When Silan spoke words that were almost an admission, another battle, a thousand miles away, rang shut like a bell across cold mountains.

Unlike the earlier fireworks of magic blasting skywide, this clash flashed and vanished, like a smith’s hammer falling once and stealing all sparks.

There was no crowd to boo, no sea of faces, only silence like winter reeds; even the blood-red man’s gaze slid past them, watching another field.

So spectacle meant nothing, and the scale finally tipped; this brief crossing did what it was meant to do, like a blade choosing its winner.

Firefly was the first to make a sound, her breath thin as wind in reeds. “No… impossible…”

Plop—a piece of something fell, like fruit from a stormed tree, and her voice dragged on, muddy as a mouth forced into wet clay.

“This can’t… this…”

Disbelief flooded her tone like black tide, yet her severed halves spoke the truth, like a cracked bell refusing any tune but silence.

The Embryo—her pride, a piece of her master’s flesh, a shell she thought unbreakable—lay like a cut root, its faithless defense split clean.

A scream ripped loose and iced the air. “Aaaaaaaa—!”

Her perfect curves melted like wax under noon sun; skin and organs blistered into swollen bubbles, then burst, spattering thick blood like raining pulp.

But uglier than gore fit to make giants gag was the mortal wound, a spine snapped like a dry reed under winter boot.

In that thin, red-severed gap, a transparent flesh twitched like a hooked fish—that was Firefly’s true body, a blood-plasma slime, naked to the air.

It was a legend born only in corpse-seas and blood-rivers, a thing that must soak in death to live, now writhing like salt on a slug.

All of it came from one wrong choice, like a fox misreading the hunter’s quiet.

It wasn’t mere arrogance; before a true Embryo, a Time Domain plus an Extreme lightning affinity shouldn’t pierce, like rain on a stone roof.

Even if Mira shrugged off her curse for a breath, the threshold stood like an iron gate; Firefly could take a peak-era strike, unflinching.

Her confidence rested on one plank, thin as a bridge over fog: that Mira, once free, would only return to her imperial peak, nothing more.

This duel’s ending proved her wrong, like dawn cracking a painted night.

Tessmi’s Lament is one of the vilest curses alive, pure malice like black ice, cruel in both effect and strength.

Since Rockridge’s flute woke the sigil carved on Mira’s heart, her magic has been pressed down like bamboo under snow, affinity dropped from Extreme to High.

Every time she tried to break that ceiling, the curse crushed her, like a tide burying a sandcastle, severe and merciless in its weight.

Firefly missed that every suppression, like any force, pushes both ways, a hand on a spring that stores more heat the longer it’s held.

Tessmi’s Lament isn’t alone in growing against resistance; while it pressed, Mira trained like a river cutting rock, growing harder with each choking storm.

At first, the rise hid under the ice, a subtle swell; each inch gained drew harsher chains, yet the lake of magma swelled beneath the lid.

It sat sealed like a volcano in winter, waiting for one tremor; when it came, the lock split like rotten bark on a lightning-struck tree.

Firefly’s greatest mistake was not striking while she held clear sky; she toyed, rattled loose chains, and fed the quake that crushed her.

“This… not… possible…” She kept muttering shards like broken glass, unable to stitch sense from the ruin.

In that instant, the Embryo’s absorption threshold broke like a dam; legion-grade magic gathered to a point like a sun inside a pin.

It cut defense membrane and Embryo together, like knife through boiled hide, then drove high-voltage into her core, scrambling her mind like birds in a gale.

Instinct seized the reins; reason fell like leaves; simulated emotions burned to static in her wiring, and only raw fear remained like frost on bone.

Fear of power, like thunder over a hut. Fear of the unknown, like night without stars. Fear of the monster, like breath behind the door.

If someone can burst with magic beyond Extreme affinity, is the thing behind her still human, or something else, like a mask peeled off?

She couldn’t bear that cold, gnawing dread; she didn’t turn; she ripped open space like cloth and dove in, a rabbit bolting into bramble.

Had the blood-red man watched, he would’ve sighed like wind over old graves and murmured that fate plays rough hands.

Because if Firefly had waited one heartbeat more, she would’ve finished her first task, like a key turning the last click.

Almost the moment she vanished into the rift, two landing sounds fell, one after another, like stones skipping twice on black water.

Metal hit first, ringing hard as winter iron; flesh hit next, soft and wet, like meat falling into thick soup.

Mira’s sword clanged aside like a dropped bell, and she herself toppled face-first, into a shallow blood puddle like a dead moon.

Her cheek pressed the cold floor like ice on skin; the stench of iron flowed beneath her, sour as rain on rust.

Fine blood bubbles seeped from her mouth and eyes, like frogspawn in a ditch; blood caught her throat and forced coughs like broken engines.

She had reached her limit, a wall like sheer cliff.

Tessmi’s Lament could no longer suppress her Domain or affinity, yet this breakthrough came with a price, steep as mountain frost.

As a curse that grows stronger against force, it keeps an “insurance” like a trap under carpet; breaking its seal doesn’t mean freedom.

Everything lost on the soul side whips back on the body side a hundredfold, like a snapped bowstring slashing the archer’s cheek.

Pain, a thousand times worse than using the Time Domain before, swept Mira like wildfire, tearing her physically, like claws through silk.

To Mira, it no longer mattered, like rain on a drowning river.

Yes, it didn’t matter; numbness covered thought like ash.

More than her body’s pain, fear rose, colder than Firefly’s; it flooded her chest like night tide, heavier than iron.

Yes, her heart screamed like torn paper; that was never the problem; once, that pain meant comfort, like sharing a winter blanket with a ghost.

She imagined sharing the same pain with her sister; then any pain was fine, like nails on a prayer board, step by step.

It was penance, a road with no end, like a track vanishing into mist; that was fine; she would walk it, blood on stone.

If she suffered enough, one day, in a far future like a star beyond sight, she might clear the debt, grain by grain.

Then, at last, she could stay by Adelaide’s side openly, like sunlight crossing a threshold, no shadow left to hide.

—But you already killed her with your own hands.

Firefly’s mockery echoed through her skull like a bell in a tomb, the only sound her mind could still catch.

She was afraid her will was too thin, like paper in rain; afraid she’d believe that poison; afraid her penance had become impossible.

Before, she bore a debt that life couldn’t repay; now Firefly’s words claimed she’d lost even the chance to try, long ago, like a door sealed.

No, that bastard was lying, it had to be, like smoke telling truth; how could it be otherwise?

If that were true, it would prove she’d been laughably wrong, like a pilgrim bowing to a painted idol.

She had thought the outsider “Jiaqi” quietly changed her sister, let her inch closer like sparrows to a patient hand.

For that, aside from taboo’s reek like mold, she had felt a faint warmth toward that name, like a coal under ash.

Yet if Firefly spoke truth, the one who truly changed Adelaide, kept her from becoming Emperor Belior reborn in a breath, was something else.

It was the thing she’d thought hated her completely, like a shadow with teeth—her sister’s memory.

“Kh—khak—” The choking climbed again like smoke; Mira coughed up blood, and pain peaked like noon sun, blanking thought to white.

After that, how long passed? Time froze for her like ice in bone; she lay with half her face in blood, still as a drowned leaf.

Her body fused with the cold, damp floor like moss on stone; Tessmi’s Lament tore her limbs like wolves, and she breathed mud, silent.

Scarlet mire climbed like swamp water; she endured it wordlessly, suffocating, like a reed under tide, until hands flipped her and shook her.

“You… stuffed gourd!” The voice reached her like a rope across fog; her pupils tightened to light like shutters, focus slowly returning.

“Hey! Stuffed gourd—Mira! What’s going on? Who did this?” Varie shouted, her words sharp as thrown pebbles, panic bright in her eyes.

She was drenched in blood like a butcher’s apron; clothes hardened red; her lion’s-mane hair clumped into ugly strands like matted reeds.

It looked rough, but in every way it spelled good fortune, like smoke clearing to show blue.

Not far away, the giant heart that ran the Factory had stopped, still as a dead drum; a ragged split gaped like a lightning scar.

Its shriveled state showed it failed before ripping, like fruit dried on branch; Varie had freed all Nacha Tribe souls, and ended that vile scheme.

Mira felt only emptiness, hollow as a broken gourd; her head lolled to the side like a wilted flower.

“You—!” Varie saw Mira’s focus blur again, and panic cracked her voice like ice; she slapped her cheeks, two sharp smacks like snapped twigs.

“What happened? Hey, stay with me!” Her hands shook Mira’s shoulders, desperate as a storm-wracked sailor clinging to mast.

Mira didn’t move; Varie unraveled, palms cradling Mira’s face like a fragile bowl. “If you die here, how do I face your sister?”

“Look at me! Talk to me—no, forget me! You must want to tell your sister something, right? Tell me, I’ll carry it, like a letter.”

…Things… to tell… Sister?

That last string in Mira’s empty mind plucked like a zither; thought seeped back like dawn light, her pupils glimmering with a thin flame.

Varie, still frantic, scraped her memory for aid like a cat in a sack; seven-bleeding-orifices were beyond anything she knew to fix.

She shut her eyes and leaned in, mouth to Mira’s, chasing fairy-tale miracles like swallows chasing spring, but her lips met a firm hand.

“Move… aside.” Her voice rasped like sand; Varie’s eyes flew open, stunned, as Mira pushed her away like tide shoving driftwood.

“We… need to go back… now… she’s in… danger.” The words staggered out like a wounded runner, but their edge cut clean.

“Danger? What danger—wait! Oh Isylia above, what are you doing?” Varie gaped at Mira trying to stand, shock ripping through her like cold rain.

She lunged to stop the patient, hands out like nets; Mira pushed her again, stubborn as a tree in wind.

“Hey, you’re hurt this bad—”

“—Already—” She coughed, harsh as gravel. “Cough—cough!”

Mira choked mid-sentence and spat a mouthful of blood, a dark flower on her lips, yet she clenched her teeth and pushed on. "No time! We... must get back and warn them!"

"Warn them? Then tell me what to say. I’ll warn them, while you lie still and heal like a stone under moss."

"No... I must... see her." Her voice thinned like a fraying thread, a candle guttering in wind.

Mira snatched up her sword, swaying like a reed in a river wind; Varie’s jaw dropped like a loosened latch.

Seeing this one wouldn’t yield, Varie clawed her hair like brambles, then sprang ahead to block her, quick as a sparrow’s shadow.

"You two sisters are the wildest pair I’ve seen in my life, a twin storm across one sky. Fine, I give!"

She spun, crouched with her back to Mira like a sure-footed mule; Mira blinked, stunned, and Varie barked like a clap of thunder.

"What are you standing around for? Planning to take years on those legs to reach the Elf capital? I’ll carry you to her. Get on!"