When the four reached the address on the notice, they froze as one, words shriveling like dew under dawn.

There—an empty house waited.

Its yawning door held no ember of light; in the fog it brooded, like a crouched beast, its dark maw silently aimed at them.

“How… why is there no one?”

“The trail’s snapped…”

Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu stepped into the ruined yard. Yekase and Ivaris shared a look at the fence gate and gave a small shake—this wasn’t in the script.

But that didn’t mean the reins had slipped.

Grabbing that glaring contradiction, Yekase shattered and re-laid the puzzle in her head, pieces clicking into a madder yet cleaner shape.

She glanced at Ivaris again, eyes bright as lantern flame.

Ivaris smiled back, a blade catching sun.

She never worried Yekase would have “no plan.” Even a slacker spins bad ideas before spinning none, like those notorious showrunners who churn chaos but never silence.

“How many bars?” Ivaris asked.

“Fast charge. You?”

“Same.”

Yekase nodded and slipped into a nearby alley, drawing a bag of jerky from her spatial clasp.

She sank to the ground and chewed, like a traveler at a roadside shrine.

Soon, a yellow dog nosed out from a heap of storage crates—long-haired, a golden retriever—throat rumbling low as it crept closer.

Yekase broke off a strip and tossed it.

Once the retriever wolfed it down, Yekase beckoned, palm open like a leaf.

“Adam. Come.”

The retriever perked at the name, barked twice, and pressed a wet nose to her palm.

“Your owner’s been looking for you.”

Yekase stroked its head and neck, then snapped it another strip, fingers steady as a metronome.

Why is it here?

The owner left Soville City, left this dog alone to guard an empty house, yet posted a lost-pet notice in the paper—doesn’t add up.

Unless—

“You want to find the family who lost you, don’t you?”

“Woof!”

Yekase looked back at the gate and murmured, “Nightlight Torch.”

The fog that swaddled the town for a week vanished in a flick, like silk cut from the loom.

One woman and one dog leaned together by a stack of old things, watching a starfield clear beyond the alley mouth.

Streets, houses, trees, hills—the world came back into view.

But it wasn’t enough.

Arcadia still hung upside-down above like a steel island, its sealing chains drawn tight. From the far street, one, two mechanical soldiers strode out, feet thudding like drums.

“The power’s undone, yet the constructs don’t collapse…?”

The superpowered one was a golden retriever lost in Soville City, but someone else tugged the strings from the shadows.

“…I’ve got it.”

Yekase rubbed Adam’s folded ears, then rose and walked to the empty door. Ivaris leaned at the fence, arms folded, and gave her a nod, unruffled by the fog’s retreat.

“The equation to the truth—we’ve got all variables in hand.”

“Stop with the riddles.”

“I told you with my eyes.”

“Sure?”

“We’ll be sure in a minute.”

Before long, a figure stepped from the courtyard. The two waiting figures at the gate moved in sync, left and right, hands locking on her shoulders.

They yanked her off her feet—

Slammed her down!

Bang!

“Hey?!” Ling Yi flinched, a startled sparrow.

Jiang Bailu bit back pain and squirmed, voice small as rain, “Doctor? Why—”

Yekase answered with a smile sharp as a crescent blade.

“Where did you stash the real Bailu? And those soldier arrays—your handiwork too?”

“What are you talking about…?”

Yekase and Ivaris pinned “Jiang Bailu” like detectives collaring a suspect, half-kneeling, weight set firm as stones.

“One, Bailu doesn’t call me ‘sir’ anymore.”

“Two, you opened Celestial Speech before casting. Bailu’s a natural caster.”

“…”

“Three, you haven’t thrown me a dirty joke yet. She can’t bottle that long.”

……

“Ba—”

“Nightlight Torch!”

The half-formed sigil guttered out, snuffed like a wick. The woman on the ground laughed instead, a crackle like dry twigs.

“Useless, useless! This is my domain—your rebellion is just my interlude!”

She burst into black smoke, a shadow squall tearing free of their grip.

Nightlight Torch can’t strip a monster’s inborn gifts—

In the smoke, a shape gathered like ink, then resolved into a different body, black wings unfurling to hover.

A blonde vampire in a sumptuous black gown glided over them.

“I am Tiago—heir to the Night Emperor!”

Her scarlet, cutting gaze slid past Yekase and Ivaris and fixed on Ling Yi. “Good news, armored girl! The ‘brainwashed’ woman you fought—that was her true self. Thanks to you, I tossed her back to the real world and occupied her existence!”

“Wh—”

That state was Jiang Bailu’s true self?! Ling Yi’s breath snagged; had she pounded Bailu weak enough for this lurking demon to slide in?

“Struggle all you like; you won’t escape. When an endless tide of mechanical soldiers drowns you, I’ll devour your very concept of existence, become the strongest vampire, and rule the peak of monsters… Even that woman from Labyrinth City won’t match me—”

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Tiago dropped the act, and soldiers bloomed across the street like iron weeds, sealing the little yard tight. Farther off, a stone giant reared again from the heap of its own broken parts.

“Oh my, I almost forgot. You burned most of your power on that flashy trick, didn’t you? Shame—makes this less fun—”

Tiago laughed, wild as a storm crow.

And Yekase and Ivaris still didn’t strike her.

“Is that so?”

Yekase’s voice clipped the laughter clean, like a blade.

“You needed Ling Yi to drive Bailu out. Your grip on this illusion isn’t steady. Strange, since it’s your skill. Or maybe—your sweetest heartblood got carved out?”

“—?!”

Hit in the softest place, Tiago flushed with fury, words jamming like gravel. She flung out a hand, and every soldier surged in perfect ranks, a metal tide.

Yekase didn’t move.

She was waiting for someone.

She’d sent them near a parking spot; by now, they should be back.

Rrrrrr—thunder rolled in wheels.

“What’s that sound?!” Ling Yi’s head snapped up, ears sharp as a fox’s.

“They’re here,” Yekase said, calm as moonlight.

“Who—enemy or—”

Ling Yi glanced at her, then saw it: from the far end of the street, a gaudy field APC crushed soldiers under vast tires, roaring like storm surf as it barreled toward them.

The passenger window rolled down. Half a body leaned out—Harrison, the man who’d left Soville City.

“Kin sleeping in the nether, lend me your strength!”

Reckless as a tightrope over chasms, yet blades meant for him veered mid-swing, some snapped back, some even hacked other soldiers, forcing a safe corridor open in that airless crowd.

Tiago shouted, voice sharp as glass:

“Pointless! I foresaw your petty resistance and set crystal seals on those lowly ants! Even if you wake their souls, they’ll suffocate painfully in the real world!”

“In the ‘real world,’ huh?”

“Heh. Planning to borrow that woman’s power? I seeded her with a suggestion. Even awake, she’ll be hounded by her own nightmare, spiral into endless madness, until mind and spirit shatter!”

Tiago’s face twisted, features warping past human arcs. “So fun—half a month of master-and-apprentice games! After I digest you, I’ll make her my new body.”

Yekase kicked a soldier aside, motion fluid as wind.

“Sure, a game—she never even showed you her trump, cheap teacher.”

The Bailu Tiago wore was missing something vital—a soul by another name.

The ghost called Coffee Moon.

Crystal seals?

Do they matter?

And those nightmares, that madness…

Not long ago—well, long enough—Yekase weighed a problem.

At Sidonia Dragon Fortress, facing inner doubts and dark currents, even someone like Ling Yi wandered for a while. Jiang Bailu, soft in will, would be swept under.

So the soul of logistics made a contingency.

She gave Bailu a gunblade round compressed with Soul Power, a charm to wear. She didn’t explain—knowing why would make Bailu balk. When it was time, the will to Understand would speak for Yekase.

A mechanical soldier suddenly halted, still as a statue.

Then a second, a third—

The souls powering them woke, one by one, climbing out of nightmares like swimmers breaking surface.

“This can’t be! It can’t—”

Tiago’s voice finally picked up a tremor.

Using that awakened beast, she wove a meticulous trap. Spread rumors to lure adventurers, turned the city into a maze, jailed the populace, fed them into killing engines, mixed her Sorcery with the beast’s power to brew heavy fog, built a seamless illusion to catch the rest, planted a reality-blurring nightmare in Jiang Bailu, ready for possession—

So why?

Why did the labyrinth collapse, the engines stall, the fog thin, the nightmare lift?

“Because you… because of you—”

Tiago understood.

Not ants, not food in her palm, but an equal standing eye to eye.

She had to end this herself.

“Bat!”

“Steam Blood!”

“Mist Match!”

Yekase stood and watched her perform, calm as winter water, as if the one cornered was that ancient true ancestor who once lost to Labyrinth City’s hand.

Time-wise, it was about right.

Jiang Bailu had no gun on hand, but her warped field could still make it happen—send that round into Tiago’s true hideaway.

Bang!

Tiago jerked, a hand flying to one temple.

A new hole, finger-thick, opened there, spilling azure light and viscous black, ink-dark blood. The illusion shattered like carved glass, fragments falling to reveal the stage behind the curtain.

Yekase, Ling Yi, and Ivaris—plus Harrison and Brian tumbling from the vanishing jeep—found themselves back on the town street.

No one else was there. Time had slipped into the second day’s pre-dawn since they entered Soville City.

Tiago’s shadow was nowhere to be seen.