After a silence that felt bottomless, noise returned to the empty village like a swarm bursting from a cracked jar.

A bolt of lightning scratched the night, and the neighboring houses split down the spine, collapsing in a sandstorm that smeared sight to near zero.

"Cough—cough—"

Kabos’s bird‑beak mask had been knocked off, and he choked on ash like a fish flopping on dry sand.

A hand clamped his mouth before he could hack twice, a shadow pressing down like a palm of night.

Mira broke the dust like a ghost surfacing, her voice kept low like water under stone. "Go back to the convoy." "Pull out from the gorge now." "Whatever happens, don’t come back."

She eased her palm only after Kabos nodded, his fear fluttering like a moth in a jar.

His voice wavered like a frayed thread. "I… I got it, but your companion…"

Mira’s hand tightened for a breath like a fist around lightning.

Her resolve shone like cold steel. "Tell her I’ve left this place. We’ll link up outside."

Kabos’s protest snapped in half by a scream nearby, sharp as a blade scraping bone.

Mira bit her lower lip, shoved him aside, and spun a cut that tore the air like deep‑blue thunder ripping a curtain of sand.

It met the lunging spinal tendril, and the clash shrieked like teeth on slate.

"Go!" Her shout cracked like a whip in dust.

Kabos scrambled backward, rolling and crawling like a beetle under hail.

Three more vertebra‑like tendrils hissed toward him like thrown spears.

A streak of the same electric blue flashed, slicing two like stalks in rain.

The last slammed into Mira’s earth‑aspected shield, forcing her back step by step, leaving spider‑cracks like frost on stone.

Before she could breathe, a sultry laugh swam from the smoke like perfume in heat.

The haze beside Kabos split, and a fourth spine darted for his bare flank like a viper. "Aagh—!"

Ka‑thunk! Another dull impact scattered sand like spilled rice.

Kabos screamed, rolled, and scrambled upright like a rag tossed by wind.

The spine had ricocheted off Mira’s shield, but it dragged a red line through air like a comet’s tail.

Bright blood spattered the sand, vermilion slashing the dried umber, and a lazy yawn floated from the smoke like a cat stretching.

"Huaa~ I let the toy slip by without meaning to—what a dampener on the mood." Her words stretched like silk over steel.

A breathtaking half‑naked woman stepped from the smoke, gaze bored as moonlight on water, watching the man now beyond her reach.

Beyond Mira, Kabos was the vanguard’s last survivor, yet the woman’s calm hung loose like a shawl; she simply reeled back her spinal spikes.

The blood‑wet tip lifted, and she dabbed the fresh red, her irises unfurling like petals as she looked at Mira clutching her left arm.

She slid out a pink tongue and, with the most sultry, most taunting grace, licked Mira’s blood from her fingers like honey.

"So sweet," she breathed, a moan slipping out like heat from a kiln.

"Enough—who are you?" Mira demanded, her words stiff as a drawn bow.

"Who am I? That’s a poor question," the woman clicked her tongue, wagging a finger like a metronome.

"I could be Firefly, a desert dancer shimmering like heat."

"I could be Tatari, a meek big ginger cat; a crocodile named Sanmi; an elephant of Kuriku; a nameless charred self‑immolator."

"Whatever my master needs, I become, like a mask fitted to a face—surely that’s not the answer you wanted?"

Watching Mira hold her blade the whole time, Firefly tapped her lip, thinking like a cat before a pounce.

"‘Who are you’ is defined by ties between people, and you and I…"

"Ah, I’ve got it!" Her eyes lit like lanterns, joy blooming like spring.

She looked toward the convoy and beamed. "I’m your sister’s rival in love~"

Her voice wove like perfume over thorns.

Of course—she was hunting Adelaide, like a hawk sighting a swan.

Mira gripped her sword tighter, chains of lightning skittering along the blade like startled eels.

Seeing Mira gather storm, Firefly pouted, bored as a cat by an empty bowl.

"Honestly, you ask me a question, I answer, then you clam up—how dull." Her sigh flowed like wind over dunes.

She shook her head, then smiled like a crescent moon.

"Fine, if you won’t chat about me, let’s chat about you."

"Mira Isabella Belior: the God of Magic’s darling, the backstabber who kidnapped her foster sister."

"The Empire’s people call you the strongest, a laurel like iron on your brow."

She covered her mouth, laughter bubbling like wine. "In Sarman, few champions walk under the sun."

"Since you lost the Time Domain, and Tessmi’s Lament pressed your lightning gift down a rank, that title sits loose on you."

Mira’s pupils wavered for a heartbeat, emotions boiling like water in a sealed kettle.

Her voice came low like thunder behind hills. "Where did you learn that?"

"Another dull question," she sighed, voice lazily coiling like smoke.

"Life’s short; forget old tea—let’s sip what’s hot now."

She toyed with a finger, and the spinal tendril linked to her tailbone creaked, inching toward Mira like a centipede.

"Here’s what puzzles me—things are this lopsided, yet you still won’t call that dear sister to help?"

As she spread the ring, her smile curved dangerous, like a sickle catching moonlight.

"Are you that worried about the counterfeit’s safety?"

Her words pricked like thorns.

At the last syllable, lightning kissed hardened bone, snapping like ice. Mira deflected by a hair.

She couldn’t stop it from snipping the band at her temple like scissors through silk.

Even at night, her gold hair spilled down her shoulders like sunlight poured from a jar, but her stare burned brighter.

Mira locked on Firefly with beast‑bright teal eyes, a warning like a growl at a gate.

Her voice cut like a blade through cloth. "Shut up."

Her chuckle fizzed like wine. "Oh my, why so sudden?" "Hehe, hit a nerve, did I?"

Mira answered with thick serpents of lightning that shredded the nearest tips like bark, then coiled the vertebrae to pin escape.

Her sword fell in the next heartbeat, a guillotine of light, toward Firefly.

Firefly’s smile didn’t stir; she swept up a transparent curtain of blood and stopped the blow like glass.

"You know it," she murmured, words soft like rain.

"Every time she burned with fever, you kept vigil at her bed like a lamp in fog."

"You heard tongues not of this world, words like falling stars."

"Shut up! That was just fever babble!" she snapped, heat flushing her cheeks like wildfire.

Her sword’s charge hit the limit, humming like a hive, but couldn’t pierce the gossamer blood veil, while Firefly toyed with her fingers.

"Oh? If that’s ‘babble,’ how did you know that a flawless noble lady, untouched by common spices, actually craves chili?"

Her voice curved like a hook under skin.

Firefly’s smile widened, and a blood‑red shadow floated at her side like a banner of joy.

"When you first saw her savoring a spicy meat pie, your heart must’ve cracked like ice on a river, right, Princess Belior~"

The blood veil detonated like a burst chrysalis.

Mira threw up lightning as a cloak, yet the blast hurled her ten meters, rolling twice before her sword bit earth.

Seeing her sprawled and scuffed, Firefly laughed again, spring water over stones.

"Forgive me; perhaps I shouldn’t be so blunt." Her tone glossed like oil over fire.

"That way, when you’re weeping over her corpse later, you can still tell yourself she’s really your sister~"

Her words fell cold as night rain.

Mira panted, blood filaments veining her eyes like cracks in glass.

She clenched her hilt and drew a deep breath, pulling calm like a net over a storm.

One… two… Her mind steadied like a rock under waves.

Calm… don’t listen; it’s only a heart‑snaring trick.

Like a hook baited with red.

"Oh? Ignoring me?" Firefly shrugged, shoulders rolling like waves.

"Meh, I don’t mind; talk when you feel like it."

"We’ve got a little time together, while we wait for your ‘sister’ to come die like a moth to flame."

Mira forced words through her teeth like pebbles.

"She won’t come."

Firefly tilted her head like a bird listening.

"I don’t take Adelaide for that cold‑blooded."

"Besides…" she purred, the word curling like smoke.

A finger‑snap cracked the air, and a quake surged from the ground like a drum.

Mira looked up, startled, and met Firefly’s teasing eyes, bright as foxfire.

"She may not have a choice."

"Like a bird caught in a snare."