“Embryo?”

Not some exotic word like “ozone.” Firefly said it clean and bright, with no veil, voice steady with absolute confidence, like a blade laid on the table.

Mira felt the chill before the move. She knew what the word pointed to; this wasn’t her first time facing that kind of attack.

—Weeping Matis.

A legion-class spell she could never scrub from memory. It lingered like storm-scent in rain, not just because it cracked her and her sister open to honesty, but because it devoured and assimilated everything like a red tide.

Now she was one hundred percent sure. The tender, pink, flesh-like layer that ate her rapier was the same legion-class Blood Magic as that giant embryo that flattened a village.

For Mira, a fighter who lived in grapples and breath-distance, that layer was bad news. She still had her original meteoric-iron sabre, but hauling it against a “shield” that melts even Nacha-forged steel was suicide. The lightning she hastily called met the same fate—swallowed clean, no ash, no scar, like sparks drowned in deep water.

So, same as the desert village: if she didn’t unleash enough power in one breath, she couldn’t touch the core. But how? Her main force, Varie, was still locked in the heart pulsing behind her, like a caged star.

She bit back panic and tried to think. Nothing came. She could only fight as she fell back, a leaf in a crosswind, slipping into a passive rhythm.

“Heehee, what’s wrong, what’s wrong? Is that ‘all you’ve got’?” Firefly’s eyes were wide and guileless, like a child by a bonfire, yet every word was a knife. “I’m not even guarding. Why don’t you use that long, sharp sword and whoosh—run me through?”

Mira slid past a vertebral spike with a flash-step, lips clamped shut. She wouldn’t bite at trash talk. Worse, even if she did, she couldn’t refute it. Firefly’s near-naked body really was open like a gate, her defense a blank—because that layer defended for her.

Chasing like a suicide run, yet the pink flesh made it predatory. Firefly didn’t need to split focus for defense. Mira did. Every attempt to open space failed. Twice, three times, her arm nearly fell into that hungry sheen, the way fish fall into a whirlpool.

This time, Weeping Matis was housed inside Firefly’s body. It hadn’t shown that eerie pull—yet. That wasn’t comforting. It made the tangle harder, not easier.

Back in the desert village, the embryo was a fixed target, a boulder you could test your blade against. Firefly was a moving mark, small as a shadow, fast as heat shimmer. To break that layer, Mira had to focus all her mana into one point and pierce in a single instant, under needle-cruel conditions.

In one sense, Weeping Matis was offense and defense braided together, one of the strongest Blood Magics. The snag? Her sister—the strongest human Blood Mage alive—didn’t know how to cast it. So how did Firefly get the rite?

More pressing: why had her sister asked about this spell’s tie to the Nuhaman clan?

She cut five, six incoming spinal spikes in a breath, bones clacking like wind-chimes. She earned a gasp of air. Adelaide’s oddness after the battle at the Magma Forge flickered through her mind, a spark that dragged her gaze. In that heartbeat, the floor vanished under her feet.

She hadn’t beat gravity. The pull roared behind her like a black hole opening. Blood on the tiles and bone chips lifted and spun, a vortex forming with Firefly at its center, like a desert dust devil made of marrow and iron scent.

Mira knew she’d misread it. Firefly could use the pull. She’d only been hiding that string. The mistake was fatal. Before Mira could spike her blade into the floor to anchor, she lost balance. No leverage. She was dragged like a caught kite straight toward Firefly.

At this rate, she’d end the same as her rapier—consumed, erased. She bit down hard. Midair, she cast an arc that hooked a huge bone slab also sinking into the gravity swirl. She yanked it toward herself, curled tight, and at a hair’s breadth from Firefly, slammed her ribs into the slab’s side like a falling hawk glancing off a cliff.

The pull died in the next instant. Blood, joints, and marrow fat burst outward, splashing like water freed from its glass, raining red and white.

Firefly blinked, lifted her arm, and watched bits of Mira’s torn cloth melt into her skin, like ash drawn into lava. A small, surprised smile touched her mouth.

“Oh? Quick reflexes, huh?”

She tilted her head and threw a meaningless thumbs-up at Mira, who stood farther off, mouth bloodied, clothes shredded, a sleeve gone, breath ragged like wind through broken reeds.

At the last moment, Mira had ridden the slab’s momentum and knocked herself off line, barely diverting from a direct plunge into Firefly. But the slab’s spikes had ripped her clothes. One spike drove straight into her abdomen, cold as winter iron.

No time to check for organ damage. She swallowed the copper taste. One hand snapped the spike and tugged it free. A jolt of current cauterized the wound, smoke thin as incense rising. Her other hand kept her blade high, guard tight, ready to defend or stab the floor for anchor.

Firefly’s second ambush failed. She didn’t hurry. She only sneered, words sweet and sour.

“Master was right. Your combat intuition’s not bad.” She said it like a drunk praise, then tapped the pink flesh showing under her skin, eyes half-lidded. “Too bad. This isn’t the ‘clone’ counterfeit from before. It’s a true piece of our Master. Absurdly perfect, isn’t it? Like Master themself.”

“‘Clone’…?”

Another word that felt wrong in her bones. Mira’s brow folded deep. She’d been soaking in new tongues and cultures for weeks, yet words from Firefly’s mouth brewed a heavy dread, like her body rejected them on instinct.

She couldn’t stop herself. “You—and this ‘Master’—who are you?”

“Ah, Your Highness finally asks the right thing!” Firefly clapped, delight bright as sparks. “Let me lift the veil for you. First—remember our first meeting? I told you what defines ties between people.”

“…Relations.”

“Exactly. Relations! I’m your sister’s rival in love, and you, Princess—you’re our Master’s rival in love.”

Mira stalled for half a heartbeat. Firefly clicked her tongue twice and went on. “And you and I—though it pains me to admit it—are tragic comrades in heartbreak.”

Comrades in heartbreak…? What was she saying? No—more urgent was what she’d just—

“Your target is Adelaide, isn’t it!”

Mira’s voice was a blade. Firefly waved, airy as smoke. “Honestly, why so worked up? You already guessed that—”

A blinding thunderflash shredded her words. Ball lightning bloomed like a shell burst and ate her whole. When the smoke peeled, Firefly still stood there, dusting the air with a lazy hand, pity softening her eyes.

“Such a temper. Well, I get it. As I’m besotted with Master, you’re besotted with your ‘sister.’ We both chose loves that can never be.”

“Shut up!”

Mira flashed to her flank. Firefly just reached out and closed her hand around Mira’s sabre, fingers like a vice of silk and bone.

“You’re loud. But your blade slowed, didn’t it?”

She looked at the trembling edge—and the trembling source. Mira’s pulse buzzed in her grip like a trapped sparrow.

“Hahahaha—what’s wrong? Did naming your heart make you sway?”

Firefly laughed, bright and cruel. A spinal spear sprouted from her back, slick and alive. Mira, who should’ve slipped it easily, stumbled just as Firefly said. One misstep opened a seam. The spear drilled her chest and sent her flying, like a hammer to a bell.

She hit hard. The shock crushed the air from her lungs. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, world dimming at the edges like dusk.

Firefly skipped to her side, steps light as dance. She set one foot on Mira as she tried to rise, pinning her like a butterfly.

“Aw, poor Princess. You look so pitiful. It breaks my heart.”

She didn’t finish her with Weeping Matis. She smiled, pleased, savoring the moment like sweet wine.

“See? Our pain comes from the same woman who should’ve died. Tell me—if Adelaide had obediently let you stab her with those shears, wouldn’t all our problems be solved?”

“Shut up! You don’t get to speak that name!”

Firefly shook her head at Mira’s fury, like a teacher at a stubborn child. “Still lost in the dream. I warned you last time…”

Her smile sharpened, mischief bright as a blade. Mira’s already-chaotic mind blared alarms. That old dread crested like a storm swell.

“Then, as comrades in heartbreak, let me tell you something that will soothe you. A little secret about your sister.”

Mira tried to cover her ears. Spinal tendrils locked her arms like iron vines. She could only watch Firefly’s mouth shape the words of her deepest nightmare.

“You know, you already—by your own hand—killed your sister.”