The next day, Yekase vanished from the Ambition Divine Ship like mist lifting off a river at dawn.

Jiang Bailu whistled, hands in pockets like a breeze dodging blame, while Ling Yi, heat fading off her cheeks like sunset embers, realized she’d picked the wrong moment. She went back to the dorm, sat with the quiet like rain on eaves, and decided she’d wait to kiss her again when they were alone.

“What’s with the storm cloud face? Why the furrowed brows?” Her roommate leaned over, eyes bright as streetlights on wet pavement.

Ling Yi’s dorm was a double. Her roommate, also from East Asia, was named Fujiwara Ningning, the rumor wind saying she came from an onmyoji family line, yet she couldn’t draw a talisman or beckon a ghost—like a sword with no edge, pretty but blunt.

“Mm. I’ve got a friend with… a situation,” Ling Yi said, voice soft as a fallen leaf. “Last year, in an accident, she met a hero sister ten years older. That sister’s fierce and kind, like a lighthouse on a dark coast, and she’d do almost anything for her.”

“Wow, people like that exist? That sounds so romantic!” Fujiwara’s eyes lit like star-sparks on black water.

“So, over the year, my friend caught feelings for the hero sister. She didn’t even know it, like a seed sleeping under snow, until something changed in her, forced those hidden feelings to bloom. Then she knew it was love, in the romantic sense.”

“Yeah, that’s normal. It’s the age of free love,” Fujiwara said, casual as a wind chime in a summer breeze.

“But the hero sister’s heart’s been taken since ten years ago, like a lock with an old key. She doesn’t feel that way about my friend. All the kindness was just her nature, sunlight for every passerby.”

“Yikes…” Fujiwara sucked in a breath, cold as steel. “That’s rough. One-sided love, and the target already claimed. Slim odds, like wishing on ash. Where’s your friend? I can ask my folks if we’ve got a blessing rite for fated ties.”

“Uh, no, back home,” Ling Yi waved fast, panic fluttering like a sparrow.

“Then hire a few fighters to assassinate the guy,” Fujiwara said, voice flat as a black blade.

“That’s so dark! Does this twisted weight of love need to exist?” Ling Yi’s voice trembled, like a bowstring.

“But she still likes her, right?” The words fell like pebbles in a quiet pond.

“No. If you do evil for your own love, how are you any different from a Sinister Organization?” Ling Yi snapped, like lightning through dry clouds.

Fujiwara only shrugged, eyes cool as winter glass. “Then she’ll just have to give up.”

Ling Yi found Fujiwara’s ease with hired killers strange, like a smile painted on a mask.

In Japan, Sinister Organizations favor proxy wars. Two sides in a dispute hire combatants to fight in a state-sanctioned zone, like wolves penned in a ring. Winner calls the shots. The rule borrows from yakuza codes; civilians outside the zone shouldn’t be touched—don’t trouble others, like sweeping your doorstep while the street burns. It sounds orderly, like lines on a ledger, but bosses there are shadows in suits; assassinations before the proxy fights are an open secret, a second war behind the curtain.

Still, how can a regular person empathize with cadre minds? That’s like hugging a cactus for warmth.

Ling Yi had been a hero for a year, majoring in Mind Energy, a branch of Infinite Power that trains your instincts like a fox’s ears. Her daily alertness had sharpened, a subtle blade under silk. Fujiwara’s tone tripped that edge, but a few words weren’t enough to judge, so she laughed it off like tossing a pebble into fog.

“It’s past six. Cafeteria together?” Fujiwara asked, smile like a paper fan.

“Not hungry,” Ling Yi said, appetite thin as smoke.

“Then I’ll bring you something,” Fujiwara said, voice sweet as tea steam.

…

Yekase ran to Mysidia and hid in Alicia Alicia’s home, like a cat slipping into a warm attic.

“If I don’t let them cool down, I might not even get out of bed tomorrow,” she muttered, chill crawling up her spine like frost.

“Good-for-nothing,” Alice said in a level tone, as calm as a still lake. She was preparing for the Golden Apple, with three hundred armored doll-soldiers buried in a rabbit-hole arsenal, and she was calmly checking them one by one like a clockmaker.

“I literally dragged Endymion off for ideological remodeling two days ago. I think I’m doing great,” Yekase said, grin crooked as a bent nail.

“I simply didn’t interfere,” Alice replied, voice dry as parchment.

“Right, thank you for your mercy.” Yekase dipped her head like a reed in wind. “So what do you think?”

“You want my view?” Alice finished a check, returned to the table, and sipped tea, steam curling like white snakes. “He’s a fine mage, but not a fine city lord. As for your methods…”

Yekase braced for words like reckless or brainless, armor up like ice on armor. But Alice stared into the tea leaves at the bottom, chuckled low like a purr, and blew across the surface.

“Pretty good. Pretty romantic,” she said, voice warm as lamplight.

“Oh…” The word dropped like a bead into a bowl.

“‘Romantic’ is my highest praise,” Alice said, eyes glinting like starlight on steel. “You could at least look pleased.”

“Your approval flatters me,” Yekase said in a monotone, deadpan as a mask.

She didn’t care about other people’s ratings; otherwise that heap of near-identical evil epithets—breeding like rabbits day by day—would’ve made her angry years ago. She’d asked only to see why a Mysidian like Alice hadn’t stopped her that night, and to feel out the archmagus’s stance on reforming magical education, like tapping a wall for hollows.

Good. Maybe because she was younger, her mouth wasn’t as hard as Sandryon’s, whose words were bricks baked in old suns.

“Romance, huh…” Yekase frowned, the thought drifting like a kite on a frayed string.

Alice’s “romance” was close to the classical style of the mage image, yet not the same. She’d add the newest tech to her dolls without blinking, like rivets on antique lace; she was conservative in Alchemy, yet cursed at the rune printer while using it with zero mercy.

“What is your romance, exactly?” Yekase asked, curiosity like a cat’s paw.

“Elegance, beauty, symmetry, precision—things like that,” Alice said, words crisp as cut glass.

“Then my kidnapping doesn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole,” Yekase said, smile wry as smoke.

“The snatch was the most barbaric part, like a club in a ballroom. But after that, you did well. From old man to young girl, from winter bark to spring bud; returning to youth, losing Sorcery, seeing the world with new eyes—that shift is romantic,” Alice said, eyes distant as a mountain lake.

…Didn’t get it.

Turning Endymion into Artemis had been Yekase’s mischief, a cat batting yarn. For a new viewpoint, she could’ve just sealed her base system; what did gender or looks have to do with it?

Yet Alice admired it, surprisingly, like a moon lending silver to a muddy stream.

Yekase couldn’t help wondering if the archmagus hid a soft spot for gender swap, a kink tucked like a blade in a boot.

Maybe.

Longlifers are people too, with quirks like knots in old wood. Sandryon likes a breast pillow; Labyrinth City likes giving her a breast pillow. Even if you told folks who knew their names, they’d laugh it off like a drunk’s tale.

After a long silence like snow falling, Alice said, “You ran a school in Arcadia. Many in the magic world are fiercely opposed. Their talk is much like Endymion’s.”

“I figured. If the conservatives didn’t twitch in public at all, I’d be more worried,” Yekase said, grin sharp as a sickle.

“Especially around the Dead Sea. A few communal wild mages live there. Two days ago, they sent reps to Mysidia for an interview with the Phoenix Daily,” Alice said, voice even as a ruler.

“What’d they say?” Yekase asked, eyes narrowing like shutters at dusk.

“They plan to descend on Arcadia and destroy your academy and that so-called church. They want to warn the entire world of Infinite Power and revive the old glory of Continental Sorcery in the 21st century,” Alice said, each word like a bead on a string.

“How many lieutenants? How many Ascenders?” Yekase asked, fingers tapping like rain.

“Ascenders? Not a single one,” Alice said, lips curved like a thin crescent.

…

Yekase snorted a laugh, bright as a struck flint.

“They don’t… think I’m playing house, do they?” Her smile was a knife under silk.

She only realized later—like dawn creeping under the curtains—that Alice had just handed her intel.

Arcadia was nominally an independent ancient city, a cliff standing over surf. But as long as the Church stood, Harrison couldn’t wave farewell to the Sidonia dragon flock. With only stone giants, Arcadia would crumble back into the dust of history like a fresco flaking in damp.

So Yekase slipped the dragons a secret message, a whistle in the reeds. The flock, ill-suited to the Mediterranean weather, should rest a few days. Those who could take human shape could stroll the earth, like cranes walking in rice fields. Those who couldn’t could go to Mysidia and befriend the dragons there, a braid across two skies. She sent off almost all of Arcadia’s standing garrison like ships leaving a quiet harbor.

Harrison couldn’t read her currents, his brow a knotted rope, but Aurora enjoyed the lull like a cat in a sun patch.

A few days passed, the hours piling like leaves.

From the largest floating island, as the high sky shed its dusk colors and let darkness swallow it like ink poured on silk, three uninvited guests appeared over the Cloud-Crown archipelago.

“Today’s battle is an honor duel,” said the lead wild mage, seated on a broom like a hawk on a branch.

“Defend the honor of Sorcery!” cried one, voice ringing like a bell.

“Down with the heretic—give us back a clean sky!” shouted the other, words sharp as thrown stones.

They finished hyping themselves up, chests thudding like drums, then dipped their broom heads and flew toward Arcadia’s main isle, a trio of arrows cutting cloud.

Strangely, no guards came, no wards flared—silence like a sleeping lake. The three touched down in front of the academy that had graced front pages, its gate tall as a cliff.

The wild mage leader crouched by the door, squinting like a fox, and finally concluded, “Looks like those damned Slavic dragons finally flew back to their nest.”

“By the Arcane Nexus!” someone breathed, fervor burning like coals.

“Talk about heaven, earth, and man lining up!” the other said, joy bubbling like a spring.

The floating isles above the Dead Sea were built by wild mages who called themselves fundamentalist believers of the Nexus. In their creed, mages are the noblest caste, like peaks above fog; they reject all Infinite Power outside Sorcery, and they loathe magical reform. Their relations with Mysidia are poisonous; they show up only when necessary, like knife tips from sleeves.

These three warriors came with death in their pockets and zeal in their bones. They’d been sent to Arcadia to resist the Herds’ Shepherd, Luciferin, who dared profane Sorcery. Each was a standout among mages, with spellwork like a library of storms, and each hid a rare trick like a pearl under mud.

They wanted stealth, like cats in rain, but thought creeping along walls would shame their mage dignity. In the end they compromised. They walked straight-backed, pressed to the wall, like storks pretending to be reeds.

They stepped into the not-yet-named academy and reached the broad fountain plaza, a bowl of stone under open sky.

At the center stood a round fountain about five meters across, like a moon pond. A low marble base held an under-life-sized bronze; it looked like the wisdom goddess from Greek tales, holding a jug in a pouring pose, like rain frozen mid-fall. No water was connected yet. The quiet sat heavy as velvet.

All three found it blasphemous, bile rising like smoke. Teaching Sorcery under some two-bit idol, where did that leave the great Nexus?

Break it. Break it. It had to be broken, like a rotten tooth.

They made up their minds, drew their wands like drawn thorns, and prepared to chant Stone-Flight to smash the statue to bronze shards.

Let that be their declaration of war, like a flag burned at dawn.

“Celestial—” all three began, voices rising like wind.

“Yo, you made it?” a voice said.

The bronze statue spoke, words bright as flint.

“Nightlight Torch.”