“Wow! So this is what riding a dragon feels like—like lying on a warm cloud, crazy comfy!”

“Uh… milady, please be careful, don’t fall—whoa! It’s like peering over a cliff into the sky!”

It was our first time on a great dragon, yet mistress and maid split like sun and shadow—Nalu drank in the horizon like a child at a fair, while Yafina went pale as paper and clung to Nalu like a vine to a tree.

“Relax, relax. We put a ward around us, like a net under a tightrope. You won’t fall no matter what.”

“Mhm.”

Lingxiao and Lingsaki nestled at my sides like a pair of swallows, soothing Yafina’s fear of the high blue. I wondered why Lanxia’s back felt steadier than Hill’s ever did; turned out the sisters had woven a stabilizing barrier around Lanxia from the start, like invisible roots holding the wind.

As for Lixue, she lay in my arms and studied the new map of the Northern Abyss Continent, soft and warm as spring silk. Her scent rose like a snow lotus after fresh frost, and my thoughts drifted like loose clouds.

Why was Lixue in my arms? Simple as moonlight on water—she’d liked dozing there before, asked with my okay, and curled up again. Beauty-in-arms is a comfort, a brazier in winter wind.

As for where we were headed, after talking with Nalu, we settled on the Geyas family’s seat—Moonhundred City, capital of the Ice Rock Empire. The name rang like a bell over ice; my heart held a spark of curiosity.

According to Nalu, the Ice Rock Empire was one of the Northern Abyss Continent’s three great empires, its commerce like a river of coin running bright. Its armies lagged behind the other two, like a blunt spear beside sharp ones; but in wealth it led the continent, so the people lived well, and their numbers swelled like a tide.

If you wanted raw might, the Basiloth Empire wore the crown like a mountain wears snow. We’d have to visit there too, but for now we’d stroll the Ice Rock Empire and taste its wind.

“Mizumi, your sisters are close to you, so I get the cuddly bit,” Nalu chirped, voice like bells on a breezy eave. “But this Miss Tianyu doesn’t look like someone from the Mizumi Clan. Your sweetheart, maybe?!”

After some time with us, Nalu had shed her stiffness like a snake sheds skin and gone back to her bright self.

“Milady, prying into others’ privacy isn’t proper!” Yafina cut in, flustered as a sparrow. “Young Master Mizumi, my apologies!”

“It’s fine; it’s no secret,” I said, combing Lixue’s deep golden short hair, smooth as river reeds. “Like Lixue said earlier, we’re friends.”

“Friends?”

They say women are born nosy as magpies; on Nalu, the proverb fit like a glove, even though she was a lady of status.

“Normally, boy-girl friends aren’t this close, right?” she teased, eyes glinting like sunlight on ice.

“Uh, I’m not sure,” I said. I’d grown up close to sisters, elder and younger, like fish to water; I hadn’t thought beyond that with Lixue.

“When you put it that way, it is odd. Lixue, you’re way too cuddly with dear big brother!” Lingxiao’s eyes shone like stars. “Being able to nap in dear big brother’s arms—color me jealous.”

“Same. Very jealous,” Lingsaki added, calm as a winter moon.

All eyes turned to Lixue like petals toward the sun. She stayed serene as still water. “I don’t deny I’m fond of Emperor.”

One clean line, and every knot unraveled like silk.

“Oh, that explains it. No problem then.”

“Mhm. Falling for big brother is only natural,” the sisters chimed, simple as clear rain.

“Fondness, huh… I suppose that passes,” Nalu said, still skeptical but letting the matter drop like a feather. She switched streams. “So, Mizumi, do you all have a goal?”

“A goal?”

“Yeah. You’re out in the wide world; don’t tell me you’re just sightseeing like autumn leaves in a stream?”

“Uh, my biggest dream was to leave the Mizumi Clan and see the world beyond the gate,” I said. “Other than that, I don’t chase much.”

“As long as I can stay by dear big brother’s side, I want for nothing,” Lingxiao said, earnest as the dawn.

“Same,” Lingsaki said, voice cool as shade. “Lixue?”

“Same as Emperor,” Lixue said. “I just want to see the world.”

Looked like our ambitions were as light as kites; every thread tugged toward play.

“...That’s it? None of you wants to become a peerless powerhouse, or claim some world-breaking artifact?” Nalu blinked, surprised as a deer.

“Milady, that’s what ordinary people dream of,” Yafina said, steady as an oak. “The ranks, the might, the artifacts—things common folk chase all their lives—Young Master Mizumi and his kin are born with within reach. With Central Continent resources, they can hit Saint-level, even God-level, without grinding much at all.”

“Mhm. Yafina’s right,” I said. “We of the Mizumi Clan don’t need to chase those. The Central Continent’s resources are a sea; we can’t even use them up.”

“Exactly. Like that Skyseeker Grass you worked so hard to find, Nalu—on the Central Continent it’s a kitchen herb, as common as scallions,” Lingxiao said, airy as a breeze.

“All those so-called god-tier materials are everyday sights there,” Lingsaki added, cool as frost.

Come to think of it, born Mizumi, we never had to run after anything; though sometimes that path felt empty, like a quiet road under a cold moon.

“Oof. It feels like everything we fight and bleed for doesn’t matter,” Nalu sagged, spirit wilting like a flower in heat.

The three of us had just finished, and Nalu went limp with gloom. What now?

“Hey, milady, chin up!” Yafina scrambled to prop her up like propping a lantern against wind. “Don’t compare your conditions to theirs! By conditions alone, no power in the world can match a tenth of the Mizumi Clan!”

“My, this dragon thought her life was cushy as a silk quilt,” Lanxia laughed, voice like chimes. “Compared to you lot, I’m a beggar rattling a bowl. So tragic.”

Her words moaned like a flute, but her tone danced like sunshine. I had no words.

…

We chatted as Lanxia carried us over one snow peak after another, white ridges like frozen waves. Ahead, a city unfurled—blocks of buildings like chessboards laid on ice.

“Mizumi, that’s the border of the Ice Rock Empire,” Nalu said, voice still a bit dim, like a lantern after rain. “To enter… uh, with Lady Lanxia here, no inspection; and with your status, even less so.”

“Yes! Moonhundred City sits at the empire’s heart, just a short flight,” Yafina said, bright as a returning swallow. Home tugged her like a tide.

“Whoa, look at all the people below!” Lanxia’s eyes sparkled like frost. “If this dragon breathed one arc of ice down there, it’d be spectacular!”

“Ahaha, please show mercy, Lady Lanxia,” Nalu said, smiling yet stiff as a mask. Even knowing she joked, she couldn’t unclench.

“Wow, so this is a city? Magnificent!” Lingxiao leaned over, eyes wide as moons. “Dear big brother, look! Crowds like ants and buildings in every shape!”

“You’d never see this flavor of bustle on the Central Continent,” Lingsaki said, cool gaze sweeping like a falcon’s.

They had Lanxia drop lower, then watched the city below, necks craned like cranes over a lake.

Lixue rose from my arms to join them, a snow petal lifting on a breeze. And then—

“Who dares? You fly straight into the Ice Rock Empire’s air like a knife, and even boast of breathing ice on our people?!”

A massive ice spike roared in from ahead, a winter spear packed with the law of frost. Lanxia juked hard, a fish through rapids; Lixue lost her footing and tumbled, but I caught her like a net.

By the way, she fell face-first toward me, soft as silk.

“—!!”

“…”

Our faces were so close the breath between us turned to mist. One inch more and we’d have kissed. My arms still wrapped her; a blush bloomed on Lixue’s flawless face like dawn on snow. The air between us warmed, ripe and hazy.

“Lanxia, you dumb dragon, you made trouble, didn’t you?” Lingxiao muttered, eyes like knives and sugar both.

“Ho ho! This dragon only joked,” Lanxia huffed, tail flicking like a banner. “They’re the thin-skinned gnats who struck first!”

“Lingxiao, I don’t think Lanxia’s wrong,” Lingsaki said, voice flat as ice. “The other side clearly came to pick a fight.”

“…”

The bickering snapped me back like cold water. I let Lixue go and scratched my cheek with a sheepish grin. “Haha, sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” she said.

She stood, smoothed her clothes like brushing snow from silk, then drew Ice Illusion Moon with a whisper of frost. She stepped onto Lanxia’s head, raised the short blade like a sliver of winter moon, and pointed at the rider ahead.

Across from us hovered another ice dragon, larger than Lanxia by a head, but its power thinned like late-winter ice—only high Saint-level. On its back stood a striking young man in blue-white armor, an ice-crystal lance in hand, a knight carved from glacier light, barely in his twenties.

Both the knight and his dragon wore pride like spiked crowns, the kind that pricks the eye and soured the tongue.

“Who is that?” I asked Nalu.

“He’s Kliya Binsair, the Ice Rock Empire’s First Prince,” Nalu said, voice clipped as a snapped twig. “A prodigy with a blade of a mind, and he just bound a dragon to become a dragon knight. So he’s already anointed in hearts as the next Emperor. Proud by nature, now he looks at the world like a hawk at mice.”

“Dragon knight?”

Lixue’s smile went cold as rime. She strode forward, the sky her floor. The short sword lifted like a shard of moon, and she leveled it at Kliya. Her voice fell like sleet. “Should I take this as your declaration of war?”