Yekase did the math in her head, cold as starlight on steel. A thousand tons of TNT—one kiloton—what kind of crater is that?
One to two tons could flatten a small building, like brushing tiles off a roof. Soville City was a forest of such low-rises—a single spark would turn half the city into ash and ribs of concrete.
The festival crowd strutted under lanterns, oblivious. If it went off, the dead would number in the thousands, like paper boats swallowed by a black river.
Der Gott ist TOT.
Der Gott ist TNT.
God is… TNT.
If there’s a common thread, it’s this: both are tools men made, and turned with malice like a blade against their own. At least TNT builds bridges by day; as for God—yeah, sure.
The black-silver mech shrank to a star and vanished into the northern night, a knife swallowed by velvet. Flash Blade Princess dissolved where she stood, a ribbon of light unbraiding into Ling Yi and Yekase.
“Ow!” Ling Yi plopped down, a petal knocked off its stem.
Yekase landed sprawled across her, breath fogging like winter glass.
The reset snapped her five senses back on, thunder to her eardrums. No time to debrief. She kicked a Flight Spell into gear and shot after Peace Walker, a hawk after a shadow.
Ling Yi, as the primary controller, was wrung dry—mind and body like a bow pulled to breaking. In the last seconds of their shared link, Yekase tasted that fatigue. She parked Ling Yi in the church garden, a leaf on still water, to rest.
She climbed onto Peace Walker’s shoulder and let herself sag, breath heaving like bellows.
[Can you keep going?] Lu Yao asked, voice like rain on comm glass.
“Give me a sec… let me cross a threshold. You keep moving. I’ll call—have Bailu link up.”
[You sure like ordering people around.]
“I’m not just a top-tier bruiser. I’m also the Ambition Divine Ship’s commander.”
Only after she finally donned the Flashblade System does she admit she’s a bruiser—top-tier, no less. So all the earlier fights didn’t count? Lu Yao in the cockpit nearly laughed, a bubble rising through deep water. Urgency pinned her lips shut. No—almost laughing already counted as losing.
“What’s the situation? Where’d this intel come from?”
[Shadow Realm War split this op between two cadres. War Sovereigns Curse infiltrates the church to assassinate the little painter. Giant Slayer plants bombs in the sewers.]
“The little painter?”
[Four magical beings born from oil paintings. The graffiti’s theirs. So’s the intel.]
…
Four units. Standing off against Shadow Realm War. Out and about during the festival. Leaving graffiti like swallow-tracks on walls…
“…the Four Princesses?”
Could it really be that neat?
She’d just decided to recruit them, and had no net to fish with. Now the fish jumped into the boat by themselves?
“Where are they now?”
[In my cabin.]
“Okay. Then prioritize their safety. Take them as far as you can. We’ll handle this side.”
She patched Jiang Bailu in and sketched the current mess, then her plan—clean and sharp as a scalpel.
[You think I’ve got that kind of cheat online every time?!]
Bailu’s voice cracked like a whip; Yekase took it with a wince and a grin.
“Whatever. Suck more Flash Energy and you’ll pop the limit, right? I’m coming to feed you. Take as much as you want.”
[It’s not that simple!]
“We’ll find—”
[Why are you breaking into song?!]
“Is Ivaris’ blood better suited than mine?”
[It—it’s the same! But listen. Last time it was Thiago’s sorcery residue, Ivaris’ Flash Energy, and the Arcadia ancients’ Soul Power…]
“Threefold unification. We’ve got Soul Power online now. We’re fine.”
[What?!]
Near the plaza, Yekase spotted Jiang Bailu and Dorothy under the festival lights. She leaped off Peace Walker’s shoulder and hit like a meteor, stone blooming around her boots.
“Wh—what is happening?!” Bailu flinched back, heart skittering like a startled deer.
Didn’t Flash Energy need to feed the evolution bar? How could she drop from that height—
The azure glow flowing over Yekase’s frame was the answer, a river under moonlight.
Soul Power. In mere tens of minutes, she had already grasped Soul Power.
Yekase stepped out of the crater she’d made and held out a pale wrist, white as jade. “I get it now. Flash Energy, Mind Energy, Soul Power—they’re the same at the root. The same wave, different constants. I couldn’t use Mind Energy because Flash Energy scrambled its waveform.”
“Flash Energy… and Mind and Soul…?!”
As a researcher, Jiang Bailu knew what that feather-light claim meant. It was the day physics first braided strong, weak, and electromagnetic force—a rainbow pulled into a single bowstring.
She didn’t doubt Yekase.
From now on, Infinite Power was down to just four types.
She also understood the true snag. It wasn’t that Yekase hadn’t crossed the threshold. Otherwise, when Flash Energy checked her box, Mind should’ve checked itself too.
It was that, at the Causal Horizon, Yekase observed the first cause of light—like watching dawn spark across the primeval sea. Across 13.8 billion years, that cause reached back and planted, in her very concept, the effect of affinity for Flash Energy.
And because all three flavors of Infinite Power are the same water in different cups, they interfered with each other—until now, when she simply smashed the dividing walls.
“I… I understand.”
Bailu steadied herself, sea settling after a gale. She took Yekase’s wrist. She didn’t bite right away. She bent for Yekase’s neck, like a lily inclining toward its sun, same as always.
“There’s one more thing.”
Something strange happened. Yekase raised her other hand and gently covered Bailu’s mouth. It wasn’t rough. It was soft and clear as a closed gate.
That new, tender refusal jolted Jiang Bailu like cold water.
“Something happened, and I finally figured it out. About comrades, about love, about me…”
Yekase paused, gathered herself like a blade in a sheath, then spoke.
“I think I probably like Ivaris.”
Jiang Bailu froze. The world went snow-silent.
“D-Doctor?”
“I can give you blood. I can give you my body. I can give you anything you ask for… except my heart.”
“Doctor…”
“You don’t have to change. Just—know this, accept this, and then do what you did before. We’ve got a hundred, a thousand years, right? Asking you to hold back forever isn’t real. Ivaris will understand.”
Yekase lowered her hand. Bailu didn’t lean in again.
“I…” Her bangs fell like a curtain, hiding her face. Her shoulders trembled like reeds in wind. “…I got it.”
She lifted Yekase’s wrist and bit, light as rain.
It wasn’t like before, all hunger and conquest. This time her force was measured, clinical, a doctor drawing blood. She drank her fill, and didn’t tease, didn’t claim.
“…Done.”
“Then it’s yours.”
Yekase turned to the blonde beside them. Dorothy stood statue-still, stunned by the whiplash—from fairy tale to sci‑fi, to a family drama—like watching the sky flip seasons.
“Dorothy, I need a favor.”
“Y-yes?!”
“The full mechanism’s messy, and someone might be listening. In short, I’ll take you outside the city. You and your Scarecrow push max bandwidth with me. Same direction. Same spell.”
“Will you explain after?”
“Mm.”
Kid, you ask way too much. Ling Yi wouldn’t—Yekase groused inwardly, then slung Dorothy over her shoulder and moved for the outskirts, a comet pulling a tail.
[—Good evening, everyone! Good evening!]
On the town square, the pop-up jumbotron snapped to a new feed. A face in an Optimus Prime mask filled the screen, gaudy as neon.
“So fast?!” Yekase clicked her tongue. “No time to land. We cast in the air. Parallel-Chain Passion—Flight!”
They ripped upward with a whoosh, a spear through cloud. The sound was swallowed at once by Dorothy’s scream, stretched over half of Soville City’s sky like torn silk.
[Enjoying Mystic Week? Seeing you all this happy makes me a little jealous. So, here’s some good news!]
[To heat things up, I installed a lot—like, a lot—of bombs in Soville’s sewers!]
[If they go off, the whole city’s going sky-high! Oh no, whatever shall we do?]
Giant Slayer’s voice was flippant and theatrical, confetti on a blade. The words dripped with murder.
People jolted, then understood like sleepers snapping awake. The square erupted, a hive kicked open.
Fear and doubt hung low like storm clouds over every head—
“Why is this happening?! I’m just a tourist!” “Is this real?!” “Where are the officials?! Someone refute this!”
[Then let’s start a thrilling countdown!]
[10—]
[9—]
“No time. Here’s fine.” Yekase pivoted Dorothy toward Soville, a compass needle snapping north. “With me. Cast a Levitation Spell with its vector straight up. Target—Soville City, the whole thing.”
[8—]
“The entire city?! No, no—you’re insane! That’s impossible—”
[7—]
“We’re going to do it. And we’re going to make it! Passionate Levitation!”
[6—]
“Aaaaah! Cosmic Wizard—Scarecrow, get out here! Passion—Levitation!”
[5—]
Under the full pull of three units’ sorcery, the circular ground plate beneath Soville buckled. An invisible giant’s hands seized it, tore it free, and lifted.
[4—]
“Rumble-rumble-rumble—!”
With a mountain-cracking roar, quake-waves surged. The whole region sheared from the surrounding earth like ice calving from a glacier.
Then it rushed for the sky.
[3—]
[2—]
Up there yawned a twisted pocket of space that shouldn’t exist. Even light slid in and turned back, ashamed. In a night lit bright as day by festival lamps, a flat, black, horizontal hole opened like an inkstone.
[1—]
The warped space didn’t move. The city rose. Naturally, everything on Soville’s surface speared straight into that two‑dimensional black hole and vanished from the world.
Only rock, soil, sewers, and explosives remained—
[BOOM!]
The earth-shaking thunder came again, a gong in the bones.
Only two people heard it—hovering over the outskirts, midair. Yekase wrapped Dorothy in an Oz Floating Disc shield, a glass bell over a candle. She took the shockwave on her face, warm as a summer gust.
“Boom.”
The Levitation Spell ended. The blown-to-bits lower half of Soville City fell apart like a crumbling cliff. Residual sorcery bled the fall, and the landing came down almost gentle, like snow.
The city and people swallowed by the warped field, parked for a heartbeat in another space, didn’t even know what happened. They thought the city had leapt and dropped, like a wok flipped by a cook.
“Did we… do it?”
Dorothy sprawled starfish-flat on the little Oz Disc cube, breath a thin thread. The Scarecrow had already faded, straw scattered to wind. She didn’t have the strength to turn and look.
“We did.” Yekase looked toward the ragged horizon, a sawtooth of ruin. “We may need a few German engineers to redesign the sewer grid.”
