After the battle, the field lay like a gutted beast, and the cleanup began.

They hauled bodies like driftwood, scrubbed blood like rust, mended the tree-towers, and stilled the perimeter like a pond at dusk.

The work wasn’t exactly girlish—more ash and iron than lace—yet with so few hands, the girls wore it like rain-wet cloaks.

Just then, Ailuna woke, pink-haired and drowsy, shuffling out in pajamas and bunny slippers like a cloud drifting from its nest.

It should’ve been a lazy morning sweet as warm milk, but she walked straight into Zaocun carrying a corpse like firewood.

“Morn—whoa! Zaocun, that thing on your back! What is it?!”

At the corpse, Ailuna jolted like a startled cat, nearly headbutting the ceiling.

“Afternoon, Ailuna—this is... mm... a test specimen,” Zaocun said, voice light as a breeze through chimes.

She herself had flinched at first, but once she heard the thing hadn’t been human in life, her heart settled like silt in clear water.

On second thought, aside from tasting awful, it was no different from dried minnows to her.

“A s-specimen?”

“Mhm, yes.” Zaocun nodded like a pecking bird. “Sister Dixue said they aren’t human but monsters. So Sister Maria asked me to bring a few intact for dissection.”

“Huh?”

Only then did Ailuna dare study the soldier’s body on Zaocun’s back. Beyond ugly lividity and bruises, she saw no life-force lingering on the skin, not a dew-drop’s trace.

That was strange, like a bird-song cut short.

In this world, life-force nurses all things—beast, flower, even the smallest motes—like sunlight feeding a forest.

Life-force stands for order, humming with the world’s changing law like a river’s deep current.

That law is measured and moderate. When life exceeds its measure, it slides toward ruin—like cancer cells splitting without restraint, turning growth to agony until even survival withers.

But the body on Zaocun’s back was different. Deep inside, Ailuna sensed only a thread of life-force, its rules warped like a bent compass, and the World Tree Maiden’s instincts recoiled.

“This thing... wasn’t born of nature,” she whispered, like frost along a leaf.

Staring at the husk, Ailuna reached that verdict, as a judge beneath winter skies.

“A bioweapon, then? Sister Dixue and Senior Maria said the same, I think,” she murmured, voice soft as falling ash.

“Either way, it feels scary... Um, Zaocun, where’s Sister Dixue? Something just came to me, and I need to tell her,” fear fluttering like a moth in her chest.

“I think... Sister Dixue is with Sister Yue, in the library,” Zaocun said, words drifting like dandelion seeds.

The cat-eared girl tilted her head, thinking hard, like a lynx listening to snow.

“Where’s the library?” Her voice was a pebble dropped into a quiet pond.

“Straight past three magic trees, then left for two more, and you’re there,” Zaocun said, mapping it like stepping-stones in a stream.

“Thanks, Zaocun!” She smiled like sun through leaves.

…

Deep in the Forest Fortress, a library sat ringed by boughs, like a birdcage woven of leaves.

Bright sun filtered through layered foliage, turning into dusky grass-green; leaf-scented mist filled the halls so each breath tasted of dew.

A very peculiar little sprite tended the place. Unlike others that flitted like sparks, she preferred to nest in a flower-bed cradle and barely stirred.

Her wings were black, night-petal dark, unlike any usual sprite’s glassy hues.

“What you’re after is over there,” she said, voice flat as a still pond.

Even seeing Dixue and Yue Liuyi searching, the sprite only pointed like a lazy sundial, then sank back into her blossom to doze.

“Ugh... so lazy!” Yue Liuyi scowled at the indolent black sprite, a little stormcloud in her chest. Most “books” here weren’t bound grimoires but Illusory Bloom seeds the sprites used.

So the stacks were rows of glass vials cradling those seeds; unless you planted them, you had no idea what tale would sprout.

That made hunting a specific record as tricky as finding a firefly in fog.

“In that case, we’ll rely on Little Yue’s gift,” Dixue said, voice warm as candlelight.

“My gift?” Her heart skipped like a startled bird.

“Mhm. The World Tree Maiden’s power,” she said, like spring sap rising.

Dixue patted Yue Liuyi’s head, then took her hand and sat her on a vine-woven bench like a green wave.

This library had no human walls or glass; its benches faced the magic trees’ dense branches without barrier, steeped in an ancient woodland hush.

“Th—the World Tree Maiden’s... power? Ugh...” The word trembled like a leaf.

The memory of her mistake aboard the Skyship pricked her like thorns; that slip had let Crimson Paradise strike from the shadows.

The Forest Fortress felt sturdier than the Skyship, like stone to wood, yet worry pooled in her like cold rain.

“Not this time! It’s simple. These are seeds that hold the Rainbow Sanctuary’s records. Little Yue just has to call out, loud and clear—ask the seeds.”

“Huh!? That’s... enough?” Her eyes widened like twin moons.

“Yes! Inside, each seed keeps its marked gene, and the World Tree Maiden’s call is the key, like dawn unlocking buds.”

“Mm...” Her doubt swirled like mist.

Hearing that, Yue Liuyi’s courage shrank like a snail into its shell.

(If it works, fine—but if the seeds don’t answer?) The thought fell like a shadow.

(Does that mean I’m not the World Tree Maiden?) Her pulse fluttered like a trapped moth.

Even now she didn’t feel like a true World Tree Maiden, as the Rain Compass earlier had proved, like a needle that wouldn’t settle.

She could call sheets of rain that blanketed the sky, a flood that smothered roaring fire like a tide.

But that was stellar only by a mage’s measure; by a World Tree Maiden’s scale, it was a sapling beside a giant.

Ailuna was shackled by the Cataclysm Chain, her strength muzzled. Breeze showed what “normal” should be for a World Tree Maiden. That power is vast beyond human maps. Abandoned for centuries, she still petrified the entire Sky Voyager.

While Yue Liuyi tangled herself in thoughts like vines, a cheerful voice drifted in like sunlight.

“Liuyi! Sister Dixue! You’re here! Good afternoon!” Her words hopped like sparrows.

Thank goodness—Ailuna arrived on time, pink hair bouncing. She skipped into the library and stirred that dim solemn space like a breeze through stale incense.

“Good afternoon, Ailuna.” Dixue’s smile unfurled like a white flower.

“You came to the library to find us?” Her tone flowed like a calm stream.

“Mm, yes!” She nodded like a pecking sparrow.

The pink-haired girl drew a small mirror from her belt, like a moon from her sash.

“Ailuna, that is...?”

“A little mirror. Sister Tisinate gave it to me before she left. She said if we meet anything hard or strange in the Rainbow Sanctuary, we can contact her through this,” her voice rippling like water carrying a voice.

“Huh...! Is this the sprites’ version of a phone?” Her eyes sparkled like stars.

“Yes, Little Yue, smart as ever. And unlike phones, a mirror works without signal, needs no charging—handier by far. Only flaw? No app store to game with,” she chimed like bells.

“Playing games in a mirror would be weird. People would call you a narcissist!” Her laugh tinkled like water.

“Hehe.” Dixue took the mirror and clipped it to her white belt like a round pearl. “I’ll check in with Tisinate later.”

“Actually... there’s one more thing...” Her voice dropped like dusk.

Ailuna edged up beside Yue Liuyi and Dixue, words careful as tiptoes, a new hesitation clouding her face.

“What is it?” Dixue’s gaze was a steady lantern.

“W-well... I just, by accident, ran into Zaocun hauling a corpse.”

“Eh? The bodies Senior Maria asked for?” Her brow arched like a willow leaf.

“Yes! That body... something was off!” Her words quivered like a plucked string.

“Off how?” Dixue leaned in like a reed bending.

“I probed it. The life-force inside was twisted by a hand. And that twist felt just like what I met back home—the World Tree’s secret domain,” she said, like fingers finding a knot in roots.

“What!?” The word cracked like ice.

At that, not only Yue Liuyi but even Dixue, rarely, furrowed her brows like a storm gathering.

The silver-haired girl clasped Ailuna’s hand, serious as winter stone, and asked plainly:

“Ailuna... you truly felt that?” Her voice was a low drum.

“Mm. That... feeling... can’t be wrong...” Sweat beaded like dew.

Remembering pain, a cold bead slid from Ailuna’s brow and fell onto Dixue’s hand, like a raindrop. She kept going anyway.

“At first I didn’t notice, but then I remembered... It was after I touched that power that I started acting... strange.” Her words creaked like an old door.

For ages, as the World Tree Maiden, Ailuna had purified the filth parasitizing this land like mold. When, exactly, had she started changing?

It began when that uncanny life-force first spread, like blight in roots.

So feeling that ache again, Ailuna ran here to tell the two she trusted—Liuyi and Sister Dixue—like a bird seeking its nest.

“So... that’s how it is?” Dixue’s eyes dimmed like twilight.

Hearing her, the silver-haired girl frowned and sank onto a lounger, like snow settling on a branch.

“LittleSnow... what’s wrong?”

Since coming to the New Land, Yue Liuyi hadn’t seen Dixue this grave. In those sea-green eyes, trouble welled—and a hint of...

Tension? Like a bowstring drawn.

She hid it well, yet her fingers unconsciously twined Yue Liuyi’s hair, like ivy on a rail. After so long with LittleSnow, Liuyi knew it as her way to ease pressure.

“LittleSnow, are you okay?” Liuyi’s voice was soft rain.

“Sister Dixue, you’re alright, right?” Ailuna’s worry fluttered like wings.

“Mm... I’m fine. I just suddenly guessed the point of the Rainbow Sanctuary and the Rainbow Fortress,” she said, words heavy as stones.

She smiled again at Ailuna and her dear Little Yue. But this time the mask showed its seams; even Ailuna saw the strain in that smile, like cracked glaze.

“Sister Dixue...” The name fell like a leaf.

“LittleSnow, if there’s bad news, tell us. We’ll carry it together,” Liuyi said, a hand extended like a branch.

“Mm... seems I can’t hide it from Little Yue. Unless we must, we shouldn’t go deeper into the Rainbow Sanctuary,” she said, voice like wind before a storm.

“Huh...?”

“Because something truly terrifying waits there,” she whispered, cold as moonlight.

An enemy even a World Tree Maiden would fear—like a shadow that eats dawn.