11/31. Medith and her people passed a small town, a river of carts and spears rolling like thunder. The mountain paths were quick as knives, but unsafe as cliffs in fog. They took the broad road like a steady current, better safe than a shattered hull.

“Bloody hell! Medith! The White‑haired Witch, Medith!” A few disguised Mountain Bandits saw the black sun and war banners, and their knees turned to reeds in a marsh. They tumbled into a shadowed alley, like rats fleeing a hawk’s shadow.

They paraded through the streets, and Sia City’s tale rode ahead like wind through wheat. The Eastern Nation had gnashed teeth like grinding gravel, yet awe moved like dawn. With three thousand, surrounded by a killing wall, she’d flipped the board by mind and blade.

In people’s hearts, Medith had become a god-shadow against the sky. The procession drew a tide of faces, and cheers rose like birds at sunrise. The garrison stretched a long cordon like a pale rope, hands slick as dew when they saw bare‑headed Haidra and white‑clad Sprites.

They were the once‑in‑a‑lifetime faces you never dared to meet, lantern‑bright in daylight. Many humans were bewitched by the Elf Clan’s beauty, a perfume like peach blossoms in spring. Even in the uniforms Medith had tailored to veil sinuous lines, wildfire still glowed under snow.

Not even a jacket could hide Mount Tai pressing on a willow‑slim waist, moon over river.

“My gods… if I could marry a Sprite, life’s complete,” someone sighed, like smoke curling from a tea brazier.

“Marry? One charge and I could die happy,” another barked, crude as a boot in mud.

“Look at the redhead—hells, that figure,” someone whistled, like wind through a reed flute.

“That little loli… is she someone’s daughter?” a voice piped, like a pebble skipping on water.

“The white‑haired one’s Medith herself? Damn… that face and that body. I heard rebels rushed her, and she self‑detonated, dragging a thousand to the grave,” someone muttered, hushed as a winter crow.

“Tsk.” The women had keen ears, their hearing like strings in a still room; some of it pierced their calm like sleet.

“Humans keep filth swilling in their heads,” Phiby said, disgust sharp as bitter tea.

Sais only laughed, a bell in mist. “Ha, I thought everyone in the Eastern Nation were sages. Turns out, same mud, same footprints.”

Embarrassment pricked Haidra like nettles. Country minds hadn’t had enough rain, and manners hadn’t taken root like bamboo. Even the Royal Capital was like this, which somehow felt normal.

“But Medith really is beautiful…” Awe warmed Haidra first, a flush like wine in winter. She turned to look. Medith wore a smile like dawn over frost, cherry lips kissed with vermilion. Her plain makeup shone like a fairy stepping off a cloud, and silver hair set off her old poise like moonlight on steel.

Medith caught Haidra’s gaze and let a spark fly like lightning under silk.

Heat shot up Haidra’s ears, red as maple in late fall. She thanked the heavens she was first; if the troops saw that blush, they’d laugh like crows.

“We’ve marched two days. You’re tired.” Medith reined in, voice soft as rain on tile. “Nira, take those starry‑eyed girls to go play. I’ll stroll.”

They welcomed the order like shade at noon. The column halted, and cheers rose like surf on rock.

“Lady Medith, here are fruits, sweet as morning dew,” a villager said, hands trembling like leaves.

“My lady, need armor or a sword? I’ll forge for free,” a smith boomed, voice like a bellows.

“My lady! You’re so beautiful… can I… can I kiss you?” someone blurted, bold as a stray dog.

Medith’s smile tilted wry, a fan closing in summer heat. The townsfolk were too warm, waves spilling the banks; some requests strayed into dust and shadow. She took small gifts, passed them to guards, and drifted on like a cloud.

“My lady, would you look at my book?” A boy’s voice came, thin as a reed in wind.

She followed the sound. A rag‑clad boy sat there, plain as an unmarked stone, a face like a background NPC no artist bothered to ink eyes for. Black, short buzz‑cut hair, and—surprisingly—he looked Eastern, like ink on rice paper.

“What’s your name?” Curiosity lit her like a lamp. She sat on his wobbly stool, paint peeling like old bark.

He saw her beauty and shrank like a snail into shell. “I… it doesn’t matter, right…”

“You’re from the Eastern Nation?” Medith’s eyes gleamed like stars, showing a row of snow‑white teeth.

Her scent drifted like orchid on breeze, and he blushed, nodding like a pecking sparrow.

“How are you here? Where’s your family?” Medith lifted a book, light as a leaf.

He shook his head, a willow in wind. “I don’t know. I lost everything before nine. The Eastern Nation treats me kindly, warm as a brazier. People fed, clothed, and housed me for free. But I don’t want to coast, so I wander. I sell the novels I write to get by.”

“Ah, why write novels? That’s a dead end,” Medith said, pain a needle in her chest.

He smiled, and on a dirty face his teeth were full moon. “Because it’s my world. If I give up, she dies,” he said, voice like a candle holding back night.

Medith looked at the book. It was crude, bare as winter branches, only a blurry girl sketched like mist. No synopsis, only fog.

She flipped through and found problems like stones in a shoe. “Honestly… it isn’t very good. Do you even know what you’re writing?”

He laughed softly, smoke in cold air. “Of course I do. Who knows it better than me? But on belief alone… I don’t know how long I can last.”

She fell silent, tongue caught like a fish on a hook. She pulled a few gold coins from her breast, bright as suns. “I’ll buy them all. My troops can read them.”

He waved his hands fast, birds scattering. “No, no. As long as you read, I ask nothing more.”

She ignored him, dropped a coin like a falling star, and began to read.

She sank in like a stone in deep water. Just as it grew brilliant, the riverbed turned to blank sand. The back half was unfinished, white space like snow.

“Boy, what’s this supposed to mean?” Medith tapped the empty pages, a knuckle on wood.

He gave a sheepish grin, thin as gruel. “I haven’t written the rest.”

“You brought it out unsolved? Truly… Have you planned the ending?” Her brows arched like drawn bows.

“Yeah. I’m writing it,” he said with calm confidence, a hill under cloud.

“Finish it and find me. Here’s an address. Send it there.” Her pen scratched like a swallow’s tail across paper.

He nodded and smiled, a spring ripple.

She patted his head, light as wind over wheat, and turned to go.

“Medith, do you think my book needs to be finished?” His voice cut suddenly clear, a blade through silk, striking at the soul like a temple bell.

She looked back, eyes chastening like snow on a lantern. “It’s your world. Your people. You owe them an ending, even if her fate isn’t perfect.”

His gaze firmed, deep black pupils like wells that pull light in. “I’ve always felt my world is fake. Only by fleeing here do I find a sliver of real, a spring under stone. No one gets me. No one…

“Medith, what do you think our world is?”

She smiled, lips a crescent moon. “It’s false. All illusion. We’re created chess pieces on a board in mist. Maybe this world is made too, including you.”

“Is that so?” His expression went strange, mouth lifting like a hook she’d seen before, déjà vu like an old road.

“And you, Medith Waheit? How do you know you aren’t someone’s creation, ink on a page? What you say and do, where you go—how do you know it isn’t arranged?”

Her smile faded like dusk, and she faced him, solemn as a shrine. “I am me. I am Medith, Commander of the Dusk Legion, a Sprite, a general, the Ironblood War Deity. I answer to no one, and no one can master me, like wind no jar can hold. My every act is my own will. Someone tried to rule me. Now it’s become cells in my body, ash turned to blood.”

He lifted the book, eyes amused, a fox in snow. “Then if you are a character in this book, how would you feel? The adventure on the page—how do you know it isn’t you? For instance… if I rule you, if I created you. If I rip this book now, what happens?”

“Heh heh heh…” Medith’s laugh slithered, a snake in reeds. “I said it. Even gods get drawn into me and turned to my blood. You—”

He suddenly tore the book in two, a dry rip like bark in frost.

After a long moment, a breeze stirred like a cat’s paw, and nothing changed. He laughed, awkward as a creaking door. “Ha! Of course nothing happens.”

“You’re a fun one. Interested in joining us? We’re short a poet,” Medith said, smile warm as coals.

He stood, ragged but straight as a spear. “No, sister. Your life is beautiful as spring blossom, but I have something more important.”

“You can write in our ranks,” Medith pressed, voice a steady stream.

“No,” he said softly. “What I must do isn’t here. It’s far—at the far end of the world’s river. There’s a cute girl named Zhigu still suffering. I’m going to save her.”

“Then… may you succeed,” Medith said with a smile, like a blessing cast on water. She knew well what age he walked.

“And you too. I hope your penman won’t turn out like me, like this…” He pointed to the book torn in halves, a sigh like wind through a broken gate.

Medith extended her right hand, open as a clear sky.

“Medith… do you know how hard it is to gather the Divine Stones?” he said, words like stones dropped in a well. “You just got ‘it’. What can you do? This world is far more tangled than you think.”

Her heart jolted like a struck gong. Her eyes flew wide, thunder in a summer sky. “Who are you…”

He smiled and reached his right hand. Their hands met, silk to grit, and she saw a gear engraved in his dirty palm, like a moon carved in wood. “Medith, do your best.

“One day, you’ll leap off this chessboard, become the hand that plays, and break this tragic fate. We’ll meet again, in the Silent Land. Believe me, the day is long and harsh as winter, but like the Crimson Sun emblem, it will punch through endless dark and light all things.”

“What are you saying! Let me go! Let me—” Panic hit first, a flood bursting a dam. Medith felt the world freeze like ice in a bell jar. Power surged into her palm like a tide, and heat roared through her body, a kiln firing soul and bone.

His body flickered, white light blooming like lotus. His black eyes turned milky, like clouds swallowing night. He held her hand, calm as a lake, smile fox‑thin. “Medith, remember, this power is called—”