It was a black curtain that blotted out the sun, ink spilled across the sky.

Some had called it an undead cataclysm; in truth it was thick black magic, smoke unraveling as it thinned into air.

Yet that curtain was perfect cover for the walking dead, a night tide where old carrion shuffled beside bodies still cruelly fresh.

They were adventurers who fell in the Rainbow Sanctuary and Rainbow Valley, hopes buried like seeds that never sprouted, then wrenched awake by Wan Han to swell this undead host.

Above them drifted bats and magic gargoyles like a storm of wings and stone, Black Fortress garrison now swept by Wan Han toward the White Fortress like a dark flood.

Fear hit first. Emily stood on the hill and gripped her staff, a sapling quivering in wind as the enemy rolled in like thunder.

“Alright! Intel’s in.” Cassie, deep-blue hair like midnight water, nodded as her quill ran, ink rippling into neat lines.

“Hold tight. We’re pulling out!” Emily flicked her staff, and the vine at her waist sprang like a green snake, yanking the two girls backward.

“Aa-oo!” The roar cracked the air like a torn drum.

The minotaur felt the magic like a wolf scenting blood, his gaze flaring as the current shifted.

His massive frame loomed over the dead like a lone crane among crows; he bowled over “allied” zombies and charged the girls like a bull through brush.

“Cassie, this is bad. We’re blown!”

“How so fast! He’s on us!”

The minotaur ran like a sports car on an open road, shrubs bursting like spray as he cut the distance step by pounding step.

“Not good!”

Crisis tightened like a noose, and then the air ahead shimmered like heat haze.

An ice wall reared ten meters high, a glacier-face slamming up to bar the beast’s path.

He crashed into it like a truck into a tower; earth jumped like a drumhead, the boom rolled like thunder, and the chase broke like a wave.

“Huh? What was that?”

“Te… teacher…?”

By Cassie’s side, a hazy figure appeared, a graceful female mage in flowing robes, her body clear as river glass.

She lasted only a heartbeat, a ripple on a pond, then faded.

Shaken but breathing, Emily and Cassie let the vine tow them, and they slipped like leaves into the shelter of the Light Fortress.

…

The air in the Light Fortress felt tight as a drumskin.

Lia swallowed hard, eyes on the report like a sailor on storm charts.

Cassie and Emily had risked their lives for it, lines inked with the Black Fortress’s strength like tally marks carved in bark.

Commanders

Gray-haired man — power veiled like a storm behind clouds; at least Master level.

Bandaged girl — a Master necromancer, death clinging like frost to linen.

Minotaur — a Master berserker, rage pouring like fire through a furnace.

Sleazy man with glasses — an Elite trapper, snares coiled like snakes in grass.

Giant mushroom fiend — unknown, but looms like a toadstool after rain, dark and ominous.

Forces

Zombies — over a thousand, power uneven, a field of weeds in mixed growth.

They’re fallen adventurers; on average they fight from Skilled to Professional like old hands gripping rusty blades.

Magic gargoyles — 21 Elites, stone wings beating like millstones in the night.

Vampire bats — 300-plus Skilled, a black drizzle of teeth and leather.

Skeletons — 40 Apprentices, bone wind-chimes rattling like dry reeds.

It was a terrifying host, a storm-front rolling in, while Lia’s side held only this fire to the cold.

Lia — Professional diviner, an Elite swordswoman with hidden edge, moonlight sheathing steel.

Nalitte — a Master warrior, a boulder planted midstream against the current.

Cassie — an Elite cleric, quiet light cupped like a lamp in dusk.

Emily — a Professional wood mage, green life twining like ivy on stone.

Tiger Girl — a Professional strongwoman, raw force coiled like a spring.

Their strength was solid like a well-built hall, but the enemy pressed like a landslide; no wonder the Gray Fortress and the Orange Fortress fell like rotten wood.

“Sister Lia! Why are they attacking us? The Rainbow Sanctuary has so many treasures; we don’t need to fight for them!”

“I don’t know… The leader is Wan Han. I once fought beside Lord Pillow and Sister Dixue against him… He’s a terrifying foe, a shadow that chills at noon.”

Worry came first, heavy as rain. Lia stared at the black curtain in the distance, a golden-haired traveler who had come without greed and without enmity.

Because of that heart, the Light Fortress had recognized her, and like a door opening in sunlight, she entered the Rainbow Sanctuary without drawing blood.

“Should I try talking to them? Maybe if I explain why I’m here, they won’t attack us.”

The thought was simple and kind, a forest bird offering a twig; it worked in the Elven Forest, but here it would shatter like glass.

“Your Highness, absolutely not!”

Nalitte stepped in, urgency hot as sparks. “I’m not clever, but I’ve lived long in the Lands of Chaos… With a Murder Fiend like Wan Han, you never yield! In a world that bows to strength, one step back is a step off a cliff.”

“Nalitte is right!”

Cassie’s worry tumbled out like beads from a broken string. “We don’t even know their aim, or what they want… If they want Your Highness’s life, walking out means walking to the gallows.”

“Uu… then what do we do!”

Longing rose like mist. Lia missed the silver and the blue girls; at times like this, Sister Dixue always found a way, and Sister Liuyi always drove straight ahead like a spear.

But she herself… could not.

Lia knew her nature wasn’t a queen’s mantle; so she had walked alone, a leaf on a long road, neither restoring her country nor calling former hands.

“Seems you’re in a bind…”

A voice floated from behind Lia, light as a breeze over water.

“Eh!?”

Lia jumped. There were only five girls in the Light Fortress, all right before her; who spoke from the shadows like a whisper under a door?

“Hehe, sorry for the scare! Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Alisa, the elven heroine who fought in the Rainbow Sanctuary a thousand years ago!”

An elf girl flipped forward in a bold arc, landing lightly before Lia like a leaf that knew the wind. Gold hair spilled to her waist, framing a frank, upright stance; her green eyes were clear and nimble as spring.

For a blink Lia thought she saw Dixue, a reflection in a still pool.

But it wasn’t Dixue; this elf’s chest was smaller, her hair was gold, and her outline was faint, like candlelight through gauze.

“Eh… eh!?”

A girl had appeared out of air; Lia could only gape like a fish in a bright stream.

“You’re the current inheritors of the Light Fortress, right? Looks like you’re cornered! Let the great Lady Alisa help you crush the enemy like dry twigs!”

She held a bow too. Unlike Dixue’s elegant silver longbow, Alisa’s bow was laced with living vines, green life coiling like new shoots.

“Cr-crush the enemy… Eh!? Miss Alisa, are you a heroic spirit of the Light Fortress?”

No wonder Lia asked. The Light Fortress was guarded by white heavy-armored heroic spirits like statues; they never showed faces, never spoke unless called, voices low as distant bells. Lia had never seen such a lively spirit.

“I’m not a common spirit! I’m Alisa, SSR… no, UR tier! I don’t show up unless the stars line up!”

“Eh!? That rare?”

“Mm-hmm! Looks like you’re luck-blessed, a born lucky draw!”

Alisa nodded, excitement bubbling like a spring. Back with Ailuna, she loved a certain game; now she stood as the pull itself, how could she not glow.

“Strange, though! Why are the Light Fortress guardians all low-tier spirits? Besides me, there should be a few talkative high-tiers. Haven’t you met them?”

“That can talk…”

“Right! Lady Lia! Lady Nalitte! While I was retreating… I think I saw… my teacher’s shadow.”

“Teacher!?”

Alisa’s sudden entrance had stunned Lia; now, hearing “teacher,” her eyes pinched like ><, shock drawn like ink lines.

“Wh-which teacher… Archmage Bella?”

“But Archmage Bella passed away…”

Nalitte’s fist tightened like a knot. In the Kowelairia Principality incident, the cruelest cut was the beloved Archmage Bella, slain by assassins like a star snuffed by wind.

The principality lost its strongest pillar; after that, battle after battle slipped like sand, and at last the nation fell like a toppled tree.

“‘Bella’… not a name among Light Fortress spirits! Sounds like a spirit you brought with you, a flame you carried in.”

“B-brought in…?”

Lia’s gaze turned to Alisa, puzzled like a child at first snow.

“The Light Fortress is a wondrous place. Here, strength isn’t the scale; only a pure heart and an unyielding will weigh true, like gold in the palm!”

Arms crossed and eyes closed, the elf nodded with mock-serious air, a priestess at a shrine. “So if your Archmage Bella was truly great, she can return by the faith you keep, a seed sprouting in spring.”

“Eh…?”

“You can try now. If a companion has died, within the Light Fortress you can call to them, like sending a lantern across a river.”

“Then… Father and Mother! Captain Karola, and Master Bella! I can see them again?”

“That depends on you.”

Alisa laid an arm over Lia’s shoulder like a friendly cloak, and both looked at the black curtain crawling closer like nightfall.