She set every paper and study aside like fallen leaves swept from a path, and Yekase grasped one clear truth.

At arm’s length, after watching through her Infinite Power vision again and again, she tasted practice like bitter tea and drew her own conclusion—

“Neptune Energy” was never a fuel.

It was an alien lifeform whose body was pure energy, a living flame wearing no flesh.

Infinite Power was called Infinite because it had a will of its own, a compass pointing inward like a reed quivering in wind.

Humans mistook this creature’s self-awareness for the will of Infinite Power, so a source worse than electricity got dragged into the Infinite roster like a stray fish in a net.

A years-long misunderstanding, root to branch!

The stuff sold as Neptune Energy was sluggish and weak because those beings were asleep—some may have been corpses, hollow shells on a tide.

And its true shape was right here, hovering like a storm cloud before the three of them.

It had been catalyzed by something underground, so it woke from a long winter sleep—maybe the only one of its tribe to open its eyes.

Flat on her back, Yekase needed ten seconds to string the facts like beads; then her head throbbed worse than her tailbone.

What was this? A planned extermination turned into a third-kind encounter, like a battlefield tipping into a temple.

She pushed off the ground and eyed the unknown lifeform with a hunter’s caution and a pilgrim’s respect.

Calling it “Neptune Energy” felt off-topic now; she clipped the last two words and named it Neptune, like a planet in deep cold seas.

Neptune had taken a direct hit from a rocket and wore wounds like cracked ice. Its flailing tendrils retracted, it shrank into a single lump. Yekase threw Lu Yao a thumbs-up, then lifted the Polaris Staff and walked toward Neptune like a reed stepping into a lake.

Squirm, squirm—like a tideworm rippling under wet sand.

…Twenty meters left, a breath bridging two shores.

This range could bite hard, like a bow drawn to ear—yet Neptune only quivered in place. Curiosity rose in Yekase’s chest like steam and smothered her need to win; she didn’t throw a single tool.

Squirm, squirm—green jelly breathing like moss.

…Fifteen meters… ten meters…

Was it afraid? So close, still no stir—at this range, her naked eye could drink in every detail like night rain soaking stone.

A dark green lump, pitted like cratered rock. A meter long, half a meter high. It glowed green like foxfire. Its body was half-transparent, no core glinting inside, only slow rivers of gel.

A standard RPG slime, a puddle with a pulse.

Yekase stepped once more, a crane picking its way through reeds.

Suddenly, the light around her dimmed like dusk snuffing a candle.

Three huge globes of body fluid fired from Neptune’s insides, arcing and falling to cover her like a net. The gaps were wide, yet the feeling hit like a closing gate—no path back, no way out.

Nightlight Torch failed—no, that wasn’t it. It had flung pieces of itself like stones.

The answer was raw arm strength—its attack stat scrawled by fate.

Yekase slammed the Phase Shifter, burning Shen Shanshan’s last half second of charge in one gulp, like a spark devoured by wind.

The gel-rounds splashed and swallowed the ground where she had stood. A heartbeat later, her shift ended; she reappeared from a second pooling of gel, vaulting into the air like a springing cat.

By then, Ling Yi had shrugged off armor like a snake shedding skin; only her chestplate, base suit, and helmet clung on. She looked like a Sunday morning tokusatsu lead, finally finding her legs. Lu Yao had caught a whiff of the pattern too; her muzzle dipped, the Glock breathing like a quiet wolf.

“I’m done! I’ll be right—”

Lu Yao caught her by the arm, cool as shade.

“What is it?”

“She’s testing. Don’t add variables.”

“Eh?”

Lu Yao fixed on Neptune like a hawk pinning a river. If Yekase’s guess matched hers, then choosing to leap skyward instead of slipping sideways meant one thing—she wanted to test the mirror in the water.

Split into two, both Neptunes moved in perfect sync, like twin moons tugging one tide. Each launched a high-pressure water jet from its body.

Two needle-thin shots, trailing ribbons, punched into Yekase midair, where no dodge lived.

It looked painful, like hailstones on bare skin.

“Doctor!”

“…As expected.”

Ling Yi frowned, puzzled, glancing at Lu Yao as if the answer hid behind fog.

“…………”

Lu Yao didn’t want to talk; her silence felt like snow piled on bamboo. Ling Yi deployed her secret art—hug, shake, plead—and Lu Yao relented with a thin explanation:

“Water-cannon matches rocket and grenades. Water-gun matches handgun. Numbers line up like tracks.”

“What about tentacles?—Ah, the Doctor picking it up?”

“Mm.”

By rights, “scooping off the ground” was swift and a little rough, but it wasn’t hostile fire. If Neptune counted even that as an attack, its threshold was too low—leave it unchecked and who knew what storm it might call.

Yekase dropped from the two water hits and landed light. Third fall in short time, but her body adapted, a cat twisting midair, feet kissing earth without stiffening.

If only this catalyst buff stayed forever, she thought greedy as a fox. Only for me, please.

She’d still eat the water-gun damage. Blood seeped from chest and thigh, two scarlet petals blooming on her white sailor uniform, bright as poppies in snow.

With its reaction attacks spent, Neptune settled again, a pond stilled by moonlight.

Yekase drifted closer like a boat cutting fog.

No idea if Neptune had vision. She opened her arms, trying to offer goodwill like a lantern under rain.

She walked to roughly ten meters, no incident, like passing through a quiet bamboo grove—the next step was the hinge.

She stepped.

…………

Nothing happened, as calm as a lake without wind.

She let out a long breath, like steam from winter tea. She closed the gap and stopped within arm’s reach, then cautiously stretched a hand toward the gel surface, a palm like a leaf touching water.

She looked like a girl in a cartoon petting a caged beast—but beasts in cartoons bow to kind hands. The real world keeps its teeth.

Watching from afar, Ling Yi and Lu Yao held their breath, hearts tight like bowstrings.

Lu Yao had seen heroes who turn and run at the cliff, and heroes who throw themselves forward like sparks in dry grass. She’d never seen anyone as fierce as Yekase. In Lu Yao’s eyes, Yekase wasn’t a hot-blooded fool. Her moves were cautious to a fault, allergic to risk; yet she’d risk her life again and again for a sliver of a chance—how many more water-cannons or water-guns could she take?

“Has she always been like this?”

Lu Yao didn’t know what tone she used. From the corridor came a rustling surge—Emerald Pool fighters gathered from the living area, forming an encirclement like a net closing on fish.

“She’s always been like this.”

Ling Yi flicked Sky Striker twice; its glow fizzed, weight a shade heavier, like rain soaking cloth.

“But now we finally have something we can do, right?”

“…………”

Lu Yao pulled a long-duration smoke grenade from her waist pouch and tossed it toward the entrance, casual as throwing a stone in a river. Her right hand raised the Glock, the dark muzzle aimed at the rising smoke like a cave watching a storm.

“You go.”

“Eh…”

“I’ll drop whoever breaks through the smoke.”

Her gaze swept Ling Yi’s lightweight armor up and down like a cold wind, then settled on Sky Striker, now flagging without Flash Energy, a wilting blade. After a beat of silence, she fished a knife in a metal sheath from an inner pocket and pitched it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Electromagnetic vibro-knife.”

“…For me? Are you sure?”

Lu Yao lifted one eyebrow, dry as a twig.

Ling Yi hugged the knife to her chest. “Got it! I’m going!”

She bounced twice like a sparrow and dove into the smoke.

Darkness wrapped her like damp cloth; no shapes, no silhouettes. Plenty of foes by the feel—yet the fog swallowed them, and Ling Yi spun like a headless fly, lost in a cotton field.

After who knew how many turns, a side-profile appeared ahead like a shadow cut from paper.

She raised the knife and swung.

The silhouette slid past the edge like water dodging a stone.

Ling Yi jolted, about to wheel for a second strike, when the figure slipped close, finally showing a face—well, not a face, a mask she knew too well.

A white round mask, eyes and mouth scribbled with marker, a child’s moon.

Mechbreaker’s mask.

…Huh?

The figure raised a finger—shh—and melted into the smoke like ink in water, no sound, no trace.

…………Huh??

Wait. The Doctor was back there, getting cozy with a slime, right?!

Behind her, gunshots thumped, bang-bang, like drums in fog—the lucky few who made it through were rewarded by Lu Yao with peanuts.

Ling Yi’s thoughts tangled like vines, but she kept roaming in the smoke, bumping into three lost fighters and dropping each with a knife, one by one, simple as falling leaves.

When the smoke thinned and died, bodies lay strewn at mad angles, near twenty fighters on the floor, a grim harvest after a short storm.

She searched for that “Mechbreaker” shape again and found nothing, only emptiness like a path after rain.

Illusion? Someone covering tracks like a cat with sand?

“Doctor, watch out! Someone’s disguising themselves as you—”

Ling Yi turned back toward Yekase,

and stumbled into the most shocking sight of the day, no warning, like lightning splitting a clear sky:

The green unknown had turned limpid, clear as mountain spring. It wrapped Yekase from head downward, hugging her like a second skin. Her figure showed cleanly through, coated in a thin layer like syrup… like amber poured thin over a statue.

“—Whaaa?!”

Yekase lifted her right hand, gel-slicked, and flashed a scissors gesture at Ling Yi like a playful crane.

“It’s surprisingly gentle. Just… got a metallic taste in my mouth, like rust.”

“That’s straight radiation, top to bottom!”

“Not really. The Flash Energy in me evolved to neutralize radiation. And it’s calmed down, so I don’t need Nightlight Torch anymore… eep?!”

Yekase yelped, a red spark on white snow.

“What happened?! Can’t take it?!”

Find a medic—no, chemistry class said radiation sickness has no cure now—was the Doctor about to—

Yekase’s cheeks flushed, pink like peach blossoms. She pressed her thighs together, awkward, and stammered, heat fluttering in her voice:

“It… it slipped in a little…”

…………

“…Huh?”