The next morning, Yekase woke to the thunder of a plane knifing past her window.

She pushed up and peered out. A jet-black, fighter-shaped craft dipped its nose, like a hawk folding its wings, drifting toward the far runway.

Cloudlong City lived up to its name—skies clear as washed jade, air dry as tinder. The buildings sat low like brushstrokes. The grand hotel the Sinister Organization had raised here in recent years stood alone like a lone pagoda, the tallest around, so the gaze could roam far.

Landing a fighter at Cloudlong’s airport… some show-off contestant strutting down Main Street?

These days, anyone with time to soup up a deathwish of a car probably brushed shoulders with the Sinister Organization. Even if they were a “good citizen,” the quotation marks were glued on—someone who mingled with fighters wouldn’t fear your private jet.

Amused, Yekase turned, ready to burrow back into the quilt like a cat seeking sun.

Then, before her eyes, the fighter rippled and rearranged—wings shed for limbs. A mecha more than ten meters tall slammed into the grass by the runway like a falling boulder.

“Uh.”

That wasn’t mere strutting. That was a parade drum hammered against the skull.

An air-and-land transforming craft. Pure mechanical transformation.

Tell Ling Yi those words and she’d only breathe out, so cool. Yekase knew the weight under that shine—weight no rich kid joyriding the desert could shoulder.

“Bailu… Bailu.”

She hurried to the single bed and shook Jiang Bailu, rattling her like a bell.

“Mmm…”

“Up. Something’s outside.”

Sleep misted Jiang Bailu’s eyes. “What… is it…”

“A mecha just walked past the window.”

“Where?!”

She sprang up like a released spring, then crawled to the window on hands and knees, chasing the line of Yekase’s finger.

“Where’s the mecha? Doctor, are you mess—”

Her gaze swept the city from street to sky and locked on the thing.

“What… is that?”

“A fighter that transformed into a mecha. You’ve touched more intel in the last few months than I have. You should know the name.”

“War Blade…”

“No mistake. It should be the War Blade.”

Yekase’s certainty rang like iron on stone.

Funny coincidence: when she first named the Flashblade System, she’d weighed names like War Blade and Flash Blade. In the end, Blade felt less bloody on the tongue, so she shifted the character. It didn’t soften a thing.

If she’d picked War Blade back then, she’d have run headlong into that name.

“A new prototype from Shadow Curtain International’s Huaxia Branch…”

Why is it here?

Is Shadow Curtain International drilling a new weapon?

Of all times, these days. Of all places, here?

“Don’t panic—steady your heart like still water.”

Yekase’s voice tugged Jiang Bailu back from the eddy.

“If you’re really scared, don’t make me wear that stuff.”

“But…”

The point of that lock was to keep Yekase off the front lines. If trouble made her strip the safeties, wasn’t the lock meaningless?

For once, Jiang Bailu dug in, shaking her head hard, like a tree refusing the wind. “If Shadow Curtain really plans to meddle with the rally, then our investigation can fail. Better that than drawing their gaze. If I unlock you, I’m afraid you’ll end up tangling with them.”

“Then stop worrying at shadows.”

As if she’d expected that answer, Yekase didn’t push. She turned and slipped into the bathroom.

“Wash up. The flyer on the nightstand says breakfast’s free before ten.”

“Mm.”

As expected of the Doctor—facing Shadow Curtain International, the biggest, most dangerous variable, and her stance didn’t sway a reed’s width… Jiang Bailu sighed in secret.

She didn’t know: the moment Yekase shut the door, she locked it, then bent over the sink, pig-brain overloading, thoughts sizzling like oil in a hot wok.

What’s going on? The rally’s run by Eternal Green Pages. Swordforging Manor’s public face sits here in Cloudlong. And now Shadow Curtain’s drilling soldiers next door?

It’s just a rally. Does it deserve this storm?

Which means…

Yekase’s breath went shallow and off-beat, a snare drum in a tight room.

Simple. It means this isn’t just a rally.

Something else is about to break.

That’s what hooked Mira and sent them here. That madwoman back in Twin Towers City—what vein did she tap for secret intel?

We need to move now. Seize the first move before the rally begins.

But… one more problem.

Yekase stared at her reflection, eyes unfocused like drifting smoke. A seven-year-old’s aura was nowhere to be found. Not even the pose of a precocious child. The notes she heard most: decadent, or razor-edged. Either way, walking the street would draw suspicion like crows to a field.

Handled right, though, this shell could ground suspicion to dust.

After all, who would believe a little girl’s body hides a genius inventor’s soul? Say it aloud and they’d laugh: you’ve watched too many kid-detective shows.

She bared her teeth at the mirror, tried to squeeze out a carefree, sugar-sweet smile.

She almost gagged herself to tears.

“Gag…”

Must be empty-stomach nausea. Not actual disgust… sure.

Brush. Wash. Reset.

She wiped her neck with a damp towel and met the mirror with a helpless, crooked smile.

Her face was a lotus just risen from water—delicate, still child-soft, yet foreshadowing future bloom. If this face belonged to a true girl who’d grow normally, at seventeen she’d be the brightest star on any campus. Pity the one wearing it was Yekase.

She didn’t loathe it; underwear and skirts she wore when required. But she hadn’t become this out of fondness. Wearing the air of a girl was still hard.

She slid her gloves back on and ceded the bathroom to Jiang Bailu.

Back at the bed, she found Ling Yi awake, thumbing her phone like a sparrow pecking seeds.

“Doctor,” Ling Yi greeted as Yekase stepped out.

“Everything okay with school and home? You didn’t sneak out, did you?”

“Why bring that up first thing?”

Ling Yi stuck out her tongue. “I cleared it with everyone. My grades are fine. I said I needed time off for stress. The homeroom teacher even called me a model of balance.”

“Good.”

Yekase studied her eyes like checking a blade’s edge.

“W-what?”

“Nothing. Your Sister Bailu’s washing up. You’re next.”

“Oh.”

She came out on leave. Leave must be cleared and closed.

Yekase couldn’t let anyone keep her here.

For that, she needed to learn things, arrange things, do things—stones placed across a river.

“I’ll go grab breakfast first.”

“Not together?”

Yekase smiled and shook her head. “You two go together. I’m starving, so I’ll go first. Early bites lead late bites.”

She slipped into a black dress, shouldered her small bag, and lifted the Polaris Staff from the wall like a tall shadow.

Last night Jiang Bailu had griped that ever since the lolita form, Yekase only felt safe hugging Polaris to her chest, refusing even to stash it in the transfer box. She’d misjudged her. The box’s core sat back in their rental in Twin Towers City. However strong, it couldn’t bridge a thousand kilometers.

So Yekase was in true lady mode now, stripped of combat bite. Her usual trick of palming gear from thin air was offline. Only a few tools in the small bag remained.

A Gothic lolita hugging a staff taller than herself walked the hotel corridor, a raven cradling a spear of winter.

It drew some eyes. Yet the staff was bare, no branch-like prongs, just a long hollow iron tube—more plumbing than menace.

Yekase circled the breakfast area, took a steamed bun, and left.

She stepped out the front doors and shivered on the spot, November wind slicing like knives.

Give it a few minutes and her body would adapt, evolve. No—don’t lean on Flash Energy. She reached for the transfer box to pull a coat… and grabbed air. Right. The box was offline.

Forget it.

She walked into Cloudlong’s morning as-is, breath a trail of mist.

Northwest inland did not disappoint. It cooled faster than Twin Towers City. Every breath dragged out a puff of steam.

Her small face flushed with cold, a peach in frost. She thanked the existence of gloves and stockings, and even dreamed of one more padded layer.

She bit the bun; warmth bloomed like a coal in her mouth.

First, find Luzhixing. Whatever it takes, ask Swordforging Manor’s stance on this…

Second, the Polaris Staff’s melee is incidental. She needed a new weapon to replace Nayuta, and soon.

She’d sketched the shape in her mind.

It had to rule in close quarters. Yet it needed a ranged bite for when closing was wasteful or wrong. Liu RuoYuan and Jiang Bailu’s worries hadn’t fallen on deaf ears.

In short, it had to straddle near and far.

As for why not learn attack spells—call it a mechanic’s last pride.

A transforming weapon? Not ideal. Most on the market were gaudy toys that jammed themselves if you looked away. Ones like the Polaris, barely serviceable for defense, were already Swordforging Manor’s peak.

Integrated. Both ranges. Preferably stylish. The answer was simple.

A Gunblade.

A one-handed sword with a firearm built into the hilt.

It could cut like any blade and fire from a barrel along the spine. Accuracy suffered—hence gunblades vanished from history. But with Infinite Power rounds, that flaw wouldn’t exist…

So she would lean on Flash Energy, a little.

Who fights their own strength?