Being mistaken for Yekase hit Lu Yao like a slap; heat surged first, then her voice spiked.

“I’m not Luciferin, I’m Lu Yao!”

“Waa!” “Aah!” The second and third, already hand in hand, jumped and clung tighter.

“Small-fry Big Sis❤ can’t even tell people apart❤” The fourth giggled behind her palm.

“Eh? Huh?”

The leader’s face, youth peeling away, went blank as fresh plaster.

“Then where’s Miss Luciferin?”

“No idea. Maybe fighting the Shadow Realm War.” Lu Yao answered.

“Mmm—mmm—mm…”

How did it twist into this? We set a riddle and waited for the right one. A stranger walked through the door.

“If you have something for her, tell me. I’ll pass it on.”

“Big Sis, are you her friend?” the second asked.

“No.”

“But you can carry her messages?” the third asked.

Lu Yao pouted. “...If I say I can, I can.”

Friend, friend… tch. She’d rather turn on her heel than admit that.

The four little painters traded looks. At last the eldest spoke. “We were born inside Master da Vinci’s painting. I was the first to wake, and it’s been only thirteen years.”

Master da Vinci’s painting… It was Lu Yao’s first time seeing a true magical creature. They looked no different from humans at a glance. Maybe that was proof of how strong they were.

Only those four pairs of red eyes were Yekase-like, and a quiet rejection rose from the bottom of her heart.

“When Master da Vinci entered court as a youth, the Philosopher’s Stone sprouted on a branch of the World Tree. He was lured by that gorgeous red. He swapped it in secret, ground the real thing to powder for pigment, and painted us.”

“Miss Luciferin should’ve heard of our little feats. We planned to keep drifting like this, but last month, when we stirred trouble at St. Paul’s Cathedral, something happened.”

“What happened?”

“We found a huge secret!” the second blurted. “Then the Shadow Realm War locked onto us.”

“But we hit back a few times, too. Watching them eat dirt was sooo satisfying❤️” The fourth still giggled.

“That secret is—”

The eldest forced her face into solemn lines.

“The true leader of the Shadow Realm War isn’t that red-robed War Sovereigns Curse. It’s someone else.”

“Who?”

“Isaac Newton.”

“...Who?”

…………

Newton’s coffin lid just rattled?

Lu Yao almost lost it.

That’s Newton. Not some figure half-lost in torn scrolls. Thousands watched the grand funeral. His life sits in every schoolbook on earth. Even that petty office-bullying anecdote is public lore.

A historical figure with zero privacy suddenly corpse-hops back up and turns into an org boss? That’s on the same shelf as “Leviathan’s shadow government runs the globe,” or “America’s Area 59 throws a silver rave with aliens.”

“Proof? Why should I trust you—”

“I can hand you admin rights to this painting.”

“…………”

The eldest tilted her little face up, earnest as a candle flame. “We can move in the real world and hop between oil paints. But we can’t stray far from frames. The Shadow Realm War will find us sooner or later. Then we’re done. So we sisters talked it over. We want to take refuge under Miss Luciferin’s banner. I hear she protects her own!”

Protects her own… fine, if there’s one thing to say she does—

“...Got it. I’ll pass it on.”

“Then we’ll wait here for good news!” “Come pick us up soon!” chirped the second and third.

“Haha, Big Sis is sooo weak❤ needing to shelter under someone else’s roof❤”

The eldest didn’t blink. “If you don’t want to go, Fourth Sister, go face off with the Giant Killer. Buy us some time.”

“Eek…! Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop…” The fourth deflated like a pricked balloon.

The eldest stroked her hair, then looked to Lu Yao again.

“But first—”

“Let’s drive the Shadow Realm War out and protect Soville City together!”

…………

…………

The battle between the Flash Blade Princess and the War Sovereigns Curse neared its end.

This was Yekase and Ling Yi’s third time fusing their bond. Yet this time, four of five senses were sealed. It felt like gambling with bloody hands—rolling a zero-bonus sheet to clear a Soul Power route—then hitting a critical success.

Even now, on the third try, Yekase still didn’t know what state they counted as. She didn’t dare light the Nightlight Torch. She went head-to-head instead.

Over there, one body, two personalities. Over here, one body, two souls. Even ground.

The War Sovereigns Curse’s “Left” and “Right” cast flame and arcana at once. Under the Flame Burst Spell’s flashy cover, they launched transparent, razor-sharp Helen Disks. With Sorcery so mixed and fickle, you could run full perception and still miss a disk.

But the Flash Blade Princess found an answer fast. They switched from co-driving the body to the control scheme of a co-op hero from a game that tried to trend for years, then died unplayed. Yekase focused on spellwork and neutralized the spinning saws. Ling Yi took full control of movement. The tide turned.

They raised an Oz Floating Disc again to catch the Helen Disks. The Flash Blade Princess skimmed the floor, grazing fireballs, closing hard.

“In one breath—”

“Take her down!”

A line of light poured over the crimson Sky Striker. The alloy, catalyzed by Flash Energy, swelled and lengthened. A blade like a katana split down the middle.

The hilt split too.

As if to mirror two different souls in one shell, it turned into a monstrous giant pair of shears.

One blade, black with red veining—the Sky Striker’s native colors—belonged to Ling Yi.

The other, red with white veining, looked more phantom, more burning—Flash Energy’s recognition of Yekase’s will.

This alien pair of shears defied matter’s yardstick. It was closer to solid energy—flowing, surging, and lethal.

“Flash Blade Form—”

“—Shear-Duel Crossblades!”

Flash Energy roared through the church like a storm made of edges, shredding everything it caught—matter or energy, it didn’t care.

A huge, heavy boom—the Virgin statue was cut at the waist, then crushed to dust before it fell.

A rush of tiny, brittle pops—pews, tables, lamps, drapes… all minced to powder in a grinder fiercer than any natural disaster.

The War Sovereigns Curse understood. If she tried her old trick—turning her body into a Sorcery streamline—this raging Flash Energy would rip it apart on contact. It would stir her into data-less gibberish. No return.

But—she was the Shadow Realm War’s public face. How could her bag of tricks be empty?

Silently, she intoned, “Tyrfing.”

—And the red storm tore open.

Two mechanical giant hands pierced the gale, slow-seeming yet swift, reached into the church, scooped the War Sovereigns Curse up, and drew her back under the roofless night.

A 30-meter-class mech hovered there.

Silver-black armor plates wrapped a lightweight skeleton. It looked a bit skeletal at first glance. The face had no faux eyes, only red lines etching complex arrays.

Most striking—its forehead and back each bore a sharp giant double-edged sword jutting out, cold and grim.

Clang-clang-clang—clangclangclang—!!

Attack-type Infinite Power couldn’t soak into it. Flash Energy blades shattered on its outer armor, leaving a hide of gouges shallow and deep—the whole frame was forged from anti–Infinite Power metal!

Sorcery that could never return to the core was packed into the metal like gibberish clogging a disk. That was anti–Infinite Power metal’s nature. This mech was filled with ultra-pure Sorcery produced by the War Sovereigns Curse herself, an Ascender—qualitatively above common stock.

“Tch…”

Since the medievals, Europe’s had constant small wars and a crooked tech tree. Barely any great mages, yet anti-beam coatings bloom. Annoying…

But “insulation” only means “not pierced yet.”

Yekase cranked Shear-Duel Crossblades higher. The storm that had been torn open gathered again, wrapped the mech, and howled.

Even with Europe’s theoretical peak magic-resist, the silver-black mech barely held against this blended physical-and-spell assault. New cracks spidered every heartbeat. Whole plates hit their limit in a blink.

“Bad spot.”

“Unlucky roll.”

“Retreat, Right.”

“Time to go home, Left.”

“You win this time.”

“We lose this time.”

The silver-black mech poured power to the redline, trying to brute-force a break through the shearing ring.

—Clank! Clank!

Two crisp snaps rang out. The blades on its forehead and back broke under strain, fell from dozens of meters, and stabbed deep into the ground.

But it cleared the storm’s edge and shot north at full speed—

“Doctor!” Ling Yi called.

Yekase’s will was already in sync. She didn’t need the cue.

“Luciferin—!”

A silver curtain, bright as day, sealed the sky over the War Sovereigns Curse. Luciferin fell through the light and dove straight at the silver-black mech.

The War Sovereigns Curse didn’t sit still. She snapped an overcharged Oz Floating Disc into place. Luciferin landed on the invisible round, crushed it in a second—but that one second bought escape. The silver-black mech carved a sharp angle in the air and fled farther—

“Peace Walker!”

Lu Yao! She’d reentered the fight!

With Peace Walker intercepting again, they could box the War Sovereigns Curse in—

But the mech that leapt from the second silver curtain didn’t chase the fleeing frame. It redlined the thrusters toward the other side—the heart of Soville City.

“A-Ping, what are you doing?! Did you really betray us?!”

[Central Square—]

Lu Yao’s tense, processed voice spilled from the speakers.

[Second Seat, the Giant Killer, stuffed a thousand-tons equivalent of explosives into the abandoned sewers under the square—that “TOT” is just TNT with the N swapped for a “Harmony” symbol!]