Maybe it was the Explorer Aura. Yekase boarded the landing craft and promptly smacked the big suspicious red button.

The alien mother-hive woke with a lurch. Mechanical tendrils snagged Yekase as she shielded Lu Yao. What fate waits for her?

Yekase used Heavenly Divide!

One cut cleaved the hive—and the landing craft—clean in two.

After, Yekase sat on the carcass of the hive and summed up the stormburst of a fight.

"So this is power creep? Ha. I’m already in paradise."

The high didn’t last. Dorothy called. "Teacher, the War Sovereign’s Curse just showed up!"

……

"Huh?"

"Harrison slipped into the crowd and ran! I’m fleeing on the little scooter—merde, she’s still on me!"

Yekase snapped to her feet, like a string plucked sharp.

So the lion did do something… no, not the time to snark!

They traded a look, sprinted to a clear vantage, and saw the red figure hovering in the sky.

First Seat of the Shadow Realm War, the War Sovereign’s Curse.

Yekase had just fired a magic cannon. Her Flash Energy hadn’t recovered. Lu Yao’s kit was bullets and lasers, useless against a Sorcery Ascender.

…What is this nonsense?

Last time, and the time before, Yekase worried the same knot: why do Sorcery Ascenders refuse to die?

Mind Energy Ascenders get super-regeneration.

Flash Energy Ascenders stack evolutions.

They both scale hard, but they aren’t born immune. Why does Sorcery get the shameless, always-on physical-immunity cheat?

Lu Yao hadn’t fought the War Sovereign’s Curse, and she wasn’t an Infinite Power scholar. She still saw Yekase’s frown and felt the air turn heavy.

"Omega Ray itself doesn’t hurt. To attack, I have to convert it to a physical weapon or a high-heat laser. It loses the Infinite Power trait in that step. It drops into the physical-immunity window and gets hard-countered."

Yekase finished and sighed.

"Her body’s phys-immune. Her mech’s sorcery-immune. A headache… but if we don’t end her here, the Golden Apple’s at risk. Civilians suffer. We go in hard."

She stuck out a small pink fist toward Lu Yao.

…Silence.

"?

"Bump it! You’re no fun."

Yekase gave up, tapped Lu Yao’s shoulder, pulled out Southern Sky Cross, hugged it to recharge, and staggered outside.

Inside the bisected cabin lay the slaughtered alien mother-hive, and Lu Yao left standing, stunned.

She lifted a hand and covered the sore spot.

After punching through the super-tier blockade, Yekase’s base stats matched an average Mind Energy user. That little punch still stung faintly.

Moonlight brought back the factory in Huaxia. Yekase—who liked to call herself "Pauli the Incompatible"—wore an awkward smile. She was still herself. Lu Yao wasn’t the hollow PeaceWarrior anymore.

"Peace Walker…"

Through the canopy, Lu Yao stared at the silver iron giant resting in the hangar. It used to wear the bright colors of a sentai machine. Its chest core wasn’t empty. Back then, she still smiled and piloted it with four others.

Later, through that long fall from heaven back into hell, it became her last "family" she could lean on.

But now… it felt different.

"—Yekase!"

The goth-lolita girl breathed a white plume at the hatch. She’d been dawdling, not actually taking off, like she knew she’d be called. Her ruby eyes looked back, calm as a still pond.

"Your blood. Let me drink."

Heat climbed Lu Yao’s cheeks. She bowed her head and asked.

"At New Year, I snuck into your lab… sorry."

"Oh, I knew. You don’t need to apologize. Labs are made for that."

"I found Omega Ray can lay out Infinite Power circuits. A magic array should be the same in nature. Lend me your Alchemy integration module."

"Sure. Polaris Staff got recalled by Iva anyway, so I don’t need that module." Yekase fished a small device from a teleport case and tossed it over.

"With this, we can beat both sorcery- and physical-immunity… Leave this enemy to me!"

Stars seemed to kindle in Lu Yao’s eyes.

Yekase realized she’d finally graduated—from the woman who wouldn’t even fake a cover, ready to go down with the organization; a PeaceWarrior by resignation. Lu Yao had reclaimed the thread that keeps a person alive. That thread makes you value your breath. The will to live doesn’t make you weak or base. It pours iron into your legs for the road ahead.

…It took so very long. It looped such a wide arc.

Yekase walked back into the cabin and tilted her head, baring her neck.

"I’ve gotta warn you. What you’re taking is True Ancestor blood. Labyrinth City says it’s safe, but that’s from a monster’s view. Remember the loss of control when you first turned? No one can promise it won’t happen again."

"Mm."

She bit down.

Canines pricked skin. Heat slipped from Yekase’s shoulder hollow. Her thoughts went foggy. She melted against the arms of this almost-thirty woman.

Ah, Iva’s gonna scold me again, she thought.

When the drinking ended, Lu Yao didn’t push her away at once. She hid her face on Yekase’s shoulder and whispered.

"My sister and I got bullied in the orphanage."

"We kept hoping a hero would come. We waited a long time. No hero came."

"That’s why I walked here. For that, even if I risk losing control, I’ll do it."

"I’ll bet my life… and stop them."

Yekase didn’t answer at once. Strength trickled back. She gently pushed Lu Yao off.

"Then I can’t call you ‘Ping’ anymore."

"…"

"I’ll secure Dorothy and Harrison. The job of beating the War Sovereign’s Curse is yours, Comrade Lu Yao."

"Got it."

Lu Yao smiled, shy and bright, and leapt from the hatch. With a crisp, steady "Peace Walker," the silver mech manifested in the city’s heart.

Yekase felt the Flash Energy she’d just regained get drained again. Her size was on the verge of shrinking. She hugged Southern Sky Cross and tried to walk out of the wreck.

It took a ridiculous effort to clamber over a two-meter steel beam. She leaned on sheet metal and let out a breath.

"…This hurdle. Finally stepped over."

Thank you, War Sovereign’s Curse. Thanks for speccing full survivability and hitting like a wet noodle. Dorothy could kite you like walking a dog. Only then did I get this long to talk—Yekase thought, earnest and relieved.

Without this detour, Lu Yao wouldn’t have taken that last step until the Golden Apple battle. By then the clock would crush us. I wouldn’t finish the act. The last talk-therapy session would be messy, and she might be left with a knot that never loosens.

She looked up. Peace Walker ran with a mantle of Sorcery you could feel even without trying. Lu Yao had roused a vampire’s magical bloodline. She’d turned the mech into a colossal staff.

"Mark of Crimson!"

The thirty-meter humanoid moved like it had woken up, a beast bound in armor. Dull crimson bled along its edges. Sorcery sheathed it in a thin film. Even the seam-lines—usually weak points—leaked an ominous red glow.

The engines roared like a deafening beast’s bellow.

The War Sovereign’s Curse slipped past Peace Walker’s first cut, eyed the transformed frame, and frowned a little.

"Looks strong."

"Hard to handle."

…She dodged. That means it works. The fusion with Sorcery gave Omega Ray bite.

So why wasn’t she flustered?

Her offense was the same modern spells we’d seen a hundred times. Her defense leaned on physical immunity. After two skirmishes, did she still have a card we hadn’t seen?

Yekase had already scooped up Dorothy, but Harrison stayed missing. Unease climbed like frost.

Lu Yao ignored it. In the wide panoramic cockpit, her hands flew. She stowed the ship-cutter and laid down cannon cover.

Bullets trailed violet-red like a monster’s spattered blood. Lu Yao felt their paths in space. And—like turning the tide—she could even nudge them.

As the only Infinite Power besides Flash Energy that touches mass–energy conversion, Omega Ray stands for the Will of Order. In the realist branch, it’s the most grounded.

Order means entropy falls. Under a hand, chaos arranges itself.

In classical physics, order is axiom. Position, orbit, speed, frequency, wavelength—know them, and you read the past and the future.

Now, Lu Yao read the bullets’ future.

Da-da-da-da-da-da—!!

With bullets that obeyed like her own fingers, she erased the War Sovereign’s counter-spells—fireballs and slicing discs—until the air was clean. The field bent to her will.

"…Tyrfing."

She finally called the iron-gray mech.

The two blade-crowns on its brow and back had been left at the cathedral in Soville City. They were still broken. They didn’t look forlorn. They looked mean.

If it were Yekase, she’d start cracking jokes to break the enemy’s focus. Lu Yao didn’t bother.

Peace Walker’s shoulder hatches snapped open. Two rows of hot decoys lit and launched, arrowing for the foe—

Anti–Infinite Power metal?

It’s a prop in front of chemical explosives.

Lu Yao almost saw that future: Tyrfing catching the missiles and blooming into a pretty flower of smoke—

……

"Don’t you dare hurt Miss Valra!"

—Only, sadly, the world runs on probability.