On Mount Buzhou, scraped past recognition, a lone mech stood like a silent monolith under a burnt sky.

Dragon God Core? No.

Dragon God Tail? Still no.

Then… the Gauntlet?

“What… is that…”

Zhang Wendao burned to rush in as a Magical Girl, a comet in a pink skirt. But she couldn’t—without that diviner, she was a featherweight with infinite respawns and zero bite, a sandbag that wouldn’t stay down.

“…I told you, right? Once Flash Energy melts into metal and gets triggered, the metal can morph.”

The mech on the cliff wore a brown base and yellow tracery. But its arms were a wrong-red and a wrong-blue, mismatched in length and girth, like patchwork bolted on in a storm.

It was exactly that.

Yekase was the only one here who understood what had just happened.

“It fused them.”

“Fused?!”

“During close combat it seeped Flash Energy into their frames, then hard-triggered it—fused the points of contact, then puppeted their mechs through the seeded Flash Energy.”

Yekase’s face went pale, like frost across steel.

“It’s a scoundrel tactic that only works on non–Flash Energy machines. The enemy knew you’d rush to back Flashblade Red…!”

Bailu… to bring Dr Ika back, will you really go this far?

Yekase’s Sorcery was drained; [Phase Shift] was mostly spent in the ruins. She couldn’t promise a safe push. Only Ling Yi could still fight.

Ling Yi slipped from Professor F’s arms and stood again. “I’m fine! Sky Striker’s upgraded… I’m going to save them. Then the three of us take it down!”

…

…

“Come back alive.”

A thousand words folded into one ember.

Ling Yi nodded with her back to them.

She drew the Sky Striker. She suited up.

She tapped her toes to the stone and flew, like a swallow cutting wind.

“Doctor?!” “You’re letting her fight while injured?! If we must, we can abandon this base!”

Both Professor F and Zhang Wendao cried out.

“I have faith in her.”

Yekase watched the girl’s back, a red leaf against thundercloud.

“I hope you’ll have faith too… faith in me, having faith in her. Professor, those spells we learned—how many do you remember?”

Professor F’s eyes lit like flint. “Right, magic!”

She snapped her fingers and called her hover-disc, then swung onto it.

“This is my first time in a real fight… Doctor, keep me safe? With that vanish-in-place gizmo.”

“That thing’s almost out of juice.”

Yekase took her offered hand and stepped aboard.

“The remaining uptime is only 0.5 seconds—make it count. Don’t waste it.”

“Of course!”

“I’ll—” Zhang Wendao raised her hand, then remembered she was the most useless one here. She shrank back, words ashes on her tongue.

Anything comforting now would insult the old hero. They shut up and lifted off.

Yekase’s real aim was to watch the Gauntlet up close, to see what Jiang Bailu had changed and what she’d kept. But if Ling Yi got shot down, it was over. Guiding her came first.

[Doctor, after your breakdown, I started thinking.]

“…What?”

[Flash Energy is that dangerous…] For a heartbeat she felt it. [But in your hands it becomes a shield. The Gauntlet too, right?]

“True. My stock build hits softer than her modded monster.” Yekase sagged, a lamp in rain.

[That’s not what I meant! I think… I know how to befriend Flash Energy.]

Ling Yi hovered over the feral fusion mech. She didn’t strike. She reached to her chestplate and took out something.

Two Keys.

Besides the “Kagari” she wore, the other two form Keys.

[If it can fuse mechs, no reason I can’t.]

…

Wait—does she mean—

[Flashblade Activation!]

“Sky Striker ACE! Code-02!”

“Sky Striker ACE! Code-04!”

“HAYATE!”

“SHIZUKU!”

They detected she already wore one suit and should enter replacement flow. At the same time, they sensed each other—half-deployed “Gale” and “Dew” hung midair, stuck like butterflies before the clasp.

Yekase’s eyes went wide. She almost slipped off the disc. “Ling Yi, don’t! No one knows what happens if you do that!”

[We’ll know in a second! If it gets hairy, I’ll vent the Flash Energy with the structure you mentioned!]

Ling Yi thrust out both hands and grabbed the two half-deployed, power-starved armor masses as they began to fall.

The armor drank the Flash Energy flowing from her palms. It wrapped up her arms like tentacles binding prey, bursting into blue-green glow like twin auroras.

“You really… don’t have to go this far…”

[Doctor, you’re still in touch with someone from Unrecognized Consortium X, right?]

“—Eh?!”

[You made a wager. If I beat all incoming Sky Striker robots, you take back the seized Keys. If you lose, you’ll work for them…]

“How do you know?”

[…Something like that…]

…

…

“Ah?” [Ah?]

A brief, fatal silence.

Ling Yi wanted to say more, but the two glitch-summoned armors had already wrapped wrong around her arms. She could only feel for the flow, trying to steer the Flash Energy.

But it pressed in like a tide and refused to listen.

[Mind Energy, make me strong. If you love humans—your child—grant me a will that commands Flash Energy!]

“What are you chanting?”

The plea worked. Blue fire rushed up around her, brighter than ever, like a storm-fed torch.

Yekase was a genius, yes; her grasp of Flash Energy outstripped the field (the field barely existed). But that same logic boxed in her imagination.

Flash Energy is a super-system Infinite Power. A super system levels up its own way.

[An old anime said, “A sound mind and sound soul dwell in a sound body.” Mind Energy can fortify the body. Flash Energy can resonate with the spirit. Doctor, don’t you think they belong together?]

“You trust anime that much?!”

But fact beat theory. Ling Yi really suppressed the creeping sprawl.

Yekase was practical. If it worked, she accepted it. She held her tongue and handed Ling Yi the reins.

“Gale” and “Dew” settled, obedient, perfectly sheathing Ling Yi’s arms.

[One more form… hear me, and come to me!]

A red light flicked from the fusion mech’s body like a spark from iron.

It was the Gauntlet Key.

…Yekase wasn’t surprised anymore.

No—was this Jiang Bailu’s plan? Bring the original Gauntlet Key along on purpose, let Ling Yi gather all four attributes at full strength, then lose fair and square—so Yekase would concede from the heart.

Also, hey, you big lump—your Key just flew off and you don’t react, don’t even disassemble. What are you doing?

What Yekase didn’t know: the Flash Energy wave from Ling Yi’s call knocked the fusion mech off its reins, buying her time to knead the armor into a combine part.

The last Key drifted to a halt before Ling Yi.

“Flashblade Activation.”

She called.

“Sky Striker ACE! Code-03!”

It answered.

“—KAINA!”

Two voices overlapped like twin bells.

Ling Yi lifted her head and looked to Yekase on the hover-disc.

“Yeah. When did I stop believing in miracles too…”

Yekase took off her monocle, stood, and shouted to her.

“Win. As Flashblade Red!”

“Got it!”

The activated Gauntlet started a form-shift, then choked—the massive Blade Armor before it couldn’t be processed. The processor spun in circles. Ling Yi snatched it, poured Flash Energy in, and seized every permission.

She already held top authority. But now even basic mechanics and energy routing deferred to her—no normal human could juggle that storm of data.

Ling Yi did it by treating the extended armor as her own flesh. She drove the dead metal heap with raw will, like sinew pulling stone.

She split the Gauntlet in two and locked them to her legs. Her frame climbed to a rough five meters, a red pine braced in gale.

Thus, the Flashblade System 2.0’s four basics—Kagari, Gale, Gauntlet, Dew—finally gathered.

In a way absurd as a dream.

In a way even the inventor never imagined.

“Let’s go!”

Ling Yi strode in and tangled with the fusion mech. Half its size, she still traded blows even, fist for fist, thunder for thunder.

“Go, Flashblade Red!”

“…Go…!”

Yekase patted Professor F’s shoulder. “Professor, got time to learn two spells?”

“What are these?” Professor F glanced at the tablet. “[Sorcery Transfer] and [Arcane Sensitivity]? You want me to pass you Sorcery?”

“Mm. I’ve got a unique [Arcane Sensitivity] technique. If you feed me Sorcery, I can sense more.”

They were low-grade spells with simple prereqs. Professor F didn’t overthink. She learned them and cast on Yekase.

The familiar warmth streamed through her body. Yekase triggered [Arcane Sensitivity] again and peered toward the battlefield, eyes like lanterns in fog.

“Just as I thought… then, please use [Arcane Sensitivity] on me.”

“?”

Trusting Yekase, Professor F did it.

“You should’ve received a single word.”

“Yes… not heard, not seen… felt.”

The standard [Arcane Sensitivity]. The feedback word was the spell Yekase used most. By rights, it should be [Levitation Spell], or today’s overused [Dancing Light]. But from the moment she met Ivaris, Yekase had another thought.

If the erasure is magical, then can a magical probe leave a trace?

“What word?”

“It’s…”

Professor F spoke it one syllable at a time.

“…Nightlight Torch.”