A misshapen machine blinked into the battlefield, wedging itself between two towering mechs like a crooked scarecrow thrown into a storm.

It had limbs like dead branches, long and brittle-looking. A swollen pumpkin cockpit bulged at the head. Its whole body was seamless—no joints, no plates, like bark grown smooth by years of wind.

From a distance, it didn’t read as war-forged steel at all, more like a straw doll lashed together and dared to breathe.

Heat-guided rounds slapped into its hull. A chain of sharp pops sparkled and died. The dead-wood limbs didn’t break. The thing didn’t even give an inch.

【If I beat you, Miss Vara will totally agree to a date—so I’m not losing!】

The pumpkin pilot crowed.

He sounded young. What he said was even younger.

【I’m Punk Jack, fourth seat of the Shadow Realm War, codename “Boron Reaper”! Four rhymes with death. Face it—today’s a fatal, cursed draw!】

“…”

Lu Yao quietly thumbed All Fire.

“Why do four and death rhyme?” Dorothy asked from the empty tenement.

“He’s either Huaxian or Japanese,” Yekase murmured beside her. “But I refuse to accept Huaxia bred someone this dumb, so I’ll say Japanese.”

“That’s some heavy national mood!”

“Eh, I’m riffing. Idiocy’s idiocy, no matter the flag.”

Yekase ruffled Dorothy’s hair with a light tap.

“Where’d that mech even pop from?” Harrison asked, crouched close.

He hadn’t run far. Years of pathfinding had pulled him back to them like a river remembering its bed.

“Who knows… maybe the War Sovereigns Curse juiced him, anchored a one-shot teleport.”

From that pumpkin-headed frame, Yekase felt something wrong—same flavor as that research institute.

Sorcery is a Real-type Infinite Power.

Feed the same array the same input, and you get the same output. It doesn’t bend to will. Yet it sits closest to Alchemy; rub against red, you blush red. Identical sorcery streamlines, coupled to different arrays and runes, start to shift.

Scholars call it particle-izing sorcery—the change won’t undo itself until it returns to the sorcery hub.

Those waiting-to-be-reclaimed streams divide into six “flavors” and three “colors.”

Long before sorcery merged with other Infinite Powers, old scholars used an Elemental Theory to explain it: spells imprint attributes—water, fire, wind, earth, ice, lightning—and polarities—stellar, soul, neutral.

Now the waste sorcery caked inside Boron Reaper matched the Ice-Watersprite Institute’s. That all but screamed he was neck-deep in those inhumane experiments.

“Two on one—our comrade’s getting squeezed… you two stay put. I’m going to back her up.”

Yekase finished, then slid from cover.

Dorothy blurted, breath tight first, words tumbling after, “What can I do?!”

“Hold this spot and protect Harrison.”

Harrison, a man in his forties, felt stupid being guarded by a teen. He had no choice. So he bobbed a clumsy bow to Dorothy.

“Hey! Don’t bow—up, up.”

Tears and snot ran as Harrison choked out, “With a leader this down-to-earth, France will blaze with light!”

Yekase was speechless at his clowning. She glanced back at Peace Walker, locked with two mechs, and sighed. “Then head away from the fighting and keep investigating this city. Look for anything that breaks common sense. Match your perceptions regularly, guard against meme contamination.”

“Got it!”

“Mission accepted!”

Yekase still wasn’t used to giving orders. She stepped onto the street, ready to draw her gunblade and dive back in—

—No. Both mechs were riddled with waste sorcery; chain swordwork would barely bite. Their builds were uncanny, no tolerance for Yekase’s tear-down tricks.

“Then I’ll deal with you with… Luciferin!”

Mech against mech.

Forget anti-laser coatings, forget anti-tamper locks. Steel fists will put you on the bricks, then nothing else matters.

A silver-white mech streaked with red pinlines leapt from a light curtain. Yekase dropped into its cradle and landed beside Peace Walker.

Ancient Arcadia hadn’t been this loud for centuries. Four mechs, smallest at thirty meters, came to party in the streets.

Iron-gray Tyrfing, topped by a broken blade.

Boron Reaper, uncanny as a marionette.

Peace Walker, silver and scarred by a missing chunk in its chest.

Luciferin, pulsing with Flash Energy in glowing circuits.

Residents treated the towering intruders like fog. They kept living, shopping, strolling. A few even drifted through mech feet as if through rain.

Lu Yao’s voice cut into Yekase’s cockpit over comms: 【This pumpkin’s wrong. Light, solid rounds, Infinite Power, cold steel—all don’t touch it. Something’s shielding him.】

All that, tested already? That full volley wasn’t for damage—it was a probe. Old heroes never waste motion.

“Understood. I’ll go greet him.”

Yekase pushed the stick forward a step. Luciferin’s head speaker boomed across the avenue:

“Punk Jack, right? You won’t be walking away.”

……

……

【—You?! Fine! Let’s see if your talk weighs anything!】

The four mechs broke into paired duels.

Yekase pulled up close-combat assists. Luciferin drew a beam saber at its hip. Flash Energy surged; the red, non-physical blade drank alloy from the hilt and hardened, reshaped into a ship-cutting sword like Dawn of Eden’s.

She leveled the blade, its edge a cold sunrise, and aimed the tip at Boron Reaper’s pumpkin head.

Just that posture made Punk Jack choke in his cockpit.

What is this… this inorganic, crushing fear?

How many has this new pilot killed? More than our cadre?

Yekase let him breathe for none of it. She spiked all thrusters. Luciferin tapped the street with its right foot and drove the blade straight in.

Even wrapped in some unknown invincibility hack, Boron Reaper flinched and slipped aside on instinct.

Far off, Dorothy and Harrison heard Yekase’s sharp line and saw her press the foe on arrival. The Beastlord was getting more and more like a classic villain, and they couldn’t help feeling fired up.

She couldn’t crack the pumpkin’s invincibility yet, but the tech skill delta kept her untouched. No one could force the other.

…Harrison stopped mid-step.

“What is it?” Dorothy asked.

His eyes went distant, unfocused. He whispered, voice soaked in fog:

“I think I hear… my people crying.”

“Huh?”

“You know some ancient tombs sit under special Soul Power fields. Lore says souls who died with one intent leave fragments, held intact by the field.”

“I know. That’s a trait of Soul Power… why bring it up now—”

Dorothy blinked, then saw the residents around them.

“—Ah!”

Of course. That’s it.

Harrison continued, “Maybe it’s blood calling blood. I can faintly hear them talking. Someone not of us forced a link to the field. Their voices are in pain.”

“Forced a link?”

Shadow Realm War, then? The red-robed woman toys with sorcery. So the pumpkin kid?

And souls… what are souls, anyway?!

Are they like Ice-Watersprites? Ice-Watersprites…

“Arcadia’s residents—were they also…?”

Harrison nodded.

His face, usually wearing a strained smile, went stark and grave, like he’d shed his skin.

“—Dorothy, kiddo. I’ve lived forty-four years as a craven survivor. But even a coward like me now has one thing I must do with my own hands. I’ll wrest my people’s souls back from that man.”

“I’ll help!”

“No. You go tell Yekase about the Soul Power field—say this: ace explorer Harrison is already dead, and he’s taking Punk Jack with him.”

He straightened his wide-brim hat, turned, and ran.

Toward the invader’s dropship—down into the palace ruins below.

“At least let Xiaodan carry you—”

Dorothy bit her lip, watched his back for one pounding heartbeat, then pivoted and sprinted for the mech brawl.

But in that turn,

something cut into her vision.

…Missiles.

……

Huh?

【Then I’ll handle your friend first! Hahahahahaha!】

Only then did Punk Jack’s brash laughter reach Dorothy’s ears.

“—Cosmic Wizard!!”

The Scarecrow slammed down behind her. Silent, it flash-chanted layered Oz Floating Discs, nesting translucent shields like glass moons.

The Tin Knight took point, shield raised for the final barrier.

The Lion charged through the discs, sprinting for the naked Harrison—

…Too late.

They had split directions seconds ago, and distance had ballooned to dozens of meters. Even if Xiaodan sprinted on four legs, he couldn’t scoop Harrison and break past the blast radius.

Despair flickered at the back of Dorothy’s eyes.

A companion on the road—about to vanish in fire?

Time dragged itself thin, forcing her to taste the mistake she’d brewed… the failure to carry orders… that dull, sinking powerlessness.

No. If Boron Reaper’s missiles hit direct, Harrison—defenseless—dies. Please, don’t die, Harrison! If you fall here, what about your promise to Yekase and our people? There’s housing right there—if you duck inside, you can live!

At last, Harrison noticed the two missiles tearing for his spine.

He froze, like a rabbit under headlights, feet nailed to stone.

“Harrison—”

“…—”