Everyone could see it. Mira’s face was wrong—cheeks blue-gray like storm-wet slate, lips pale as winter ash. She looked worse, in every sense, than Silan hollowed by mana loss.

Even so, she didn’t hesitate. She got the anomaly’s coordinates from the Type-59 tank like a message in thunder. Then she became lightning, a streak that ripped a canyon through the Chaos Spawn tide. She didn’t wait for an answer, like a hawk that never circles.

Gains and losses no longer mattered. Hos met Tela’s eyes, a spark across a blade. They climbed the ladder and squeezed into the Type-59’s cramped hatch. The tank cut its self-check short; the side gate unlocked with a sharp clack.

[Module Three: Breach Mode—Engaged.]

Fan-shaped panels bloomed from both flanks, like iron petals. No blinding arcs or bombs followed, only a deep hum like a beehive of engines. Far off, Chaos Spawn as tall as hills swelled with bulbous lumps, like boils under an invisible sun. Ultrahigh-frequency microwaves pumped them full; seconds later they burst from within like overfilled jelly. Blood rained down in sheets, a red monsoon across torn earth.

Watching monsters torn by lightning and microwave cannon, Silan’s last haze burned away. She clenched her fists; her sleeve swept, and scarlet flame fell like a storm of red leaves. It devoured the burst remains to ash, and she chased Mira’s thunderfoot steps.

One Elf First Generation with Moonforged Miracle’s fire might not pierce deep, like a lone spear in a shield wall. Add Mira at the tip—speed like a thunderbolt, trail a lightning-scorched wasteland—and the outcome changed. They became a makeshift strike team, three peak blades from two allied races. They punched through the Chaos Spawn’s ragged line, like a battering ram through rotten wood. In minutes that crawled like years, they slew uncounted foes. They gnawed a kilometer of no-man’s land out of a sea of bodies.

At the end of that corridor, the core of the anomalous Blood Magic signal revealed itself, quiet as a heart in fog. From afar it was almost a perfect sphere, a few meters across, like a polished seed in a swarm. Small against the mountain-sized Spawn, it looked fragile, a kernel of popcorn before the flame.

As Mira and Silan neared, a Chaos Spawn yawned a bloody maw, jawed like insect and beast. It snapped at the sphere with predatory force, like a trap closing. Silan went cold, heart dropping like a stone into dark water. But the worst she imagined didn’t happen, like thunder that never breaks.

The jaws clamped down, but only clamped, like a vise on glass. The sharp mouthparts touched the blood-red surface and blackened, crumbling like iron in acid. The red liquid didn’t ripple; it held a perfect curve, calm as a full moon.

Silan froze for a beat, thoughts scattered like leaves. The attacker died the next heartbeat, cut to scraps by lightning from the tip of Mira’s blade. The scene, and the sweet scent in the air, told Silan exactly what this was, as if whispered by smoke.

Put kindly, it was a top-tier Blood Magic defensive array, strong enough to withstand the Chaos pressure of a Void Rift’s birth. Put bluntly, it was proof of an unknown massacre, a ledger written in blood. To build such strength with Blood Magic, you need corpses by the tens of thousands as the base, like stones for a dam. And that number has no ceiling, depending on the method, like a pit without a bottom. The chance to gather so many dead, and this drifting sweetness, pointed her to one thought like a compass.

No—now wasn’t the time to chase it; the point was what’s inside, or who. Her heartbeat surged like drums; she rushed closer in a breath. She wasn’t alone in that urgency; Mira blinked in after clearing the Spawn, and traced a violet-blue arc in the air.

“Wait, if the Spawn couldn’t crack that shield for so long, our blows likely won’t—”

Her warning cut short as Mira’s blade cut the air. The strike bit, counter to reason, and split the blood-red liquid with a single stroke, like silk to a sharp edge.

“You—”

Silan’s eyes widened, then caught the wrongness; the shield didn’t shatter, it melted. It dissolved along the cut, like frost under sun, as if a condition had been met and a lock undone. But why? Was it the Nuhaman bloodline in the human girl beside her, hair the same shade as Ayu’s, like twin threads? Why set that as a release—questions whirled, a flock of birds. As the barrier fell away, revealing what it cradled, everything else went quiet.

In that instant, some hearts leaped; some sank like lead.

“Bingxia!”

Silan cried the name, and the sight gave her more than joy. “Ayu, Lanse, little sis Qifeng—you… you’re all here!” She stepped twice and caught Bingxia, falling from midair like a petal. She held her tight, while Bingxia’s lashes fluttered and eyes opened.

“Silan…? Where… is this?” Fresh from sleep, she was fogged, like mist over amethyst. Seeing Silan in tears, fire of reason rekindled in her jewel-purple eyes.

“I… haven’t gone back to the World Tree’s embrace?”

“No, no…” Silan gripped her hand, fingers warm as hearthlight. “You’re alive, alive and well. Everyone who came with you is here, kept safe by this array.”

“Array…?”

“Yes, thanks to this Blood Magic—”

Silan stopped; the earlier questions flashed back like lightning behind clouds.

Meanwhile, Mira had checked everyone inside the array, quick as a fox. Aside from Adelaide and Queen Dreamlan, every First Generation who came to aid the Flower Dancer ritual was here. Some still knelt, drained and shaky, like candles guttering. But like Bingxia, none seemed gravely hurt.

It was great news for the coalition, starved for First Generation strength, like a thirsty field seeing rain. But Silan’s face tightened; she turned to Ayu, who was struggling to stand, her fingers clenching like a closing fan.

“Ayu.”

Ayu, the magic-study oddball who usually snubbed Silan, tilted her head at the ice in that voice, brows lifting like startled wings. “…What is it?”

“You earned merit protecting everyone. But when this is over,” Silan pointed at the Blood Magic traces around them like claw-marks, “you must explain your sacrifices. Where did you get what this spell needed?”

Ayu looked around, puzzled, like a cat smelling rain. She flared her nose, then her eyes went wide. “Oh…? The Nuhaman scent… it’s strong?”

“Yes. Even I, not a Blood Magic specialist, can smell it. This array must be where the blood from that atrocity vanished to.” Silan narrowed her eyes at Ayu, gaze like a knife. “For the sake of our friendship, don’t waste time with lies.”

“…Lies? What lies?” The crease at Ayu’s eye deepened like a drawn line.

“Don’t play dumb. Of all the First Generation here, only you specialize in Blood Magic. Only you could deploy a defensive array at this level.”

“No, I think you’ve got it wrong…”

“Wrong? I don’t think I’ve missed anything.”

“No, Silan. You’re wrong.”

The denial didn’t come from bewildered Ayu. It came from Bingxia, still warm in Silan’s arms, like a thawing branch. She braced a hand, slipped free, stood, and looked toward the distant Void Rift, eyes far. Silence held for a breath, like snow. Then she spoke.

“This spell came from a roll of parchment Adelaide gave me before the gathering. She rambled a string of strange words, then shoved this dangerous thing on me, said I’d need it.” Bingxia looked down at her now-empty palm, like a nest without an egg. “I didn’t know what she meant then. But now it seems…”

She not only ties into the Nuhaman massacre, she must have known ahead of time—Bingxia’s thought cut off as Mira flashed to her front, a thunder-shadow. Mira seized her collar and barked in a rough, urgent voice, like gravel underfoot.

“Now. Tell me every single thing she said to you. Not a syllable left out.”