintly at her side. Her breath fogged the air as silence blanketed the battlefield.

  She met his crimson eyes.

  His mouth gaped in shock.

  Then, she tilted her head slightly.

  Then, slowly and deliberately, she crossed one leg over the other. Her robe draped down the wyvern’s snout like a royal train of snow. Her lips curled into a smirk, as if she found the situation genuinely amusing.

  With a single thought, she revealed her player ID above her head in a crisp white text as if announcing her debut to the world:

  [Frostina]

  She opened her tome, not to cast, not to read. Just to rest her chin on it like a fan.

  Her dark eyes never left his eyes.

  And in a tone too calm for how close she was to collapsing, she muttered,

  “Amateur.”

  Frostina’s voice was dry, cold, and effortlessly dismissive.

  But even so, she might hear FireFlame twitching in the real world, veins popping somewhere inside a high-end capsule bed.

  But before he could snap back, a system chime interrupted them.

  ? WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT! ?

  ? The first global event has ended. ?

  ? Server maintenance will begin shortly and last for three days. ?

  ? Players will be unable to log in during this period. ?

  ? Event rewards will be delivered after maintenance concludes. ?

  ? Please check the official site for upcoming updates. ?

  Then, another window appeared before every player except Frostina:

  ? FORCED LOGOUT ?

  ? GAME IN MAINTENANCE ?

  A heartbeat later, system light enveloped the battlefield.

  One by one, players flickered into particles, logging out like stars blinking from the sky. All the noise, all the tension, faded into silence.

  And then—

  “Miss Frostina! Lady Cryssa!”

  A voice rang out, sharp with urgency, but tinged with relief.

  Iori.

  She leapt down from the wall and dashed across the frost-bitten earth. But just before she reached them, Cryssa’s ghostly form began to flicker.

  She could no longer hold it.

  Without a word, she shimmered softly and slipped back into Frostina’s body.

  Frostina sat for a moment longer.

  Then she turned her head, slowly, toward Iori.

  “Carry me,” she said flatly. “I’m tired.”

  Before Iori could even respond, Frostina let go, her body tipping forward, sliding off the wyvern’s frozen snout with all the grace of someone who had run out of every last drop of energy.

  “Miss Frostina!”

  Iori lunged and caught her mid-fall. For a heartbeat, panic flared.

  But when she looked down and saw Frostina’s face, her panic vanished.

  Frostina’s eyes closed, breath steady.

  She was already asleep.

  Peacefully, utterly asleep.

  Hair tousled, cheeks dusted with frost, her breathing soft and even.

  She was exhausted, but safe.

  Iori smiled softly and shifted her grip, holding Frostina close.

  “…Thanks for your hard work.”

  The wind stirred gently across the field, brushing frost-kissed grass and shattered ice. The sun broke through a thinning veil of mist, casting light across the battlefield, revealing the full scope of what had just occurred.

  And beneath the frozen crown of a fallen beast, the battlefield finally rested, as the name [Frostina] burned into memory.

  News would spread. Screenshots, clips, and replays from dozens of player feeds would circulate like wildfire. Her name would ignite message boards, explode across social channels, and headline every major update.

  The popularity of Dream Land Online skyrocketed overnight.

  And in the wake of frost, a legend took her first step into the history of the world.

  Frostina.

  The Frozen Queen.

  individual chapters, so I’ve enabled it for the currently locked chapters there for both of my novels.