Two Infinite Power engines carved twin bright tails of silver and red, spiraling like twin stars toward the ceiling.

Unease bit Yekase like cold wind under her ribs. She started prepping to bolt.

Ling Yi made a snap call and switched to Gale. She meant to sling Yekase and run, but she refused to ditch the other teammate.

Dragon God Shark just stood there, rooted like a reef in still water.

The scene, ringed by a graveyard of robot scrap, felt brief and endless. The world shrank to a thin, half-heard hum.

Then, after a stretch that felt like forever—

A hole opened in the ceiling.

But hole felt wrong. When they looked up, an outrageous sky of stars stared back. The seabed never holds stars. Even if it was the leader’s hidden layer, no one wallpapers a crawlspace with constellations.

A sharp whistle cut down from the hole, clean as a blade.

A figure dropped through.

That was ZEROS—apparently not.

Yekase had no memory of this person. Based on Zhang Wendao’s Magical Girl mode, she could at least infer a water-blue dress kind of vibe.

Yet the girl landed with her back to them, dressed in an oversized black sailor suit. Black knee-high boots bit the floor. Her limbs were slim, pale as porcelain. She stood shorter than Yekase. Snow-white hair flowed and rippled in the stagnant, windless ruin, as if a breeze hid in stone.

She looked like a splice of black and white, ink and bone.

A single accent tempered that stark contrast. An absurdly long scarlet scarf coiled her neck. Its color blazed too bright. Its motion was too alive, like burning flame or a river in flood, not a quiet, soft dead thing.

Uh… may I ask who you are?

Yekase had opened the door. Easy to invite the god in, hard to see the god out. She could only ask with care.

So it’s here.

The girl didn’t answer. She might not even have registered the people behind her. She stretched her right hand toward empty air. A straight iron tube, as long as her whole body, popped into her grip.

Is that her weapon? For a Magical Girl, it felt plain as a broomstick.

Doubt flickered—then the next beat snuffed it out.

The white-haired girl tapped the tube against the floor. It rang with a bright clang. The far end flowered open, petals of metal unfurling into branches, like a utility pole turned staff.

She planted the branched end on the ground.

She straightened her right arm and leveled the bare end. It pointed toward where Yekase had sensed the robot main brain. No word passed between them. Yet she somehow knew the target, like a compass obeying a quiet star.

Odd temper, maybe. But friendly fire in the right direction. Invite her to the island later, chat over tea. With Yekase’s tongue, some answers would shake loose.

Her cherry lips parted. A sweet voice rose, like a traditional mage casting.

Light up, Nightlight Torch.

From the hollow tube, a beam shot out, silver braided with red, clean as lightning. It speared into the ceiling.

A laser pointer, huh.

No matter how you looked, “torch” didn’t fit that shine.

But the power spoke for itself.

Forget Yekase. After nearly an hour of fighting by Crimson Field, Ling Yi, and Dragon God Shark, the ceiling and floor were still pristine. They had abandoned any thought of busting out up or down. Yet that hard shell now got pierced by a needle-thin beam like tofu under a blade.

The girl flicked her wrist. The beam traced a circle. The ring popped free. A round slab crashed from the ceiling.

A handful of mechanical parts tumbled down with it.

All around them, every robot stopped moving at once.

…

……

…Is it over?

Seems like it…

The battle felt unreal, a dream with sweat. It taught a lot and still felt like nothing.

So, who are you, exactly—

Stay away from me.

Uh…

She didn’t even turn her face when she spoke. Her tone wasn’t exactly friendly, like frost over steel.

Still love bossing people around, dear.

—???

The girl clamped the staff under her rear.

Before anyone could call out, she rocketed upward on that very hard-looking staff. She vanished into the portal. Yekase tried to move, but the hole crackled with static, shrank, and sealed shut.

The two engines, drained dry, fell and thudded to the floor.

Silence spread, like dust settling after rain. Then—

…Doctor, aren’t you going to explain those three characters?

Eh? I don’t know!

Yekase looked blank. Twenty-seven years mother-womb solo, three years shy of Archmage, and suddenly someone calls her… “dear”?

One-Year War? Was that you, the One-Year War?

Did the erased version of me already learn how to get a girlfriend? What evolution branch is that?

She came running just to save you…

Homewrecker…

Ling Yi and Dragon God Shark tag-teamed her with words.

Professor F helped the exhausted Crimson Field over. He arrived just in time to hear “homewrecker,” and asked with amused interest, What unspeakable beastly thing did the Doctor do to you?

I didn’t do anything! I did nothing!

A powerful mystery girl helped us delete the enemy… and she called the Doctor “dear”!

Oh? So the Doctor has this kind of past…

She also said the Doctor snaps her fingers at her, only thinks of her in a crisis!

That conversation never happened, right?!

Not denying the “dear,” are you? Professor F’s smile was all fox.

I was about to deny it! I don’t even know her. I don’t know her name!

Yekase wrung every trick of speech to wash off the charge Ling Yi pinned on her. And she backed it with logic. Plus, her back faced us. That line wasn’t necessarily at me, okay? Maybe someone used Omega Ray and Flash Energy to open a portal before. She mistook me for that someone!

You’d better not know her.

Yekase bent to retrieve the fallen engines. They’d spent all stored energy. Their circuits were burned to ash. Total write-off. Makes sense. That door wasn’t something a consumer-grade power draw could feed. The fact it worked at all was a blessing.

Only then did Ling Yi notice the red drops streaking Yekase’s cheek and dripping off her chin.

…Doctor, you’re hurt? Ling Yi dropped her suspicion. She stepped in and lifted the hair by Yekase’s ear. Blood from the left earhole had nearly dried.

Ah. I overdid it when I scanned for the main brain. We’ll deal with it later.

With the defense cleared, retreating empty-handed was off the table. You only want treasure someone bothered to guard. These robots had run for who knows how long. What they guarded had to be precious relics from an ancient age.

Celestial Speech. Oz Floating Disc.

Yekase stepped up on air, half a meter high.

Come on up. Oz Floating Disc. Oz Floating Disc.

Transparent steps tiled the air, leading straight to the cut circle.

Ling Yi prodded the edge of a floating disc with her toe, then crept on, cautious as a cat. Professor F had seen worse. He followed without a blink.

You go ahead. I won’t get it even if I look. I’ll rest here for a bit. Crimson Field sat cross-legged on the spot.

He’d swung hardest in the cleanup. Even a red warrior burns out.

Oh. Be careful, then. Dragon God Shark tossed the words over a shoulder and sprinted up.

You’re not staying with him?

Why would I babysit him. Let him fend for himself.

Haha…

Team banter, warm and prickly. Ling Yi watched them, eyes bright under the visor, full of envy. When will the Doctor expand the roster? Add one more partner, and she’ll be a proper senior in the red line…

Stop dreaming. Taking care of you alone already wears me out.

Mind reading?!

It’s written all over your face.

But I’m wearing a visor!

Yekase wagged a finger. For her, that kind of trick was child’s play.

The four stepped through the hole in the ceiling on floating discs.

Inside, there was no starry sky. Only a cabinet-sized computer, ruined and dead.

Yekase lit the room again with Dancing Light. She’d spammed these small magics a hundred times today. Her Sorcery still hadn’t dipped. “Life-type spells” earned their name.

By that glow, they took in the chamber. Dozens of square meters. One big computer in the center. Otherwise, bare bones and cold walls.

But on one wall, they found something strange.

Is this… a mural?

An oil-ink mural painted straight onto the wall.

The lines were rough. The colors were slapped on. The edges showed dry, aging paint flaking off. Safe bet the builders left this as a message.

In the center, a white spiral. Around it, three figures in a triangle.

A robot with pure white wings. Golden armor and helm wrapped its whole body.

A robot with a round body and four legs, like a guard device.

A robot with a rig on its back, spraying two huge bands of colored light.

All robots, huh.

From a lay view, maybe only the third screams robot. One looks like a human. One looks like a beetle. But Yekase has judged more robots than she can count. She’s battle-tested. Those joints and head lines are mechanical, one thousand percent.

Is that white spiral the solar system? The galaxy? The universe?

No idea… maybe an ancient creation myth?

Robot creation? That’s ancient on ancient.

But after surfing a robot swarm more thrilling than any modern battlefield, maybe this old civilization really did have a grudge against flesh and blood. For a beat, no one joked.

Aside from the guard wrecks, there’s probably no practical loot. This is only the first layer of the ruin. Snap some pictures and head back.