...

......

Half-asleep, half-drowning, Ling Yi sensed something wrong, like a ripple under still water.

Her palm burned, like an ember cupped in snow-cold fingers.

...Her palm?

Before bed she’d... clenched the Sky Striker’s activation key in her fist, like a talisman against the night.

Does the key come with a heater, like a coal hidden in silk?

She tried to open her eyes, but her eyeballs felt sun-cracked and dry, like a lakebed in drought.

“Nng...”

She forced a slit of sight open. The key lay in her hand, a black‑red pendant pulsing like a heartbeat, bleeding heat into the air.

Not a dream? Real light, real heat, like a firefly that bites.

That snapped her awake like cold water dumped on coals.

“What’s going on...?”

She lifted the key, studying it close, like a jeweler weighing a bloodstone.

A breathing light... she’d seen that on a mechanical keyboard, like a sleeping dragon’s breath.

Think.

In her mind, the Doctor was a ruthless pragmatist, like a blade honed to the task. Clothes and hair, always “whatever works,” like wind-chilled steel. She wouldn’t add a pretty breathing light to a key on purpose, like flowers glued to a hammer. And last night Ling Yi fell asleep gripping it just like this, yet it hadn’t glowed or burned, like a dead coal that suddenly flares.

So what is this? Did the Flashblade System glitch, like a circuit arcing in rain?

Ling Yi tossed the blanket aside and sat up, mind racing like a sparrow trapped in bamboo. She should ask the Doctor.

“Doctor, Doctor...”

She crawled to the pallet, and poked Yekase lightly, like tapping glass with a fingernail.

“...?”

Yekase mumbled, a muddied ripple of sound, then rolled over, sleep still holding like wet sand.

“—Doctor detected.”

From beyond the window, a flat female voice cut in, like frost on steel.

“?!”

“Current time, Beijing Time 23:52. Extermination protocol authorized.”

Ling Yi looked up. In moonlight cold as poured mercury, a girl stood expressionless... no, look closer—no clothes, only metal skin, like a statue flensed to gears.

A robot.

Was it the unit the Doctor mentioned, the one running Flashblade System 1.0, like a prototype with teeth? Why was it here—

Whatever it was, she had to fight now, like a shield raised before a storm, and protect the Doctor.

“Sky Striker—”

—Bzzzt.

Before the morphing words left her lips, a blood-red ray lanced from the robot’s eye, like a needle through silk, passed under Ling Yi’s arm, and punched straight through Yekase’s head.

“Doctor—!”

Then a weapon twin to the Sky Striker in her hand slid through Ling Yi’s chest, like ice driving into wood.

...

......

“—Uwah?!”

Ling Yi kicked the blanket and bounced off the bed, like a spring uncoiled.

Her chest still held a sliver of cold, like a shard of winter. Her palm still burned, like a coal brand. Her eyes still throbbed too sore to open, like bruised fruit. None of it mattered. She didn’t wait for sight to return. She crawled toward where the pallet should be, hands searching through dark like blind fish, reaching for Yekase—

Thank heaven, no hole in her skull, like porcelain left uncracked.

That was... a dream? Too real, like rain on the face in a painted scene.

She sat on the floor, breath ragged like torn paper, and tried to think with a brain clearing like fog lifting.

But thinking from a “death-vision” alone was smoke in wind; she’d have to ask about the Flashblade System—so she shoved at the Doctor.

“Doctor, Doctor!”

“...—?”

A louder mumble this time, like a kettle about to sing. Almost awake. Ling Yi pushed again. At last, with a high, weird yelp like a startled cat, Yekase stretched and blinked, half pushing up from the floor.

“Wha... what is it?”

“Doctor, the Flashblade System—”

Ling Yi’s sight returned like dawn breaking. She opened her eyes—

Behind Yekase, outside the window, a silhouette.

...It was there.

It had always been there, like a shadow in the corner of a lantern.

“Phew... what about the Flashblade System? Is it acting up?”

“Doctor detected—Current time, Beijing Time 23:52. Extermination protocol authorized.”

—Bzzzt.

Ling Yi tried to shove Yekase down, but the move only made them clasp together to be speared by the laser as one, like two leaves pinned on a needle.

“Urgh—”

...

......

“—Uwah?!”

She didn’t even finish the scream that time, like a song cut by a blade.

What is happening?!

Heat, ache, wounds that weren’t there, all of it swarmed her like ants under skin, and she pitched off the bed, hitting the floor hard as stone.

“Doctor! We’re under attack... by a robot!”

She grabbed Yekase and shouted, like a horn in fog.

“...—?”

A mumble again, a shade off from before, like a echo taking a different wall. If it were any other time, that odd little sound would’ve made Ling Yi laugh, like a bell in a quiet hall. Not now.

Right. She didn’t get why time was rewinding, and her eyes were still sealed like glued lids, but if she knew the robot attack was next, then transform and strike first. Hit the window, like lightning into a tree.

“Flashblade Activation!”

“Sky Striker Ace! Code‑01!”

“KAGARI!”

Good. Armor sealed in with a hiss like a kiln. The embrace of it steadied her, like a lighthouse in surf.

So the key could flash all it wanted, the function still held, like a bow that still sings. Scratch “broken” off the list.

She lurched to the window, shoved it open, and slashed wildly outside with the Sky Striker—yet nothing met her edge, no bite, like cutting mist.

Both times before, the robot had been there as soon as she noticed it, like a scarecrow at field’s edge. Why not now?

Did the timeline bend because she donned armor, like a river forced by a dam?

Or were the last two—just similar nightmares, like twin storms in a single season?

Drenched in doubt and the chill aftershock, her eyes finally opened, like shutters thrown wide.

The lawn outside lay empty and manicured, moonlight spilling silver on clipped green, like paint on silk.

So it was a nightmare...?

Ling Yi plopped onto the floor, like a sack dropped.

“Doctor...”

She turned to check Yekase, to make sure she still breathed, like checking a coal for glow.

“Doctor detected.”

The girl‑shaped robot stood inside the room, who knew when it had slipped in, like fog through a crack.

This time she saw the lower body the wall had hidden—a full metal form, like a blade forged in a human mold—but before that,

“Current time, Beijing Time 23:52. Extermination protocol authorized.”

—Bzzzt.

“Ah... ahhh...”

Then the robot turned its head toward Ling Yi, motion smooth as a clockwork crane, and looked.

Something soft‑bodied and cold crawled her spine, like a slug of fear, and she shook.

But the robot didn’t attack her this time. It held, it stared, then vanished into thin air, like smoke pulled through a keyhole.

Ling Yi crawled to Yekase—the wound still smoking like quenched iron, the body cooling like night on stone, all of it sounding the gong of death.

Yet she didn’t snap back to bed.

“Damn it...! Reset me again! One more time and I’ll—”

Her words broke.

Her gaze fell to the Sky Striker at her side, like an answer lying unsheathed.

Right. That too.

The first two nightmares had ended with her death. She didn’t know why the robot spared her this time, like a hunter saving a shot, but maybe that was why no fourth loop came.

Ling Yi flipped the blade and aimed at her own chest, like a gambler pressing the last chip.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, like leaves in a hard wind. She used her other hand to steady, but the tip still jittered like a drumstick.

Stab.

Stab.

Reset, then transform at once, like a hawk stooping. Strike where the robot stood. Then block the window, like sandbags for a flood.

It should work.

If not, try a fifth.

“Doctor... I swear I’ll—!”

—!

The blade jerked aside and bit the floorboards, sparks like fireflies.

“No—”

Yekase’s hand clutched the blade, knuckles white as bone, and she dragged herself a step, then collapsed, spent like a snuffed candle.

“Doctor! You’re alive!” Ling Yi grabbed her hand, joy bursting like a spring. “I’ll carry you to a hospital—”

“This is illusion. Enemy... masking something... ‘Dew’... we’re... not the center...”

Clack.

Mid‑sentence, Yekase’s strength ran out. She fell into Ling Yi’s arms, like a flower going limp.

“Doctor? Doctor!”

“Dew”? Could she mean the Sky Striker key—

“Water‑aspect ‘Dew’ can interfere with nearby energy. At full output, it can even scramble minds and cast hallucinations,” like rain that blurs the world.

That. Exactly that.

A second wave on the night the “Zec” mass‑produced units hit? Too vicious, like wolves running down a wounded stag.

And “we’re not the center”—what did that mean, like stars orbiting a different sun?

Was she saying the reset trigger wasn’t here? That killing herself wouldn’t pull the fourth loop, and would only throw away her last card, leaving them to die for real, like candles gutted by wind?

The third time, it changed tactics to steer her mind by habit, to make Ling Yi kill Ling Yi, like a mirror tricking the hand.

She swallowed, throat dry as sand.

If she couldn’t force a reset, what now?

“Use your brain... attack it like a problem set...! You’re top three in class, even the homeroom teacher praised you,” like banners hung on a school gate.

Since getting the Flashblade System, Ling Yi had fought under Yekase’s orders, like an arrow guided by a bow. Now she had to think alone, like a boat taking its own current.

The enemy was air and shadow, untouchable, and she’d been snared in illusion without knowing, like a fish in clear net. That strength wasn’t the same league as a mass‑produced unit, like mountain to molehill. But if she could still move, she hadn’t lost, like embers under ash.

What was that question type? Controlled comparison. Is anything in the room different from the real world, like a brushstroke out of place? She scanned the room, armor‑enhanced sight sharp as a hawk. Everything was familiar, down to grain and dust, like a painting she knew by heart.

If her death didn’t reset the illusion, then what did the first two, like a bell struck offstage?

“It wasn’t me dying that reset... After I went down, the robot did something at once. That thing caused the reset,” like a switch flipped out of sight.

And both times, she hadn’t even died, just mortally wounded, like a tree cut deep but standing.

The gap between the two events was so short. If Yekase hadn’t shoved the clue at her, Ling Yi never would’ve caught it, like thunder under drums.

“The answer is...!”

She looked to the empty lawn outside, moonlight pale as milk.

And—between her and that lawn—

The glass window she’d opened herself, clear as a mirror, like a wound in a wall.

She didn’t hesitate. She brought the blade down, shattering it like ice in a river.

...

......

“Nng...”

Going from standing to lying always felt wrong, like the floor tipping—yet Ling Yi laughed, bright as a struck spark.

“Hahaha! I don’t know why you’re playing puzzle games with me... and I’m not great at logic... but don’t you dare underestimate a Huaxia high schooler’s brain!”

Same ache, same burn—yet in them she felt familiarity, and a real way out, like a footbridge appearing from fog.

“From the top—Flashblade Activation!”