“Are you trying to kill the World Tree Maiden? I won’t allow it!” Her protest rang like a silver bell through mist.

Lia drew the sword at her hip, courage flaring like dawn. She didn’t yet know Yue Liuyi was the World Tree Maiden, but her kind heart refused a deed that foul as ash.

“Kill the World Tree Maiden…? Heh.” Wan Han’s smile curved like a crooked moon. “If it were that easy, I’d be laughing under a summer rain.”

His laughter grew, teasing like a cat with a firefly, his gaze on Lia glinting with playful frost.

“Uh… then what are you trying to do?” Her question trembled like a leaf in wind.

“Lia-sis! I brought reinforcements!” Emily’s shout came skimming over the battlefield like a swift swallow.

The brown-haired girl, wooden staff in hand, ran in with two familiar silhouettes—one blue, one white—like twin flags in a storm.

“Huh? It’s Dixue-sis? And the Pillow Lord?!” Her eyes sparkled like starlight on water.

“Pillow Lord…?” The title popped like a pebble in a still pond.

Lia’s voice was clear, arrow-straight and bell-bright, and the nickname speared across the field like a sunbeam; even the zombies froze, stunned like deer caught in snowlight.

“Don’t bring up such a mortifying title at a time like this!” The complaint fluttered like a flushed sparrow.

“The Pillow Lord’s here! Everyone, switch to offense!” The order slammed down like a drumbeat before a storm.

With Dixue and Yue Liuyi beside her, Lia’s courage swelled like a rising tide. Confidence blazing, she sent the whole force forward like a river breaking its banks.

In a blink, the glow on every warrior brightened like fresh lightning; even Instructor Bella’s shimmering outline condensed, nearly solid, like frost becoming crystal.

The front line of Light Fortress, once crumbling like sand in wind, steadied in an instant, then pushed back like spring grass reclaiming a scorched field. The luminous spirit-warriors fought like ten men apiece, cutting down adventurer zombies like wheat under a scythe.

That’s Light Fortress’s edge—faith stacks like firewood, and power burns hotter, like a forge at midnight.

“Heh… Thousand Night Snow came too? What a lively festival.” Wan Han spoke like rain tapping an iron helm, unruffled by the swell of battle.

He watched the shifting field, and as the undead commander, felt no panic, his calm smooth as a lake at dusk.

“Return Breeze’s power. Now.” Dixue’s longbow tightened in her grip like a hawk ready to stoop.

“That’s impossible, because…” Wan Han’s hand cut the air like a knife.

He gave his own full-force command. A viridian light burst from him like spring sap, spreading in all directions like wind through grass. Zombies touched by it convulsed, jittering like struck eels.

“This is…” The words thinned like smoke.

As Wan Han said, an undead body carries many shackles like chains in fog—rotted cells like swamp muck, sunlight that burns like a whip, mindless frenzy like wolf-madness, sluggish reflexes like mud on boots.

Now, those shackles fell away like dead leaves.

Zombies washed by the green glow sprouted pitch-black tendrils from their wounds, writhing like seaweed in a tide. Veins turned into plant conduits, xylem and phloem threading like ivy through brick.

Plant cells divided in a frenzy like locust swarms in harvest heat, replacing carrion with living fiber, amid the dead’s screams that rose like winter winds.

Watching the enemy twist and change, Lia flinched like a sparrow at thunder, shooting a pleading look toward Dixue-sis, hope flickering like a lantern.

“What is that? Dixue-sis, should we dodge?” Panic spun like a moth around a flame.

“Ugh… Wan Han treats life like weeds under a boot,” the silver-haired girl muttered, brow creasing like a stormfront.

Top marks in World Tree Maiden Studies and Life Studies, Yue Dier knew this trick like a scholar reading rain on rooftops.

He poured his grasp of life-force into those adventurer corpses, using plant cells’ endless division and grafting like gardeners splicing branches. He replaced necrotic flesh, stripped undead weaknesses like skins, and hardened their bodies like ironwood, healing from lethal wounds with spring-quick vigor.

Strictly speaking, these ‘zombies’ were no longer undead; they’d become a new, fearsome symbiotic life, twined like vine and host.

The new life could fight with any part of its body—eyes, nostrils, mouth, severed limbs—each sprouting green tendrils like creeping kudzu; slippery, stubborn, maddening as briars.

A flood of eerie attacks crashed down like a monsoon, and the light-side warriors buckled, shields trembling like reeds.

“Princess Lia, requesting orders—Cassie and Tiger Girl are barely hanging on!” The call cut like a trumpet through fog.

What once fell to a single stroke now took Narit grim effort, her blade grinding like ice across stone to cleave a zombie in two—yet even halved, the corpse thrust slimy vines from its wounds, harrying the red-haired general like snakes in grass.

Tiger Girl and Cassie fared worse; under the new undead’s lash, they staggered like boats in a gale, barely able to guard themselves.

“Ugh…” Lia’s breath hitched like a bird with clipped wing. She didn’t know what to do… but she didn’t have to decide alone.

“Dixue-sis, what do we do?” The plea fluttered like a ribbon in wind.

The silver-haired girl stood right there, and although only Dixue and the Pillow Lord had come, their presence steadied Lia like a hand on the back.

“Manpower won’t cut it… but lucky for us, Little Moon’s with me.” Her smile warmed like hearthlight.

“Huh? LittleSnow, what are you about to do?” Confusion blinked like dew.

“Fuse with Little Moon… and cast a grand spell.” The promise hummed like a drum.

“Don’t pause at the weirdest word!” The protest popped like corn.

“Fine—let’s just call it fusion arts.” The tease twinkled like a firefly.

“That’s even weirder! Uh—what is a fusion grand spell?” Her voice tangled like vines.

“Little Moon doesn’t know? Here’s the thing…” The answer flowed like a brook.

What Yue Liuyi didn’t know was, they’d already cast big magic together more times than a moon has tides.

Back in the Elven Forest, Dixue synced with Yue Liuyi and erased the invading white-robed automatons like frost melting at sunrise.

In the Cascade Valley battle, Dixue linked minds with her Pillow Lord, reading the field like wind reads wheat, and drove the enemy back like autumn rain washes dust.

Even aboard the Skyship, while they studied the World Tree Maiden’s gifts, the vines Yue Liuyi released to bind everyone were the fruit of fusion magic, coiling like serpents.

Truth be told, their bond had been there since the first meeting, hidden like seeds under snow; sustaining Yue Liuyi’s mana and triggering Dixue’s sakura-flurry when Yue Liuyi became her ally both came from that root.

Their magic currents complemented each other like moon and tide, easy to resonate like chimes; together, they could unleash terrifying spells, storm-strong and ocean-deep.

“Eek!? LittleSnow, why are you picking me up again?!” Yue Liuyi’s surprise flapped like a startled dove.

“As an older-sis’s little Pillow, being held is natural, right?” Joy shone like spring sun.

“Keep teasing me and I’ll turn back into a boy!” The whisper pricked like thorns.

“Waaah—don’t! That’d be terrible! We’d lose!” Panic flashed like lightning.

“Huh? We’d lose…?” Doubt hovered like fog.

“Mm. For some reason, Little Moon’s World Tree Maiden energy isn’t complete. We need to stir beautiful memories to awaken it.” Her explanation fell soft as petals.

“Beautiful memories… like with Breeze?” The thought rose like mist.

“Yep! But for Little Moon, a ‘beautiful memory’ is… being teased.” The grin curved like a crescent.

“Huh?!” Shock snapped like a twig.

“The more boldly we tease, the fewer limits she has, and the stronger the power grows. So… I knead.” Her hands moved like warm waves. “Little Moon’s chest is soft as clouds.”

“Waaah!” The cry burst like a firecracker.

“Don’t fight it, Little Moon! Or Tiger Girl and Cassie will be in danger!” Urgency surged like floodwater.

“Ugh… what kind of ‘beautiful memory’ is this! A World Tree Maiden who needs teasing to power up—this is too weird!” Her protest skittered like a lizard.

“Nope, it’s only Little Moon. Looks like she was born this way—accept the fate of being teased, like a plum blossom accepts snow.” The tease was gentle as rain.

“No way, I’m a boy! I’m supposed to tease others… ugh! Little Moon—no, not there!” Her voice shattered like glass.

A girl’s body was too sensitive; with a light touch, Yue Liuyi trembled like a harp string.

“Huh…? Progress just jumped? Looks like Little Moon’s resistance actually helps.” The observation flashed like a comet.

“Ugh… I won’t…” She froze like a deer, neither fighting nor yielding.

Dixue used the moment, casting harder, her fingers and words coaxing the blue-haired girl like a breeze stirring chimes.

Yue Liuyi was soft and light, easy to hold like a giant plush. In Dixue’s arms she felt like a playful doll, so fun Dixue couldn’t put her down, delight bubbling like a spring.

“Ugh… I don’t accept this setting… it’s bullying…” Her protest mourned like a rainy day.

Still, just like in the Lost City, the fusion grand spell bloomed before Yue Liuyi’s eyes like a night flower.

The undead canopy vanished like fog at sunrise.

In its place, a sea of stars unfolded, radiant as a silk sky. Endless stars shimmered in five-colored light, weaving their distant brilliance like embroidered brocade.

It was deep and quiet, a forever-night where a single glance tasted infinity like salt on wind—alive with possibility like shoots breaking earth.

Every gaze turned, drawn like moths to moonfire.

“Th-this is…” Awe thudded like a slow drum.

“S-so big!” Tiger Girl stared up, hammer forgotten, her hands slack as ropes.

“Is this the Pillow Lord’s power? S-so scary!” Fear quivered like a reed.

Lia fell sitting, stunned like a toppled statue, clutching Yue Liuyi’s thigh like a lifeline.

“Huh… th-this is the Stellar Moon Compass…” Recognition gleamed like dawn on water.

From each star, Yue Liuyi felt familiar breath, same as the Stellar Moon Compass—like a tune she’d heard in spring.

But her compass, at best, spread twenty or thirty meters like a small pond. The star sea above now covered the sky like a storm front, stretching thousands of kilometers like a river through mountains.

It wasn’t even the same league; it was abyss to puddle, ocean to cup.

“Great! It worked! Little Moon, try it—this is our fusion grand spell.” Dixue set Yue Liuyi down gently, still hugging her lightly, joy shining like lanterns.

“B-but… how do I operate it?” Her worry fluttered like mothwings.

“Probably just… operate however?” The shrug drifted like dandelion fluff.

“Operate however… How do stars attack? Meteor shower…?” The idea flicked like flint.

The moment the image formed, the star sea stirred like a deep current. It began to spin in a slow, majestic gyre, stars flaring like torches, then spearing straight down like rain of blades.

…

The minotaur had just knocked Narit’s strike aside when his scalp prickled like ants. Overhead, magic gathered like thunderheads, a pressure that made the magic-sensitive beast ache like bone in storm.

“?” He glanced up to dodge, slow as tar.

Too late; a boulder of fire filled his world like a falling mountain, blotting out sight like eclipse.

Boom!

He raised his battle-axe, but it was leaf against avalanche. The meteor crushed him down into the earth like a god’s fist, carving a crater that steamed and popped like cooling slag, until the blast sighed away like wind after rain.

Then came the second, the third—meteors hammered down like dumplings dropped into a boiling pot. The earth bucked; mountains trembled; smoke boiled across the plain.

Moments ago, the new-breed undead strutted. Now their resistance collapsed, as if they fought the whole cosmos. A ceaseless stone storm mashed their bodies into pulp, flesh bursting like overripe fruit.

Let plant cells be as stubborn as spring bamboo; once turned to slurry, there’s no saving them.

The meteorfall lasted barely ten-odd seconds, a heavenly drumroll that rose and vanished.

But on the battlefield before the girl, not a single undead silhouette remained; the ground lay scarred like a charred scroll.

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