After putting a Soul Power round through her own head, Jiang Bailu snapped out of that mushroom-trip haze like fog burned off by sun.

“—Doctor?!”

She’d gone from sitting to sprawled; vertigo spun like a gyroscope. She fought up, then saw she lay on the stone bed from her dream with Yekase, cold as river rock.

The dream cracked like thin ice. Time to get to work.

She shook hard, as if flinging rain from a sparrow’s wings, scrubbing the phantom handful of plush curves from her mind like chalk off slate.

Yeah, the Doctor’s cuter with a modest line; the curve now is perfect, like a crescent moon sketched in milk.

...Wait, is this the time to think about that? Lightning, focus!

“She’s awake!” “Hurray!” “Awake, awake!” “Go look!”

People lay all over the square like fallen logs, sitting or sprawled. When she jolted up, muttering and grasping at air, they flocked like starlings.

They pushed an auntie forward as speaker; she came up steady as a village well.

“Hero! What should we call you?”

“Uh...?”

Oh, the ones who’d been trapped in crystal... She’d just smashed them while dancing with those little folk, like brushing cobwebs from a doorway. “Hero” felt too big, like a cloak on a child. Then she remembered going unhinged at Ling Yi in that illusion, a stagey meltdown, and shame bit like frost. She only waved both hands, shooing like at bees.

Whispers rustled like reeds behind. “How carefree our lady hero is.” “The lab coat looks sharp.” “At least ask her name.”

The auntie explained, words heavy as rain. “Hero, here’s what happened. A week ago, that self-styled white-haired witch Tiago tore us from our homes like wind stripping leaves, locked us in crystal as fuel for her magic array.”

White-haired witch...?

Tiago’s blond. The white hair was—

Oh. Me—when my body got hijacked.

Heat pricked like pins; she shifted on that thorny thought and deflected. “You’re... residents of Soville City?”

“Yes!”

But the info she’d read with Soul Power said those souls driving the mechanized soldiers belonged to Arcadia’s ancestors. Otherwise, why spare Harrison for blood’s sake... Wait. Could Soville’s people be descendants of Arcadia’s remnant line?

That fit. The Arcadia and ghostly parade in the illusion were Harrison’s wish made crystal, while the soldier-souls were another group—these captured residents—stirred by the same blood thread in sleep.

So Harrison’s wish—to find homeland and kin—finally landed like a migrating bird finding shore.

She couldn’t return to the illusion to tell Yekase and the others; let it be a small epilogue egg after they wrapped this case, a lantern hung at the end.

“I only did a little. If you’re thanking someone, thank the Doctor. English name’s... Luciferin de something—maybe Deutsch? Whatever. Let’s get back to the surface first!”

She ignored the murmurs rippling like minnows—“Luciferin? The one from Flash Energy?”—and thought about how to lift this many people. She turned—and a dozen were already flying up like dandelion seeds.

...So this is Europe? Sure is fantastical, like a fairy hill under a blue sky.

They streamed out of Arcadia and descended to Soville City like a flock touching down.

The fog had lifted like a torn veil. Families poured from homes, hugging as if clutching driftwood. Voices, laughter, and tears rang like bells, waking a town that had slept a week.

Watching it, heat moved through a heart usually cool as a lake at dawn. A sunbeam through frost.

There wasn’t much left for her to do. Just wait for them to come back, like waiting out a soft rain.

She walked through the crowd, guilty and warmed by looks of respect, like a thief basking at a hearth. She’d acted for Yekase, small as a candle, yet reaped a bonfire of thanks.

“Big sis! Big sis!”

She stopped. A girl of about ten, cheeks pink as peaches, held out tight fists, then opened them—on her palm lay a chocolate lollipop, glossy as a tiny moon.

“Big sis, are you a hero? How do I get as strong as you?”

...

She stared as the girl stuffed the candy into her hand and folded her fingers, eyes bright as stars, hopeful as spring.

Jiang Bailu couldn’t find words. She only smiled, loose as wind through bamboo, and raised a finger to her lips—shh.

...

...

She reached the church that held the Sovell Conference, stones cool as a cave.

Yekase leaned on a wall, thumbing her phone like a cat flicking its tail. She looked up at the sound and smiled. “This time it’s real. Welcome back, Bailu.”

“Doctor...”

“Black hair suits you more, Bailu,” Ling Yi said, turning from chatting with Ivaris, voice light as a fan. “White’s a bit too fey.”

“You weren’t trying to be human anyway. To be safe, let your ghost out so we can check,” Ivaris said, blade-sharp as ever.

“Uh, uh. Coffee Moon.”

Ivaris was right; Jiang Bailu had no defense. The first to crave a taste and then want the whole feast was her. She’d run off to Labyrinth City on a hot head, leaving Yekase behind, and drew Tiago’s revenge like thunder to a tall tree. That was on her.

“...Wait, where’s Tiago? Did you finish her?”

Yekase shook her head, a ripple across calm water. “She ran when the illusion faded. But you put a Soul Power hole in her temple. Even a vampire won’t like that. We can still catch her.”

“We were waiting for you to plan,” Ling Yi said, grabbing Bailu’s hand, pulling her into a huddle like drawing a cloak close.

“Tiago used Sorcery to brute-force Adam’s superpower substrate,” Yekase said, voice crisp as glass. “She rewrote, amped some effects. That’s why Ivaris and Arcadia still hold. It means she didn’t go far.”

Ivaris pinched Yekase, quick as a snake. “I don’t need her to keep me out. This time I lasted because that door saved me the energy of breaching the wall. But it’s almost time to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

“So eager to send me off?”

“Say it first, or I’ll choke on it later.”

“Oh? This the mouth you use to sling sweet talk?” Ivaris tugged Yekase’s cheeks, stretching them like taffy. “Or the one lower down?”

“No way the one lower down!”

“So you did trick someone.”

“I’m innocent, Lady Ivaris!”

Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu traded a glance, silent as mice.

Battlefield-born, Ivaris knew where the line was. She let go of the yelping Yekase, calm as a drawn bow. “She’ll likely hide in Arcadia. That’s her turf. She might fire up the stone giant with her Sorcery to threaten the town. Who’s coming up with me? Leave two here in case she sneaks back.”

Jiang Bailu raised one finger.

“Oh? Bold. Then we—”

“No, look up...”

All three lifted their heads.

Arcadia seemed to be growing, swelling like a storm cloud.

In reality there were no chains as a safety net; it hung on gravity magic alone, upright like a moon. Either the Sorcery was draining, or something shifted. The underside—irregular grey rock, a knuckled base like old mountains—was slowly enlarging, looming like a falling sky.

Then everyone on the ground heard Tiago’s voice, madness stripped bare, a gale over broken glass:

“Too late! You can’t escape! Taste the weight of a city—be crushed, all of you!”

...

“Is this... getting a little urgent?” Jiang Bailu asked, voice thin as a reed.

“A mere floating city. We’ll push it back! Flashblade Activation!”

Ling Yi went straight to home cooking. She yanked out the Flashblade Key, transformed in a white flare, and rushed up like a rocket.

“Don’t rush—oh hell, this one is a rush. Luciferin!”

Yekase cracked too. She whipped out her phone, dialed 666 like striking a gong, called her mech, and launched blazing as a comet.

Jiang Bailu glanced at Ivaris, wanting to help, but Coffee Moon had nothing for a foe this huge. A leaf against a boulder.

Ivaris watched Luciferin streak off and sighed. “Ran too fast... Hey, Miss Jiang, you know foreign Infinite Power can amplify superpowers, right?”

“My own can’t?”

“It’s an immune flare to a foreign body. Our Infinite Power Ascenders came later. But the superpower substrate’s innate—more like an organ. The body’s a marvel, like a temple.”

She smiled and rolled up a sleeve, pale arm smooth as lotus root.

“My blood. Want a sip?”

Jiang Bailu panicked at that white, slender arm, heart thumping like a drum. “T-That’s not okay!”

“It’s all liquid Flash Energy. Same mouthfeel.”

“That’s not the issue!”

“You think it’s betrayal? I see what you get up to daily, crystal clear as spring water. Why go pure now? The proper vampire doesn’t mind.”

Ivaris rested her hands on Jiang Bailu’s shoulders, light as moth wings, and whispered at her ear like a demon tempting under the moon. “I permit it.”

...

...

Will Bailu get bullied if I leave her with Ivaris? The thought flicked through Yekase’s mind in the cockpit, a fish darting through reeds.

She relaxed only when the rear monitor showed them catching up, two comets on her tail. She set the loudspeaker, voice ringing like a bell. “We’ll brace it below. You two circle up, see if you can grab Tiago—”

“Coffee Moon—!!”

Jiang Bailu suddenly shouted, thunder in her throat.

Her specter bloomed behind her. An invisible gravity ripple radiated at light-speed, a stone dropped in a silent sea, then flattened into a two-dimensional plane, thin as a blade.

Arcadia’s base touched that plane—and like a cliff face sliding into a bottomless ocean, it made no ripple. It just vanished, swallowed without a sound.

“B-Bailu...?”

What’s this? You switched it on?

Yekase stared at her, stunned as a struck bell. Jiang Bailu turned her head away, pretending to study clouds, innocent as a cat with feathers on its mouth.