Ten minutes later, regret hit Yekase like cold rain drumming down a tin roof.

She looked back on her life, and every time she pulled off a cool act or landed a plan, the victory turned to ash before noon, like fireworks drowned by dawn.

Was Heaven tapping her on the head to keep it down, like a palm over a candle?

Telling a genius, a powerhouse like her, to walk small, like a crane folding its wings...

Ten minutes earlier, Lu Yao had downed that vial of True Ancestor heart-blood without a blink, and the room stayed still as a held breath.

Yekase thought Labyrinth City had gone senile and handed her a counterfeit, a paper tiger dressed in glass, and then the next second Lu Yao surged up like a spring storm and slammed her to the tub’s rim.

At zero distance, face to face like reflections on river water, she saw Lu Yao’s eyes burn red like embers, and her canine teeth sharpen like twin blades.

…A vampire, the word fell like a stone into a well.

What the hell—weren’t there no side effects, like a placid lake promised to stay calm?

In that daze, Lu Yao sank her teeth into Yekase’s neck like a hawk into prey, and as blood streamed out like a reddened tide, her strength ebbed like a moon-going sea.

Even if she wanted to fight back, her limbs were reeds in the wind, and she went soft as wet paper, letting Lu Yao drink her fill like a drought meeting rain.

So that “no side effects” meant the user kept clear skies, while bystanders got the thunder, like a parasol held by one under a monsoon.

Misfortune came like a flock of crows at dusk, because Yekase’s body was Flash Energy to the bones, and the bite drew that light like a moth to a flame—she shrank again like a receding shadow.

She’d fused with Flash Energy, yet because of a cold alignment check, she couldn’t freely steer or produce it, like a boat with a locked rudder, and this was the result.

On the other side, after a satisfied drink like a wolf licking its chops, Lu Yao’s self came back like a lantern relit, and she saw what her hands were doing like waking to red on her fingers.

“I—you—this…” The words tripped like pebbles down a slope.

“Don’t ask me… I don’t know if this is the effect either…” Yekase’s breath came shaky like a little bell, and at seven years old she looked like a walking hotline for protect-the-minors signs.

“So… how do you feel…?” Her voice felt like tiptoeing on thin ice.

“I do feel power flooding me like fire in my veins—but did I just become a vampire?!” Panic skittered like sparrows.

Lu Yao hadn’t prepared for giving up being human in a steamy bathroom and biting on the spot, like a dream breaking water’s surface, and she dropped the iceberg persona like a cracked mask.

“Vampires are a famous vase species, pretty like porcelain and just as brittle, with more than five public, lethal weaknesses rattling like chains, and monster physiques don’t win against Infinite Power, like paper against flame. By the 20th century they were hunted near extinction like foxes in winter.”

“Don’t panic, don’t panic… let me catch my breath like a swimmer to the edge… and I’ll take you to the blood’s original owner… to bang on their door like thunder…”

Lu Yao stood up out of the bath like a storm breaking, and fled to her room like a slammed shutter, where she locked herself in with silence like snowfall.

Yekase lay there, staring at the bathroom ceiling like clouded glass, her face slack like a wilted leaf. After nearly twenty minutes, strength seeped back like warmth into fingers, and she climbed from the water to towel off like a cat after rain.

Then she grabbed her phone like a lifeline and placed an international call to Labyrinth City.

“What do you want—?” The lazy voice drifted like smoke, just-woken and warm.

“The blood you gave me! That vial!” Yekase’s anger crackled like a lightning rod.

“Oh, you drank it?” The reply curled like a cat on a windowsill.

“I gave it to my friend! And she turned into a vampire! Didn’t you say no side effects?” Her words snapped like dry twigs.

“Changing race isn’t a side effect.” The calm fell like a stone into a pond.

“That part doesn’t bother her, but the vampire race comes with a whole basket of side effects like thorns in a wreath!”

“Relax. It’s a True Ancestor bloodline, clear as mountain spring. She won’t get any low-tier vampire weaknesses. The price is, the boost only lasts briefly after feeding, like a comet’s tail. For you two, that’s enough, right?”

“…That’s a relief.” Yekase’s breath finally left her like steam from a cup.

She ran to Lu Yao’s door and explained through wood like talking to a tree, and after a long while, Lu Yao came out half-believing, like a deer at the edge of a clearing.

Her eyes were still red like twin coals, and her canines still pricked like thorn tips.

Liu RuoYuan came up right then with clothes for a shower, and at the sound behind her both heads turned like owls in a night wood.

“Uh…” Under two red gazes like twin warning lights, she froze like a rabbit and hunched her neck.

“Am I the one not fitting in here, like a gray feather in a flock of red?”

“Huh? Fitting how?” The question hung like mist.

“The eyes.” Her finger pointed like a twig.

“Please don’t. You’re one of the few normal ones left among us, like a clear star in red skies…”

Yekase had soaked in Flash Energy and got red irises like tinted glass, Lu Yao had just turned red-eyed too (no idea if forever), and Ling Yi bathed in heavy Mind Energy and Flash Energy mix; her pupils had turned a Mary Sue red-blue gradient, like dawn meeting dusk.

If they all deployed together now, stealth would be a joke under a new moon, and in the dark you’d only see three bright eyes blinking like fireflies.

Right. Given that, tactical goggles for everyone would be neat, like night fishermen’s lamps—Yekase’s mind floated off like a kite on a breeze.

The next afternoon, Yekase called Ling Yi up to the Ambition Divine Ship to talk through the night’s operation, like plotting on a cloud-ship’s deck.

She wasted two hours letting her run wild on the floating island like a puppy in a meadow, but finally they settled down in the small first-deck meeting room like stones in a pond.

Also at the table sat Lu Yao… and Jiang Bailu, two cold moons sharing a sky.

The two didn’t see eye to eye, and sat left and right of Yekase like rival pillars, which made her shoulders tense like drawn bowstrings.

“Feels like the four of us are already a fixed party, like a squad in a poster. Isn’t this a team? Should we pick a group name?” Ling Yi danced around the brewing storm like a sparrow skirting a hawk, cheerful as sunshine.

“Who’d team with this hysterical crone—” The jab flashed like a knife.

“Wanna get settled up?” The reply rumbled like thunder on the horizon.

“Ahem. Anyway, the mission target’s simple, like a marker on a map: take back the Flashblade System 1.0 loaded with the AI Roze, stolen by the Sinister Organization [Cross Duel Edge]!” Her words clicked like a slide into a projector.

Yekase hauled the topic back on track like rails under a train, and continued like a teacher with chalk.

“Lu Yao, what do you know about them?” Her gaze was a steady beam.

“As far as I know, they’re a standard combat dispatch outfit, as common as crows. No links to Flash Energy or robots.” Her voice was flat as a blade’s spine.

“Mhm. Robots aside, any group tangled with Flash Energy, I’d like to meet, like a chemist to a rare element.” Yekase nodded like a bobbing buoy, rose from her seat, and went to the whiteboard by the projector like a flight to the exit.

It felt like she left her chair the way someone leaves a fire, legs quick as wind—probably just nerves like moth wings.

[Combat Dispatch Organization] she wrote in six strokes that circled like a ring.

“So why would such a dime-a-dozen group sign a business contract with Unrecognized Consortium X, and buy an old robot that’s been idle in a warehouse for almost five years, like digging up a buried stove? Bailu, heard anything on the wind?”

“No. I only saw strangers come haul Roze away yesterday, like movers at dawn. I asked and learned it then.” Her words fluttered like loose pages.

“You’re the R&D director, and you were kept in the dark, like a lamp with a shade?”

“Yes…” Jiang Bailu’s head dipped like a drooping flower.

Lu Yao folded her arms and let out a short laugh like a cold spark.

“With no intel, we’ll table motive, like a book on a shelf. Since Roze in their hands is a done deal, we take it back first, like a hook in water, and consider the why later.” Her tone cut like a clean line.

“Mm.” Agreement landed like a stamp.

“Then we need to gauge both sides’ fighting strength, like weighing two stones, and draft an action plan… You can pitch in here, and I’ll consider it like seeds in soil.”

Yekase wiped away the [Combat Dispatch Organization] like erasing footprints, drew a line from top to bottom like a sword stroke, and wrote [Cross Duel Edge] on the left, and on the right…

[The Three of Us], letters neat as tiles.

“Why?” Ling Yi asked, her head tilting like a curious jay.

“You don’t think I’m fighting in seven-year-old mode, right? This isn’t a Cloudlong City emergency, like a siren at midnight.”

With a small face that looked innocent when blank, like snow on a stone, Yekase shrugged, pulled her collar to show two reddish punctures on her neck like twin rose thorns, and shifted aggro like a mirror.

“Blame the freshly minted vampire.” Her smile was a fox’s.

“Hey.” The protest was a puff of smoke.

“A vampire?! Where?” Jiang Bailu yelped like a startled cat, and looked around left and right like a metronome.

Lu Yao averted her gaze with a face awkward as a slipped mask, and raised a hand like a student in trouble.

“That’s right! Comrade Lu Yao graduated from humanity last night, like a phoenix changing feathers!”

Yekase clapped through muddy waters like rain on tin.

Ling Yi didn’t quite get why this was worth fireworks, but clapped twice anyway, like polite raindrops.

“Wasn’t it your fault?” The question flicked like a whip.

“Not just me. Also Labyrinth City.” Her shrug floated like a leaf.

After one night, Lu Yao’s eyes hadn’t returned to black, like coals that refused to die, so this seemed fixed as a new racial trait, like a new stripe. But those fang-points that looked like they’d cut a lip had drawn back like retracting claws.

“How can a trait hide half and show half, like a cat behind a curtain? Flexible species, huh? Vampires link to bats anyway. Your hero codename could just change to Batman, like a cape in the dark.”

“You—” Her temper sparked like flint.

“How long does vamp mode last? Did you time it last night, like a stopwatch on a track?”

“About two hours.” The answer fell like a pebble.

“Plenty. I’ll top you up before we head out, like refilling a lantern.”

It was Jiang Bailu’s first time seeing Yekase jab at a teammate with such sharp edges, like fencing with friendly tips, and she felt a touch of surprise like a cool draft.

Ling Yi leaned to her ear and whispered like grasshoppers in summer, “A-Ping kinda likes being forced.”

“They’re birds of a feather, two subs making one dom,” Jiang whispered back like a rustle of silk.

Yekase’s Flash Energy ears heard it and played dumb like a statue; Lu Yao’s vampire ears heard it and didn’t have the spark left to burn, like wet matches.

Soon, Yekase listed their current combat power under [The Three of Us], the chalk ticking like rain.

Ling Yi—Blade Armor, basic five forms plus the combination form “Cross-Flash,” like lightning crossing rivers.

“Ling Yi’s got the highest output and armor like a carapace, so you’re still our breacher, like a ram at the gate. In ‘Cross-Flash,’ you can only combine Kagari and Dew right now?”

“Yes. Gale and Gauntlet clash like oil and water. I tried a few times after going home, and it still wouldn’t lock, like magnets wrong-way. In anime, opposite attributes often click like stars crossing…”

“It’s already great. This form wasn’t in my design; it’s your exclusive, like a hidden blossom. It’ll evolve for sure.” Yekase soothed like warm tea. “How long can you hold it?”

“About five minutes, then it fully breaks down like ice in sun, leaving only the mask and the base suit.”

“Is this Ultraman?” The joke winked like neon.

“Someone with a three-minute stamina shouldn’t talk,” Ling Yi shot back like a rubber band.

How did she remember that… Yekase scratched her head like a puzzled sparrow, and kept writing on the board like chalk on bone.

Jiang Bailu—Psychic Ability “Coffee Moon,” a crescent over a dark sea.

“…Okay, we’re skipping this entry.” Her hand paused like a cloud.

“Skipped?!” Jiang’s voice popped like a soap bubble.

“Psyche stuff’s tricky and crooked like mountain paths. You judge it yourself; we can’t chart it like a map. You’ll sway in the middle line, like a reed in wind.”

It was true as stone, and Jiang Bailu could only accept being the only one skipped, like a lone page turned.

Lu Yao—Armory plus Peace Walker, like a gun rack and a calm stride.

“Vamp form smooths your melee deficit like sanding a rough plank, but you’re green with it, like a new blade. Stick to your usual style for now. We’re moving as three this time, no need to cover every corner like a blanket. I’m assigning you cover and long-range picks, like a sniper behind a hedge.”

“Got it…” Her assent was a steady ember.

That made the lineup “breach–midline–backline,” like spear, shield, and bow. In RPG terms it was classic: melee main carry, ranged sub-carry with a dash of control support, like a party in a guidebook. For the record, Yekase’s original slot was also breacher alongside Ling Yi, but now she could only sit in the spectator’s seat like a cat on a sill.

Blame Batman, like a shadow on the wall.