“Then let me offer everyone a song.”
After her brief introduction, Paluna drew in a few breaths like cupping dew, and said, “Its name is—‘False Reality’.”
Her words fell like petals, and music bloomed on the stage, a sorrow-tinged melody like moonlight over a ruined garden.
As the music rose, Paluna parted her painted lips, a red plum in snow, and began to sing.
“We live in reality, yet who has dared to ask if reality is a mask.
False smiles, false words, false gestures—the whole of ‘real’ is only a veil...”
Her sweet timbre curled like incense, her phrasing wound like a brook, and the mournful score draped the crowd like twilight rain.
“Pretty good. Truly worthy of a sound-arts mage.”
A pleased warmth stirred in Xinuo’s chest like tea steam, and she let the praise slip out.
“Eh, is that so?”
“Yeah. Her technique is solid, but the sound-arts matter too, like honey laced into every syllable to charm the ear.”
She added, voice light as a fan’s flick, “Still, to have this many enthralled, Paluna’s control of sound-arts is already seasoned steel.”
“Oh, I see.”
…
Meanwhile, above the rim of the Eastern Moon Continent.
“Mm… where are we?”
Shaking off sleep like fog from pines, Yumigawa Senki sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Qianji Sister, we’ve reached the edge of the Eastern Moon Continent.”
Seeing Senki rise, Yumigawa Nozomi watched her with worry like a taut string. “Qianji Sister, are you alright? Anything feel off?”
“Relax, Littlesky. After such a long nap, my strength’s mostly back.”
Senki smiled and smoothed Nozomi’s silver hair, a hand through moonlit silk, then said to Elyar, “Elyar, just use spatial transfer and send us to the Eastern Moon Empire.”
“I can, yet are you truly fine, Yumigawa Senki?”
“No problem. Make it quick.”
“Alright then.”
Taking her at that, Elyar nodded and stood, calm as still water.
“Spatial Transfer—Eastern Moon Empire!”
The space around them shivered like a drumhead, and in the next blink they vanished like sparks in wind.
When they reappeared, they were already above Proudmoon City in the Eastern Moon Empire.
“Aer, take us down.”
Gazing at the city below, Yumigawa Nozomi called to the Aerucia Bird.
“Chirp!”
The Aerucia Bird answered with a clear call, and dove like a blue comet toward the streets.
“...”
“...”
“...”
They touched down in Proudmoon City, and the three fell silent, faces tight as ice.
The Aerucia Bird hadn’t chosen an open square; it dropped into a bustling street like a boulder into a pond.
People were hurt, shops lay broken, and the shock rolled out like a rogue tide.
It hadn’t even sheathed its aura, a stormfront of pressure, and the unlucky were bruised while storefronts shattered like brittle clay.
“Forget it. Let’s find the Eastern Moon Empire’s king and ask where the Emperor is.”
Senki spoke like steel ringing, then hopped off the Aerucia Bird’s back.
“Okay. Aer, you can return.”
After she and Elyar dismounted, Yumigawa Nozomi sent the Aerucia Bird away with a wave like a falling leaf.
“Chirp!!”
The giant body flared with cyan-blue light like glacier fire, then scattered into drifting starlight and vanished.
“Mm… Yumigawa Senki, this is trouble now.”
Elyar glanced around, a helpless look like rain on stone.
Within a minute of the bird’s disappearance, imperial troops arrived like a surge of iron, surrounding them in a clatter of spears.
“Who are you people?! Why injure innocent citizens?! Why destroy private property?!”
The leading general strode forward, voice cracking like thunder, and barked at them.
“Um, we’re sor—”
Nozomi’s apology rose like a soft reed, but Senki caught her by the wrist, a cool grip like snow. “Littlesky, we don’t owe them an apology.”
She lifted her eyes to the general, calm as a whetted blade. “Nothing much. A landing error. I’ll compensate later. Now go fetch your king. I’ve got business.”
“Damn you! That’s your attitude? No proper remorse, and you want us to summon His Majesty for you?!”
He snorted, contempt sharp as salt. “Little girl, don’t think a pretty face makes the king look twice. I’ve seen plenty like—”
“Too much talk.”
Senki cut him off, patience snapping like a twig, and raised her right foot.
“Trample the Earth!”
She stamped down.
!!!
From the circle around Senki, cracks burst outward like spiderweb frost, racing across stone in a heartbeat.
“Help!”
“No!”
“What’s happening?!”
The soldiers stumbled as the ground split, bodies toppling like reeds in a gust, many already injured by the jagged upheaval.
In moments, the once-proud formation lay buried in rock and dust, a fallen tide stilled at shore.
“I’ll say it once more. Fetch your king. Otherwise, I won’t mind erasing you.”
Senki’s disdain was cold as a winter moon, and the pressure pouring from her tightened the air until it felt like glass.
“L-l-lady, please calm your anger! I’ll inform His Majesty at once!”
A man who reaches general isn’t a fool; he knew a cliff from a road, and he bowed and scraped like a beaten drum before sprinting full tilt toward the Proud Moon Palace.
“Qianji Sister, that was so cool!”
Nozomi looked at her with star-bright awe, worship loud as festival fireworks.
“What’s cool about it? She’s as overbearing as ever.”
Elyar rolled her eyes, helpless as a cat in rain.
“What do you know, Elyar?”
Senki smiled, unbothered, a fox in moonlight. “If you want things fast—any person, any task—you need to be overbearing.
If I’d spoken nicely, who knows how long we’d wait to see the Eastern Moon Empire’s king.”
“Fair. That’s true.”
Elyar thought it over, then nodded, reason settling like dust.
The street had been lively as a market river, but now, aside from the injured who couldn’t move, everyone else had fled like birds at a hawk’s shadow.
“Come to think of it, we really stirred the pot—almost wrecked the place on arrival.”
Senki glanced around at the battered street, a rueful sigh like wind through chimes.
“Wasn’t it all your doing?!”
Elyar’s complaint cracked out like a thrown pebble, sharp and indignant.
