A cone-shaped colossus drifted up into the boundless dark, like a mountain uprooted and sent to sea.

Sunlight washed its faceted skin, and that strange silhouette turned solemn, a monument heralding a new age like a dawn-lit stele.

Humans, shackled by Earth’s pull like birds tethered to a yard, after decades of closing doors, finally stepped outward again like a foot over a threshold.

The cause and the footnotes were black-ink history, a stain and a punchline, yet by a crooked road they revived the shelved Star Staff Station plan, a pebble that would ripple into the ledgers of time.

At the base of that monument, two Flash Energy Ascenders acting as its furnace were squared off like drawn blades, arguing as if thunderclouds butting heads—surely it concerned humanity’s road ahead, right?

“I’m from Huaxia, and my daughter’s from Huaxia! No English name, hard stop!” His tone cracked like a slammed door.

“Apologize to Carol for me!” Her words flared like a match on dry tinder.

…It was a very not-so-important topic, a teacup storm.

Ivaris feinted retreat to advance, her smile a cat’s paw: “Then give me a Chinese name with some soul. I’m a foreigner. I can’t pull that off.”

“Uh, y-you spring this on me and…” His voice fluttered like a moth near a lamp.

“Aren’t you the naming master?” Her brows arched like twin bows.

“People’s names aren’t like skills or gear! You need gender, surname, birth hour—” He ticked points like beads on a string.

“Wow, such a nag!” She laughed like wind chimes.

Think it through—gender didn’t matter; Ivaris could conjure a carbon-based injection plug like pulling a trick coin—Yekase’s concept lock couldn’t do that, ha—either way their XX genes braided into a daughter like two red threads tied together.

But surnames mattered like seal stamps on a deed. Ivaris had sanded hers off like a filed serial, fine. Yet should the child be Liu or Ye? The fork in the road felt like a cliff edge.

“Yekase” was a name spun from air, a paper flower; passing that fake surname down felt like a con playing dad beneath a paper lantern.

But if she took Liu, what happens when the kid asks, “Why don’t either of my two moms have Liu? Am I really yours?” The question would fall like a pebble into a well.

Actually, Mom’s a big liar; the name and the person are forged, like counterfeit notes slipped by moonlight.

That’s bad, a worm in the fruit, a shadow that could stretch long across a child’s heart…

Yekase had read a novel once: the male lead was a liar whose tongue could kill, a black lotus; the female lead was an engineer who ruled machines like a queen ant; even a Sinister Organization couldn’t stomach them. They knew they’d taint a kid like ink in water, so they handed their daughter to someone they trusted, a lantern to steadier hands.

Then what of Yekase—both liar and engineer, with a peculiar kink, vices like five poisons in one gourd?

Would she have to part from her own flesh and blood like a ship cleaving fog?

The thought hit; Yekase went ashen, like frost on spring grass.

“Enough. We’ll think it through later. It’s too important to rush,” Ivaris said, voice a warm shawl.

“I’ll be good. Don’t take the child away…” Fear rose like cold tide over ankles.

“Why’d you suddenly turn into a wronged wife?!” Ivaris winced, then chuckled like a chime.

She shifted and hugged Yekase, her own back braced against the Origin Dragon Palace like a buttress; the person in her arms finally quieted, breath evening like a lake at dusk.

They had already climbed past the stratosphere and mesosphere, arrowing toward the void; Earth spread beneath like a round table set under a sky-black canopy.

“Hey, I just thought of something…” Curiosity flickered like a firefly.

“?” Ivaris tilted her head, a crescent in a helm.

“When we head back, can I ride you and solo dive through the atmosphere? You can evolve into a fish; turning into a bird should be easy. That sounds like a mode.” Her grin was a falling star.

“Can’t do fur. It tickles my nose like cattail fluff,” Ivaris said, nose wrinkling.

In the fiercest climb, Yekase had shed her mermaid hide like spent rocket stages, plates peeling away; her lost limbs weren’t fully regrown. Only forearms and thighs had formed, short and bald, sticking out like four blunt staves.

[Star Staff is in visual range. I’m adjusting position, getting ready to dock.] The calm report crackled like a lighthouse beam.

“Why dock already? We’re only at roughly a hundred kilometers up,” Yekase said, surprise popping like a bubble.

[The air’s thin enough here. Error margins are in the safe zone. We can use coordinate teleportation!] The voice was brisk, like crisp paper.

“Coordinate teleportation?!” Panic pricked like needles.

She remembered—first time she met Dewa was at an Alchemy exchange. She hadn’t used a single spell these days, and she’d actually forgotten this card in the deck.

“No—wait—don’t— I don’t wanna teleport—”

—beep!

Yekase’s face went empty like a game over screen as she popped into being a full hundred kilometers away, a chess piece flicked across the board.

One simple, macro FTL hop per day, like a free bus ticket…

She flailed her two stubby limbs, worry rising like smoke. “Iva, am I still me? Not a freshly printed copy, right? Did time roll back one second?”

In space, sound died like rain on hot sand. But in their evolution they’d toggled a knack for electromagnetics; words turned to radio, skimmed like swallows, then re-formed in each other’s ears, with Stellar Crown parsing too like a satellite relay.

Ivaris pulled a big mock-shocked face, pinched Yekase’s nose to shut her up, mischief bright as a cat’s eye. “You think the universe has a second red-and-metallic Flash Energy slime who likes bondage and neglect?”

“I don’t wanna be a slime!” Yekase puffed, cheeks hot as coals.

“I’ll be one with you. You got complaints?” Ivaris smiled like a wolf with a flower in its mouth.

“Or—and hear me out—what if we just stay human?” Her voice softened like felt.

Infinite Power slimes sounded unlucky, a grave bell; it reminded Yekase of a certain one kept at home. Besides, in their default state, their build was human enough; soft-body didn’t fit the mirror.

[Spiral Force docking mechanism calibrated. Probe extended. Cameras nominal. Docking sequence start! Cutting forward velocity for now. Side thrusters online! Matching velocity—] The cadence ticked like beads on an abacus.

…

Yekase froze at the words, then barked, voice sharp as a snapped string: “Spiral Force docking mechanism?! Ah-ha, Dewa, you really are secretly playing with Spiral Force!”

[A-hem, cough! Still experimental. Experimental…] The answer faltered like a shy candle.

“Send me the design and the ops procedure.” Her tone turned scalpel-clean.

[Uh? You can see the procedures, but the design is corporate confidential. The board’s pressure—] The voice wobbled like a taut wire.

“Then send me the board roster.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, a blade in velvet.

[…]

Wait a sec, aren’t you the hero on that side? Dewa stared, baffled like a compass in a magnet storm; why did this person feel darker than her…?

But they were at a critical docking step; she wouldn’t toss it all to Xinghen, so she tucked the doubt away like a note in a sleeve.

[Velocity match complete. Probe slid into the slot—locked. Hard locks, magnetic locks, sorcery locks engaged. Angles within range.] The checklist clicked like tumblers.

Origin Dragon Palace bled off speed to a hush; it didn’t need Yekase and Ivaris as an external tank anymore. They detached from the underbelly, swung around on the Polaris Staff like two swallows skimming, and came up alongside Firmament.

Pinpoints of stars spilled across a black velvet backdrop, and between that infinite sea, a column and a cone of forged iron drifted closer, touched, then held, tender as a kiss that refused to break.

By the light hurled across eons by far suns, the three of them watched, solemn without trying, as Star Staff and Origin Dragon Palace married like two seals pressed to one ribbon.

No one spoke. It felt like they were part of the grand canvas, brushstrokes among constellations.

Would this become a small step after that small step, the true stride toward space? Or would gravity claim them again, a third fall since that line was said? No one knew; the coin hung midair.

After going through this, the tangles of nation, race, heroes and Sinister Organizations thinned like mist for them—at least until their boots kissed dirt again.

[Ms. Ye, I’ve got a line in America’s Zone 59. I can introduce you. They’ve made a secret pact with a visiting alien species and opened a stable stargate.] The words dropped like pebbles into a still pond.

“…Did you just casually say something not casual at all?” Yekase’s brows shot up like startled swallows.

[Aren’t you curious where the gate leads?] The voice had a hook, glinting.

“Where?” Of course she was curious; but interstellar trips eat time like a forest fire. Until Huaxia’s mess was solved, she could wait.

[The lunar front.] The answer landed like a cold star.

“…! But isn’t that held by Luzhixing and the Crimson Gale?” Her breath misted like frost.

[Yes. Which is why Shadow Curtain International sealed every known Earth–Moon corridor. …Except this unregistered gate. I figure you’d want that intel.] The line hummed like a hidden wire.

“The people in Zone 59—” Suspicion curled like smoke.

[Konstantin.] The name walked in like a door swinging wide.

!!!!!

That name—spare, bare, with no titles—pointed to only one man.

Shadow Curtain International’s founding head of development, the unquestioned pioneer of the modern Infinite Power age, wielder of Demon King Power, first among the six, the man who changed the world like a tectonic shift.

Yekase knew now that Demon King Power was the reverse face of Flash Energy. Flash Energy’s non-demonic concept mapped to photons, whose antiparticle is itself; so in theory Demon King Power was Flash Energy straight and plain—yet could that be? The Flash Energy she knew never bent causality like a cheat code in a god-tier game.

It was like a classmate slid her a cheat sheet with the final answer written crazy-bold, but no steps, no proof—mystery tightened like a knot.

Both were “evolution.” If Flash Energy guided evolution, opening possibilities like doors along a corridor, Demon King Power designed evolution, locking possibilities like seals on a scroll—super-robot-tier to the hilt. Fun on paper, maybe, but cast into reality, and as an enemy, it was a blade at the throat.

“Why is he there? Why build a private gate to the Moon?” Questions piled like stones.

“And why… tell me this?” Her gaze narrowed like a slit.

Dewa didn’t answer at once. Silence stretched like a taut string.

After staring at hulking Xinghen, the ten-meter Firmament looked almost cute, a fox beside a bear. It hung still; belly plates irised open layer by layer like a blooming steel flower.

Dewa Komaki, now in an orange EVA suit, floated out slow as a newborn, a safety tether on her waist—a C-section baby in zero-g, absurd and endearing.

She lifted a forefinger and pointed to the Star Staff Station—and to the wide starfield beyond, a sea without shore.

[Since I was small, I felt the world had no meaning. A blooming flower makes me see its ugly wilt; life dies, machines scrap, civilizations vanish; even starlight goes mute, until only hollow wrecks remain that birth nothing. To the universe, humans are just dust motes in a sunbeam.] Her words were clear as cold water.

…

[Flip it around, and everything humans have schemed and killed over for millennia becomes tiny too, a grain on a beach. That makes me… feel light.] A smile ghosted like a breeze.

[So I thought, I must go to space. I want to witness my smallness with my own eyes, to see every flower that will wither but hasn’t yet, to visit every civilization that will end but hasn’t yet… Not for meaning. Just because I want to see.] Her voice held mono no aware, a petal falling in slow motion.

Mono no aware, huh… Yekase never tangled herself like this. For her, because space was there, she went—same with knowledge and machines, like rivers following slope.

Yet Dewa was solemn, like a shrine maiden before a bell.

Ivaris gave a whistle, sour as green plum wine. “Smooth work bagging a sakura girl. Truly the hero of Huaxia.” Her tease was a cat’s paw with claws.

“N-no…” Yekase waved both hands, flustered like a sparrow, meaning no affair at all. But to Dewa, that looked like a refusal to team up; she hurried closer, seized Yekase’s left hand with both of hers, grip tight as a vow.

[You showed me my dream, so I’ll lend you my strength! Isn’t that reason enough? I know you still can’t trust me. It’s my fault for using you—] Her helmet glowed with Stellar Crown’s soft blue, and in that light her eyes held shards of stars.

Ivaris slid the Polaris Staff between Yekase’s newly healed thighs and jabbed upward, a wicked comet.

“Eee-yaa—!”