“Enemy attack! Brace for contact.”

Lia’s warning cut like winter wind through bamboo. The girls tightened ranks, eyes forward, hearts drumming under steel.

They crossed the shadow boundary, and wave after wave of enemy craft rose from the dark like drowned whales surfacing under a dead moon.

From afar they looked like warships. Up close, terror peeled back the disguise. The “warships” were meat and bone, stitched like nightmares, pulsing like diseased reefs.

The glass of the bridge wasn’t glass. It was faces. Faces pressed outward like frost on a window—some crying, some grinning—each expression wrong, the logic snapped like broken strings.

“What is that!”

Yue Liuyi took one glance. Cold sweat slicked her back. Her scalp prickled. She wanted to shut her eyes like pulling curtains against a storm.

Ailuna and Zaocun had already dove into their sisters’ arms. Their small bodies quaked, eyes sealed, breath thin as rain lines.

“Help! ><”

“So scary!”

They huddled tight, seeking warmth skin to skin, as if shared heat could fend off the chill. Outside, the monsters clawed at the mind like winter wolves.

Dixue rushed to Yue Liuyi’s side and wrapped an arm around the blue-haired girl’s shoulders.

“Don’t be scared, Little Yue. I’m right here.”

“Mm… I’m—fine.”

Yue Liuyi, pale as moonlight on snow, shook her head and signaled to LittleSnow that she could handle it.

She was a “boy” at heart, with grit coiled like a spring. After the first jolt, she steadied and asked softly:

“LittleSnow, what are those?”

“They’re apostles of the Evil Deity.”

“Apostles? Are those faces humans bewitched by it?”

“No. The sealed Red Giant Evil God can’t do that. She made them to scare us.”

“Huh?”

“It’s like in Cthulhu fiction. The apostles attack minds. They barely have real bite.”

As she spoke, Dixue tapped controls. Extra windows on the Skyship slid shut like eyelids. The ghastly scene stayed outside, a storm barred by glass.

“Are we safe?”

“Hu… hu…”

They exhaled in shaky relief. The clean, ordered cabin felt kinder, like shelter under a cedar.

“Execute Plan A. Everyone to your stations.”

The ambush didn’t touch Dixue’s stride. The silver-haired girl stayed cool, issuing orders like beads clicking on a rosary.

“Ailuna, you and Breeze go to the engine room. It’s secure.”

“Got it!”

Ailuna and Breeze, guarded by Tisinate and the Silverwing Elves, headed below. Battle would drain power. Either of them needed to stand ready to replenish on the fly.

“Nalitte and Miss Cassie, keep to the original plan.”

“Understood.”

Nalitte squeezed Cassie’s hand. They held the rear hall. The aft of the Skyship was fragile, a cedar gate needing watchers against backstab.

“Tiger Girl and Miss Emily, patrol per the map. Light everything.”

“R—right!”

“Leave it to me!”

The Skyship was vast, and many lights still slept. Dixue wanted no grime slipping in, no shadows nesting where fear grows.

“Zaocun, you and Ji Wan, head to the kitchen.”

“Huh?! Will enemies hit the kitchen?”

“No… Folks will tire. Brew more hot coffee.”

“Meow! On it! (And maybe a few dried fish…)”

“I’ll follow Miss Maria’s recipes exactly!”

Zaocun and Ji Wan hurried to the galley. Both had maid training; service flowed like tea. In tense hours, nothing soothes like a hot cup warming cold hands.

“Dawn Goose, go with Xiao Zhi to our usual spot.”

“You want me on the big gun? That works…”

“Don’t waste ammo.”

“Heh. I’ll be the judge of that.”

The purple-haired girl smirked and strode off, crisp as a blade, toward the cannon control room. Behind her, the kimono girl bowed and fussed.

“Butterfly Snow President, I’ll stop Lady Dawn Goose from wasting shots…”

“I’ll count on you, Xiao Zhi. If she transforms, remind her.”

“Understood. I’ll do my best.”

On the other side, Lia took up the watcher’s role.

“Dixue! The right flank… something’s wrong!”

Fear fluttered in her chest like a trapped sparrow. She forced it down. If she faltered, she’d only fall farther behind Dixue.

They were both princesses, but Dixue, guardian of the World Tree, was a mystery in moonlight—beautiful, reliable, unyielding. Lia had wandered ever since her country fell, avoiding her own people of Kowe Lailia.

Without noticing, Lia had started chasing Dixue’s shadow.

(This time, I won’t flinch.)

“An anomaly? Got it. Lia, take a breather. Xiaohei, bring up the energy shield.”

“Roger!”

Dixue nodded to Lia, then turned to Xiaohei and fired off the next command.

The black-haired loli bent over the console. Her fingers danced, tuning shield parameters like plucking strings under starlight.

Others might think she was atoning. Only Xiaohei knew the truth. This was the happiest she’d ever been.

She had joined Crimson Paradise for its tech. Yet the Skyship’s system outshone it like dawn outshines frost.

So many machines!

Such an advanced vessel!

Her sister had forgiven her.

And she’d made new friends.

It was all… too happy, like spring wind filling a kite.

“Shield tuned!”

“Master Gray, alert everyone. Commence counterattack.”

“Understood.”

Master Gray and the other elf researchers stayed in the cockpit. The enemies were foes of the elves. These scholars had set their resolve like iron.

Monsters are terrifying, but science walks into the unknown. If you run from fear, the truth stays buried like seeds never sown.

For Master Gray, one thing is unbearable.

The unknown doesn’t scare her.

Only anti-reason and ignorance inspire fear.

Silver-white radiance bloomed across the Skyship’s hull, like frost catching sunrise.

Then beams lanced out in all directions, bright as comet tails. The guns thundered, the recoil singing like drums.

The lasers carried the World Tree Maiden’s power. Their bite was brutal. A graze lit a whole hull like a match thrown into dry reeds. Fire ran wild.

Crash. Screams.

In the flames, the ghost faces twisted worse. They exhaled despair, grief, warp, and madness—black winds choking the air.

But the girls stood together. The mind attacks broke like waves on rock. No crack. No seep.

If these monsters were apostles that unmake life,

The World Tree Maiden was a deity that carries life forward.

To life, chaos is unknown and frightening. To chaos, isn’t life the same? Two abysses staring, two forests whispering.

Besides, the Skyship housed three World Tree Maidens.

These apostles of the Evil Deity had picked the one foe they shouldn’t test.

For humans, they had been nightmare’s crown.

Under the Skyship’s fierce barrages, they burned to ash, unable to stir a ripple.

The Skyship punched through the Evil Deity’s first ambush,

And sailed steady toward the depths of the Naraku Abyss.