After the noon brawl burned like a sun at zenith, fools still flocked like moths to a flame, trying to seize the Forest Fortress from the girls.

As expected, Dawn Goose swatted them away like dandelion fluff in a gale, a whoosh cutting the heat-heavy air.

A few famous bandit crews gathered like storm fronts, their numbers cresting a hundred.

Tanks growled like iron boars, and mutant hounds bayed like wolves under a blood-red moon.

Yet the moment one girl stepped out like a cool wind through pines, every bandit wilted like frost-bitten grass.

That girl was Breeze, a name like a whisper across still water.

In the ravines of the chaotic lands, bandit statues still sun-baked like gray scarecrows.

When the first wave turned to stone in a blink, the rest knew they’d run into that nightmare from the campfire tales, a shadow like thunder at their backs.

So they scattered like spooked sparrows, feet drumming dust like summer rain.

Around the Forest Fortress, the air felt safer than an autumn field after harvest, quiet and clean.

The girls spread a picnic cloth like a lily pad on green grass, then sat and waited like fishermen watching a glassy lake for ripples.

Peace pooled around them like shade under an old cedar.

“Dixue sis… did you bring a handheld?” Zaocun flopped beside Dixue like a kitten into a sunbeam, her eyes bright as spring water.

“Zaocun, you can’t play consoles in the Rainbow Sanctuary,” Dixue said, voice soft as falling petals.

“Eh? Why?” Zaocun blinked like a fawn in drizzle.

“Because the magic there’s a strong magnetic storm, like lightning caught in roots. Electronics won’t work, and forcing them will break them like ice underfoot.”

So this time they carried few devices, their phones sleeping on the Skyship like birds on a high mast.

“I see… but I’m bored,” Zaocun sighed, tail-twitch energy like a breeze that won’t settle.

“We’ve got other toys, a board game about the New Land,” Dixue said, lifting a box like a chest pulled from river reeds.

“Eh? LittleSnow, the one we played on the Skyship?” Yue Liuyi’s eyes widened like twin moons in a clear pond.

“Mm. Four played last time, but we can all join like stars in a constellation.”

“This time, losers strip again, right?” Maria cut in like a pebble skipping across quiet water.

“S-Strip… mm!” Dixue’s cheeks bloomed like peach blossoms, her glance at Yue Liuyi quick as a startled sparrow.

“Eh!? A strip board game?” Zaocun’s voice tinkled like a wind chime in spring wind. “Moon sis! Dixue sis! What’s that? I wanna play~”

“It’s a misunderstanding…” Dixue’s denial fluttered like a leaf dodging rain.

Afternoon slid by like honey in warm light, the board shifting like sand under playful waves.

As the sun drifted west like a golden boat, evening returned to Rainbow Valley like a lantern relit.

Tonight, all four fortresses would open like lotus buds at dusk.

The Forest Fortress Yue Liuyi chose would show its true form like a dragon surfacing in starlit water.

“Look! The Forest Fortress is manifesting,” someone cried, voice crisp as a bell in clear air.

“Eh? It really is,” another answered, wonder rising like mist over hills.

The card game paused like a bird mid-song as heads lifted.

Stumps dotted across the hills began to change like seeds waking in spring rain.

They grew taller, stretched longer, first as ghosts like heat-shimmer, then as solid trunks like pillars of earth.

The true Forest Fortress was a grove of hundreds of magic trees, each hundreds of meters tall, like green towers spearing the sky.

Branches braided into sky-bridges like willow vines, and leaves layered into shields like overlapping jade scales.

Deadwood guardians knit from twigs stood up creaking, like old oaks remembering how to dance.

Tiny pixies beat crystal wings like butterflies of moonlight and rose from sleep like dew turned to sparks.

In moments, the barren hills wore a wooden castle like a crown, its glow soft as fireflies in night shade.

“What’s that yellow thing?” Zaocun pointed, her finger like a reed tip in wind.

“That’s a Pumpkin House, the fortress’s turret,” LittleSnow said, smile wry as a crescent. “We’ll avoid it, or we’ll get splattered filthy like mud after rain.”

“Oh…” Zaocun’s agreement dropped like a pebble into a shallow pool.

“A turret? LittleSnow, like the line of defense at the Elven Royal Palace?” Yue Liuyi asked, eyes steady as twin stars.

“Yeah. But relax, Little Moon,” LittleSnow said, voice like warm tea. “Unless it’s friendly fire, these plants won’t dare strike a World Tree Maiden, like bees avoiding their queen. Just like the Elven Garden last time.”

“Eh… is that so?” Yue Liuyi remembered faint stains like stray shadows on her clothes, most from her own clumsiness like brushing a wet bough.

“In that case, Ailuna takes point?” the pink-haired girl clenched her fists like cherries on a branch, her spirit blazing like sunrise. “I’m ready!”

“If the Forest Fortress attacks first, then…” LittleSnow began, her tone a calm river before rapids.

As strategies fluttered like sparrows, a pixie drifted above the fortress like a lantern moth.

Compared to the ones in the Elven Forest, this one gleamed like a masterwork among trinkets.

If those were mass-made figurines with small flaws like bubbles in glass, this was the original master model, colors pure as fresh dye.

Even her butterfly wings shimmered in blended hues like a rainbow spilled on silk, fluorescent and bright as dawn frost.

(Pixies are little beings that drift through the Elven Forest, also called flower fairies, palm-sized like figurines.

Most are simple as clear brooks; a few are high-grade, clever as people and sharp as winter stars.)

“You there! Are you this round’s challengers?” the pixie called, her voice ringing like a silver bell with a proud tilt like a hawk on a branch.

“Yes, that’s us,” LittleSnow answered, steady as a pine in wind.

“Hmph, greedy humans, the lot of you,” the pixie sniffed, disdain falling like cold rain from a high eave. “I hate serving you.

But as manager of the Forest Fortress, my duty is to collect the key like a toll at a bridge. Did you bring the Elven Tree’s sap?”

She was small as a teacup, yet her aura pressed like mountain shade on noon fields.

“We didn’t bring the Elven Tree’s sap,” LittleSnow said, calm as a lake under clouds.

“You didn’t… and you still dared come?” the pixie snapped, her words like sleet. “Go back. You’re not welcome here, like crows at a shrine.”

“But we have—”

“Wah!? LittleSnow, why are you lifting me?” Dixue yelped, surprise popping like fish in a net.

“Dixue sis…!?” Yue Liuyi’s voice trailed like a ribbon in wind.

With three brisk motions like swallows dipping, the silver-haired girl raised the three girls one by one like prized jade pieces.

“But we have three World Tree Maidens,” LittleSnow said, presenting them like stars cupped in both hands. “How about that!”

“Eh? L-Lady Ailuna!?” The pixie reeled in air like a leaf caught by an updraft, then drifted closer like pollen on a breeze.

“Lady Ailuna, is it… truly you? And two more World Tree Maidens from other worlds?” Her panic spilled like beads from a broken string. “F-Forgive me! Forgive me, World Tree Maidens! Little Pink didn’t notice at first… how rude I’ve been!”

At the sight of the three, her pride folded like a crane’s wing, and she bowed low like bamboo after snow.

“Eh? Little pixie-chan, you know me?” Ailuna tilted her head like a curious sparrow, eyes wide as dawn pools.

“L-Lady Ailuna… you don’t remember me?” the pixie asked, voice shaking like a reed in wind.

“Um… it’s fuzzy,” Ailuna said, her gaze clouded like mist over a river.

“A thousand years ago, you sent me here to manage the Forest Fortress,” the pixie said, every word placed like stones across a stream.

“O-One thousand years…?” Ailuna froze like a deer under falling snow, breath held like a trapped bird.

Dixue, who knew the World Tree Maidens like the lines in an old song, stepped in, her tone gentle as moonlight.

“I think she means the previous generation World Tree Maiden,” she said, her explanation falling like soft rain.

“Previous… generation?” Ailuna’s whisper barely stirred the air, like a petal landing on water.

“Yes. The face is the same, mirrored like twin blossoms, but this Ailuna isn’t the one who gave that order,” Dixue said, nodding to the pixie, then to Ailuna like a teacher tracing a character in sand. “If I remember right, Ailuna, your memory spans only seven hundred years, yes?”

“That sounds right,” Ailuna murmured, her older memories hazy like stars behind thin clouds.

“Then it fits,” Dixue said, voice sure as granite. “The Ailuna who assigned you that task… has passed on, like a comet fading.”

“N-Not here anymore…!?” The pixie flinched like a candle to a sudden draft, confusion pooling like shadow under her brow.

“Eh? LittleSnow, what’s going on?” Yue Liuyi asked, worry fluttering like a moth at glass.

“About the World Tree Maidens, it’s like this…” LittleSnow began, her words unrolling like a silk scroll in quiet light.

As Dixue spoke, more about the World Tree Maidens opened like buds, truth perfuming the dusk like osmanthus.

They’re the keepers of the World Tree, bodies brimming with life force like springs under stone.

Because of that, they cast impossible magic like lightning written into vines.

They keep youth like a frost that never melts, time sliding past like water around a rock.

But even World Tree Maidens can die, the way stars fall when heavens shake.

Like the Night Clan’s homeworld once suffered, a blow too dreadful or a chosen end can cut the thread like a blade through silk.

Then the World Tree goes unmanaged like a garden without a gardener, and a planet’s climate writhes like a sea in storm.

Yet if the World Tree survives, years or centuries later, life gathers again like dew into pearls, and a new Maiden is born like dawn after a dark night.

She may share the face, twin as mirror-lake and moon, but she’s a new soul, different as spring and autumn.

That is the succession of World Tree Maidens, a cycle like rings in a cedar’s heart.

Newborn Maidens are mighty like thunder held in a blossom, yet pure and kind like first snow, easy to trick like trusting swallows.

So guarding and guiding them is the duty of the World Tree’s guardians, a vow like roots gripping earth.

It is also the burden Dixue should bear, a mantle resting on her shoulders like a cloak of starlight.