After a manic launch and a seizure‑like ride, the off‑road truck rolled up calm as a frozen lake, stopping neatly before the two returning hunters.

“Didn’t think you could drive,” Harrison said, wiping sweat like rain off his brow.

Yekase cranked down the window, draped an arm over it, glanced back at Dorothy wheezing like a beached fish, and said, “Just average. I trained under a Longlifer friend.”

“Longlifer? A monster? How many monster girlfriends does Professor Luciferin have?”

“Just a normal friend, not a girlfriend,” Yekase corrected. “My girlfriend’s still locked up in another dimension.”

They didn’t grasp “another dimension,” but “locked up” landed like iron bars. Dorothy and Harrison instantly storyboarded a fugitive romance for Yekase: one set in a misty castle and blackwoods, the other in a dusty Wild West he’d never seen.

“Huh?”

Surprise pricked Lu Yao like a cold pin.

Yekase had used the word “girlfriend” without flinching. The one tied to “another dimension” had to be that Magical Girl who almost lased the Huaxia Branch into slag last time.

But the point wasn’t the person. It was that Yekase, who loved everyone like a fussy aunt handing out tea, had claimed a girlfriend on her own.

Was it fallout from that Divination Week reading? That fortune‑teller had real touch. She’d read their knotted hearts with psychology or sorcery, and her advice was so on‑point Lu Yao had to admit it.

“So, about the driving,” Harrison ventured, voice soft as felt. “Could we, uh, share the duty?”

“If I’m at the wheel, it’s not a sneak‑in. It’s rally cross,” Yekase said, righteous as a winter wind. “I never learned to drive. I go by feel.”

“It’s fine. I never learned to drive either!”

“Ah?”

Three girls turned their gaze on Harrison, cold as icicles. He folded, dropping to his knees and clutching his head in that classic duck‑and‑cover squat.

“So you do understand unlicensed driving…”

He drove decently on flat ground, steady as a rolling drum. They let him off with a sigh.

Lu Yao pulled the hunted yak from a space clasp. To keep dinner from drawing out nasties on the blood scent, Harrison had bled the carcass at the site, red threading into snow.

“Professor Luciferin, about that,” Harrison said, rubbing his hands as he edged closer.

Yekase eyed him. “You’re calling me professor now?”

“Respect and all that. Professor, that super convenient space clasp is your invention, right? Could you…”

Ah, so that’s what he wanted.

“This kind of storage gear’s common. You don’t have one as an adventurer?”

“I’m broke.”

“That adventurers’ association of yours doesn’t issue kit?”

Harrison’s mood flared like sparks. “Those damned academic loafers never touch real field work! I’m lucky they don’t charge me fees on fees. Issue kit? What kit?”

Yekase felt it in her bones the moment he cursed. She handed over her space clasp. “I get it, I get it. Borrow mine now. I’ll send you one later.”

“Th‑thank you, Professor!”

He cradled it in both hands, pocketed it, and started to cry, tears streaking like rain on tin.

“Forty‑four years alive, and this is my second time feeling human warmth…”

“The first?”

“Brother Brian. I blundered into a sacred tomb and almost died. He dragged me out.”

No, no. Those two warms are not the same tier at all.

Yekase thought the big guy lacked chops but had a good heart, worth befriending. She patted his shoulder. “How’s the L85A1 feel?”

“Not bad!”

“Not bad??”

“Swings real nice. You can even shoot it!”

“Uh. Yeah.”

Dorothy and Lu Yao carved the yak with practiced hands, crushed bones and guts, then lased them to ash, gray smoke curling like incense. Harrison joined Dorothy to set a pot and coax a fire, while Lu Yao stepped back to Yekase’s side.

“Seventy kilometers northwest, I found a bunker,” Lu Yao said.

“A bunker? Anyone home?”

“Two stories, about fifty square meters. Exterior armor looks thick. Door sealed. Unknown if it’s manned. We take a look later?”

“Yeah. We have to check.”

A bunker in this borderless, empty white? Only that crowd would plant their tooth here.

Shadow Realm War.

We finally had a thread.

After they ate, Yekase and Lu Yao skimmed low on Peace Walker’s wing, hugging the ice like a hawk’s belly, arrowing toward the bunker. The wing was fast, faster than the Salamander, and Arctic air, clear as glass, pushed visibility up a notch. The bunker’s silhouette rose like a broken molar.

They dismissed the wing and crept into shrub, crouching in a low thicket, eyes like knives.

“Doesn’t look abandoned,” Yekase murmured, brow tight as a knot. “No long‑haul Sorcery link traces. So this spot doesn’t talk to a HQ. A lone castle. But we don’t know their watch arc. Keep it quiet… okay, I’m saying that to myself.”

Normally, Lu Yao would toss each of them a gun, and Yekase would slam a Nightlight Torch through the door and rush the point. But War Sovereigns Curse could be lurking, eyes like ravens. Better not peacock.

Yekase held out her hand to Lu Yao.

“?”

“Hit me with a P90.”

“Where’s your Gunblade?”

“It’s not built for sustained fire. Overcharged Infinite Power ripples light up like a beacon.”

…So what’s the Gunblade for? Looking cool?

Lu Yao had no comeback. She handed over a P90.

The P90’s odd shape had tidy lines and a unified body, with its flat magazine and smooth grip and stock. It looked like a plastic toy, but it was a very good SMG.

Yekase took the gun and five spare mags, grinning like sunrise, and pumped Flash Energy through it, respraying the shell into a flashy pink.

She admired her new toy, voice lilting like lecture bells. “Flash Energy can puff one unit of alloy up into ten, but it can’t make that first unit from nothing. That’s where Omega Ray shines…”

“Got it. Want throwables?”

“What’s with your armory? You even craft gunpowder?”

“You got the mags and ask me now?”

“Fair. So how’s it work? Don’t tell me you already elevated to Omega Ray grade?”

Lu Yao didn’t answer. She snapped her fingers. A light screen opened, the one she used to pull weapons, shimmering like a curtain of water.

Then she shoved Yekase’s head through it.

Yekase was about to scream, but her eyes spilled into a new world.

Inside the armory, Peace Walker had grown a production line. Lu Yao’s power’s source lay in there—once the hangar of the whole first Beast King Squadron. Bright, broad, the familiar mech sat in the center like a sleeping giant, with countless conveyors crossing like black vines.

On both sides of the belts floated small orb drones, bobbing like fireflies.

“Two flashbangs,” Lu Yao’s voice came from far away, cool as a bell. She didn’t need to speak to build. She did it to clue Yekase in.

The moment the master spoke, the line boiled. Orb drones sprouted slim mechanical arms, and worked in clean rhythm, sparks like stars.

From a silver tower in the corner flowed liquid Omega Ray, split at a junction into two streams, each converting into white powder. The grains differed in sheen and size, like twin snows with different light.

“Flashbangs… magnesium powder and ammonium nitrate? You’re conjuring metal outright…”

Packaging and casting came next, all handled by the drones. Omega Ray ran through their minimalist hands. No molds. Shapes grew like 3D‑printed fruit.

Two fresh flashbangs slid off the line, hovering by the portal, close enough to pluck. The drones drifted back into sleep, quiet as stones.

Yekase pulled her head back, eyes wide as moons, staring at Lu Yao.

“What? Still lost somewhere?”

“You could go straight with big robotic arms, and you pack it with a swarm of cute drones. Some fairy‑tale itch? House elves?”

“…”

Lu Yao blanked, face empty as a turned‑off screen.

It was rare to catch her like that, so Yekase whipped out her phone and snapped a shot.

“Hey!”

“Haha, red‑hot! How’s that feel, huh?”

Lu Yao trembled, fury fizzing like soda, but they were at an enemy’s door. She didn’t dare blow. She just blushed, hugged her SSG 08 tight, and muttered half‑words like “you” and “me.”

“Okay, breaching time,” Yekase said, settling her heartbeat like a stone.

“Shouldn’t have shown you…”

Lu Yao’s complaint barely reached air when a red flare cut the bush. Yekase sat astride her Gunblade, blasted herself forward with a savage jet of Flash Energy, an arrow leaping from string.

“Who said we were sneaking?!”

No choice. Lu Yao vaulted from cover, voice ringing like steel.

“Peace Walker—Part 4!”

She mounted the spider tank, and clanged after her, metal feet drumming like rain on iron.