“Doc, I went shopping and grabbed late-night snacks with Sister Bailu last night.”

The incident wrapped neatly, sleep came early, and Yekase, for once, tasted a decent human schedule.

Fourth morning of the rally. Hotel breakfast zone. Yekase and Ling Yi sat chewing corn cobs like two squirrels guarding gold bars. Then Ling Yi popped the topic.

“I’m glad you two hit it off,” Yekase said.

“And then we started spitballing how to upgrade the Flashblade System.”

…No, not here. Not in public.

Cold sweat pricked Yekase’s neck. She glanced around. No eyes on them. Barely.

“Bailu-jie said, we could try Flash Energy reconstruction. Flood it with Flash Energy, prop the armor up…”

“Turn it into an MS?”

“Turn it into a mecha dragon.”

“Pfft—”

Yeah. Mira’s draconification obsession had clearly rubbed off on Jiang Bailu and Ling Yi, contagion by proximity.

“You’re still hung up on Mira’s dragon trick? It looks slick, sure. In a real fight, that body-structure mismatch is fatal. Not a joke.”

“Mm…”

Ling Yi just stared at Yekase.

Those eyes—wet and clear like a wounded fawn under rain leaves. Guilt stabbed clean through Yekase’s chest. She coughed, looked away. “Fine. Outside combat, knock yourself out. If you want, I can preload a dragon-form model for you…”

“Really? I want to design it myself, and you save it for me!”

“Sure, sure.”

After breakfast, they left the hotel. In the mountain forest of stage two, they found an abandoned campsite.

Yekase tucked a little stool under her arm. She used the Gunblade to scythe down a patch of waist-high grass, then sat hugging two weapons like a street bard guarding his lute.

Right. Last night she only had time to jury-rig a scabbard. She still hadn’t named the thing…

“By the way, Doc, why two weapons? Can you even use both?”

“Because…”

Because what?

With her current blue bar, she could fly cross-country without a staff. The casting assists a staff gives? For someone who hates using Sorcery, not just unhelpful—utterly useless.

She couldn’t exactly say riding the staff just feels right, could she?

“So, uh, here’s the thing…”

Yekase flipped on nonsense mode. “Out there, the star called the Polaris Staff once had a companion that vanished for years. Like the One-Year War is to me. And a staff carries the idea of guidance and support. In other words, those shining years are what hold me up.”

“Wow…” Ling Yi was instantly dazzled.

“So holding this Polaris Staff keeps that war in my bones. Reminds me the fight isn’t over. I’ve got work to do.”

Ling Yi nodded, solemn as an oath stone.

“I’ll work with you.”

…It wasn’t that serious.

Yekase was kind to herself. Not going back to wage slavery was baseline; hero work was a favor. Her goals? Keep Ling Yi safe. Pass along a spark.

Grand vows to burn herself up? Not really.

Give it a few years, when Ling Yi could stand alone. Have Lu Yao keep an eye on her. Let Magical Girl Icarus “fall” in a fight with the Organization. Then drift across countries, learn whatever looked fun. That was the shape of her plan.

Time stood on their side like a mountain with the sun behind it.

After that talk with Sandryon, something in Yekase had shifted, a quiet hinge turning.

Ling Yi got her answer, stepped into the clearing, and drew out the key.

“Flashblade Activation!”

“Starry Sky Striker ACE!”

“ZEROS!”

She chose the white balanced form—the most delicate for Infinite Power control—and began channeling Flash Energy.

Red light with a brushed-metal sheen wrapped her whole body. Silver-white armor plates flowed over a black undersuit like living scales, clinking with metal-on-metal whispers.

In Yekase’s Infinite Force Perception, something changed—threads of azure Mind Energy bled into the rich red Flash Energy.

It started as a dot. Then a smear. Then a whirlpool.

Red and blue mixed into a rose-violet, no borders left to name.

…

So that’s how the mixing looks.

She’d seen tons of mixed-Infinite-Power builds. But watching it this close, by hand, inside a living body? First time.

She watched the swelling mass. She watched the first filament of light born from nothing braid into the ultimate shape of human will. It felt like the universe nudged her with a secret—

—Nope.

It really was a paint palette, Yekase thought.

Ling Yi had prepped for this. Not a heartbeat of hesitation. She managed plate sizes and edges like a tailor folding silk. The mecha dragon took its first breath.

She became a dragon, ten meters snout to tail.

Silver armor plates broke into palm-sized scales, sheathing her body and throwing back the morning sun like snow-glare. Four claws showed naked machinery, long and lean as a wolfhound. The head was classic dragon, but the horns weren’t solid—two streaming spears of Flash Energy.

The strangest were the wings. Not the membrane Yekase knew, but two skeletal iron racks flaring from her back. At each tip, three rhombus iron vanes—tweaked from the original Blade Armor thrusters. They didn’t look like wings. More like a matching pair of body-sized claws.

Ling Yi opened her eyes.

Blood-red mechanical eyes, warning lights without pupils. Yekase still knew the gaze landed square on her.

…Locked on.

A cold ripple ran down Yekase’s spine, like meeting a real apex predator in a thicket. Her skin prickled. The animal before her felt suddenly unfamiliar.

The silver mecha dragon bared blade-teeth in a grin and—

“How is it?! Cool as hell?”

…

…Still Ling Yi.

“Whose look did you swipe?”

“The sky-comet dragon from Monster H—nter!”

“Knew it…”

Silver coat. Red particle effects. Three pairs of external thrusters… Not ‘similar.’ Copy-paste.

Dragon-Ling Yi shook her six iron wings. “Doc, I… I…”

“?”

“I’m gonna fly!”

VROOOOM!!

Hyper-compressed Flash Energy detonated from six thrusters, a roar like the air itself being sanded raw. The blast almost flattened Yekase. She looked up. Ling Yi was already a dot dragging a comet-tail of red.

“Alright then… Celestial Speech: Continuous Flight!”

Yekase cut across from the flank, slid on her goggles, and shouted, “The Central Plains is a speed-limit zone. North or west—pick one!”

“Due north!”

“Got it!”

Rice Rice felt the pressure and the chill drop. It slipped up onto Yekase’s shoulder and became a warm shawl.

She met Ling Yi’s eyes, grinned. “Shall we?”

The next instant, both figures vanished like two swallows diving into cloud.

…

…

One girl and one dragon crossed the Gobi, skimmed over steppe, and drifted out of Huaxia airspace without noticing.

The wind sharpened to knives. Frost thickened on Ling Yi’s scales like sugar on candied haw. They both realized this place wasn’t welcoming.

Siberia.

Russia’s permafrost country. Some unexplained blast, twenty-some years ago. Everyone evacuated. All that remained were hollow cities and roaming wildlife.

“…Hah.”

They perched on a mountain top.

All around them, a sea of wild forest, a hidden world that shouldn’t exist in the twenty-first century—if you ignored the brutal cold and the Sorcery currents in the air, all jitter and static. Those two alone were deal-breakers. Still… not bad for a secret base.

Only then did she notice the sun sitting right on the crown of the sky.

A morning flight from Ningxia to Siberia. Not bad for dragon-form’s maiden voyage.

“Head back? It’s about noon.”

“Mm…”

Ling Yi answered on habit, turned—and froze.

Those alarm-light red eyes somehow held shock and confusion.

“What’s wro—”

The light dimmed around Yekase before she could finish.

…?

She blinked. Something clicked. She looked up, stiff as a gear catching.

And stared into a dragon’s eye, bigger than her face.

“…Hello?”

“ROAAARRR—!!”

A gigantic talon, hard as earthmovers and cold as steel, scooped Yekase up and vaulted skyward.

“Eh—hey—hey?!”

Snatched. Right. In. Her. Face?!

Ling Yi lagged a half beat, then screamed and hammered those iron wings. She chased hard. She still couldn’t close.

The red dragon—at least twice her size—barely seemed to flap. Yet every lazy stroke made more thrust than Flash Energy at full burn. Ling Yi redlined and could only keep it in sight. Gaining ground was a dream.

A steel fortress bristling with spikes rose on the horizon like a black crown.

Didn’t look human-made. In the world’s biggest no man’s land, the youngest ruins were twenty-plus years old, yet this thing looked new. The red dragon’s home?

Closer, and shadows circled above the fortress—dragons, all kinds, all sizes.

At this rate, Doc was getting hauled home for lunch!

So that’s it—Siberia’s evacuation happened because dragons moved in?!

“Spare her—don’t eat her!”

The red dragon ignored her and dropped onto the steel fortress roof with Yekase clutched in its claw.