Yekase wandered the streets late into the night, a lone moth skimming the last strip of neon.

She hit every bar marked on her map, then dove into a maze of old alleys, like slipping into tangled roots under stone.

Somehow she started browsing prop shops and clothiers in those deep lanes, shelves like talismans and bolts of fabric flowing like creekwater.

She’d heard modern sorcery barely sticks to objects, yet practice trumped rumor: magitech flashlights with built-in Dancing Light gleamed like captive fireflies, and auto brooms that traced preset paths slid like obedient cats.

Yekase bought a small thermostatic blanket, a warm cloud to wrap around her shoulders, and as a souvenir a huge wizard hat whose tip spun like a weather vane with her moods.

She even saw talking hats that would point at random independent city-states and shout “Mysidia!”, yet no matter the direction, the cry homed back like a migrating bird.

Then she grabbed gifts for Liu RuoYuan, Ling Yi, and Jiang Bailu, a trio of threads she kept tied to her heart.

For her kid sister, she chose a notebook that solved whatever equation touched its pages, answers blooming like frost on glass.

For Ling Yi, a high-waist skirt whose plaid slowly flowed, a gentle tide across a quiet shore.

For Bailu, an electronic crawler that slipped into a laptop through USB like a tiny eel and ate junk files like crumbs.

She bought a mountain before she noticed, then reached for her teleport box—only to remember the last half-month had been swallowed by compressed-space tinkering.

She’d forgotten to upgrade the box, and outside the service area it was a stranded ferry on a dry riverbed.

Once she got back, she’d push this project to the front burner, or crack compressed space first and overhaul the box into a proper “space ring,” the kind you see in webnovels, a pocket cosmos like a pearl.

“…I’ll take a bag.”

She accepted a brown paper sack for the notebook and skirt, and hooked the electronic crawler’s small cage with her right index finger, like lifting a sparrow.

She pushed out the door. The shopkeeper was closing, his voice drifting down the alley like a bell. “Girl, there’s a curfew tonight. Head home early!”

“Oh, thanks!”

Curfew?

Besides barhopping, Yekase had mapped Soville City’s security out of habit, the way a fox noses the wind.

This small city, about the size of Twin Towers City’s Tianxin District, had one police station and a few dozen officers, a thin fence against a storm.

If something ugly hit, she’d get dragged in like a leaf in a whirlpool.

Yet night was a fine time to dig into Fae’s trail, a hunt better done under a moon’s lid.

She weighed the risk, let the weight settle, and decided to ignore the curfew, a pebble thrown at a pond.

Trouble would be trouble; she’d stirred plenty already, smoke she chose and smoke that chose her.

Yekase tightened the blanket, a rough cloak, and straightened the wizard hat; its point aimed forward like a spear once her resolve clicked.

Under the blanket, her gunblade slept beside small wonders—Black Spider, Phase Shifter, and a hypnotic mp3—like charms on a hunter’s belt.

Polaris Staff came via satellite, a star on a leash she could call at any time.

If her raw combat score was sixty, with tools and steel it jumped to three hundred, a sparrow taking hawk’s wings.

The gunblade finally had a name; after wracking her brain dry, she asked Liu RuoYuan, Ling Yi, Jiang Bailu, Shen Shanshan, and Sandryon for help, tossing the problem like dice among friends.

(She asked Lu Yao too, and got scolded, a slap of cold water.)

The results rolled in like banners on a wind:

Liu RuoYuan—Southern Cross, a constellation pricked on night silk.

Ling Yi—Dawn of Eden, a first light over a garden gate.

Jiang Bailu—Heavenly Divide, a blade line splitting cloud from earth.

Shen Shanshan—Sinsoil Thorn, a grim spike in stained ground.

Sandryon—Sanctum Shade, a shadow slipping under cathedral ribs.

First, she axed the one that declared war on all believers, a torch flung at a powder keg.

The remaining four were equally dramatic, stars competing in the same sky, so she hit a dice site, rolled a four, and crowned it Dawn of Eden.

Yekase stepped onto an Oz Floating Disc and rose to a rooftop, a leaf caught by a silent updraft.

Her heightened hearing caught a murmur, not sorcery’s hum but the burr of engines, bees behind a wall.

Europe, in her mind, was a place pinched by Church and Sinister Organization, playing with knockoff magic under two thumbs.

Independent city-states cracked that picture, light leaking through shutters.

In bright moonlight, a squad of armored knights stepped from the forest’s black lace, forms etched in silver.

They piloted white two-meter single-soldier armor, marching in lockstep like teeth on a gear.

Left hands bore heavy tower shields; right hands held steel—long swords, maces, and even two flails that spun like chained stars.

Ten square shields bore the same mark, a red cross burning like a fresh wound.

“…Iron Cross Knights?”

She’d heard of this unit—standard loadout: single-soldier armor and sorcery-amplified melee weapons, iron married to breath.

Each fighter punched at officer level, patience and piety braided like ropes, with a squad leader hiding a secret sting.

They were medieval zeal made modern, storming Europe under church orders, hunting heretics day and night like wolves with liturgy.

Rules of judgment were never disclosed; if the Church wished, anyone could be branded blasphemer and fed to steel, a verdict hammered like a coffin nail.

Yekase wanted no tie to that flock of holy madmen, bells ringing danger.

Their presence nearby was a ticking bomb; whether they entered Soville City or not, the fuse hissed.

Tonight, curfew was no joke; she sighed like a cooling kettle and dropped from the roof, heading for a budget hotel, a cave in a cliff.

Good thing it was close; just turn this corner and slip like a fish into shade—

Something slammed her from the left, a shadow like a thrown door, and knocked her to the ground.

“—?!”

She rubbed her bruised backside, heat blooming like a coal, and saw a girl with hair in disarray.

Wet platinum strands clung to her face like seaweed; her bangs and sidelocks pasted to skin, a drowned moon.

She wore a mage robe far too large, now grimy with dust and grit, a scarecrow’s flag.

“You… what happened?”

“Help me!”

She grabbed Yekase like a swimmer grabbing a reed, clutching with both hands and feet.

“Someone’s trying to kill me!”

“…Huh?”

Curfew started to make sense, a lock on a door with wolves outside.

Questions spilled like beads: “Are you local? Why are you dressed like this at night? Who’s chasing you? Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t know?!”

Her eyes fluttered like sparrows. “I woke up in a trash pile! Then two people with knives chased me! They’re probably ‘demons’!”

“Uh—”

Yekase looked past her; two figures ran up with steel in their hands, shadows with teeth.

“…Fine, come with me.”

Her heart stayed cold as glass; the girl’s look and words were wind, not proof.

She’d shake the tail, find shelter, then pry the truth loose; if it stank, she’d put the girl down and hand her over.

She bent, hoisted the shorter girl onto her shoulder, hefting her like a sack of rice.

“Uwa?!”

“Polaris Staff.”

Silver flashed; an iron staff bloomed in her hand like a moonbeam.

With a wizard hat masking her face and a staff in hand, the hunters would peg her as a mage, a silhouette drawn by candle.

Who’d guess she was an Infinite Power mechanic—more or less—a gearsmith with thunder in her pockets?

She ran with the girl, legs beating the street like drums; better footprints than flight traces tonight.

…

…Which was her miscalculation, a stone thrown only to hit a wall.

She cut left and right through night alleys, carrying one life like a bundle, but the hunters were quick and knew the streets like veins.

Soon they were boxed in a long, deep dead end, a throat that swallowed sound.

“Hand her over. You can leave.”

The man lifted his blade, words flat as slate.

Yekase set the girl down like placing porcelain and asked, “Why are you taking her? Give me a proper reason, and I’ll hand her over.”

“No comment!”

The man and woman lunged, knives flashing like winter hail.

“Ha, called it.”

Yekase grinned, raised the blanket’s edge, and leveled Dawn of Eden, blade forward, gun barrel along its spine like a dragonfly’s body.

Bang, bang!

“Ugh?!”

“Within seven steps, a gun’s both fast and true,” she said, a proverb snapped like a twig.

She shifted, tucked the girl under her arm, and slapped out three discs, vaulting the wall like a cat over a fence.

The girl lagged a beat, words tripping like stones. “Eh, eh? You just shot them, shot—killed—”

“Quit yelling. Those were Flash Energy rounds. They won’t kill.”

Yekase pinched her nose, a small bell clamped. “Tell me what’s going on. Don’t make me guess.”

“What happens if you guess?”

“I’ll seriously consider you might be guilty,” she said, a scale tipping with a click.

The girl shook her head like a rattle-drum, no, no, no, no. “No, really no! Before waking in the trash, where I was, what I did—I don’t remember at all…”

“Mm-hm…”

Lately, what was this curve of fate? A flock of coincidences circling like crows.

She thought of Cloudlong City and Shen Shanshan’s place; she’d been dragged into bewildering serial messes again and again, tides that pulled ankles.

Before, she chose some fires; now she was chased by others, smoke pressing her back.

Chased…

…

Oh crap. Done for.

They’d looped back without noticing to the small fountain square where she’d first landed, a ring closing like a snake biting its tail.

Yekase slowed, eyes tightening at the sight—Iron Cross Knights arrayed in two rows, shields like red doors.

She shouldn’t have banked on luck; the taste was iron.

[Target: demon detected—]

The Iron Cross squad leader’s voice leaked from the armor, warped like a horn, echoing through curfew-locked Soville City.

[—and one accomplice.]

[Sentence:]

[Execution on the spot, as warning to all.]