“You brew coffee like this! Just pour in hot water slowly, and it’s done!”
Zaocun showed Ji Wan each motion, her hands flowing like a spring stream. A moment later, the coffee bloomed, steam curling like dawn mist.
“Huh? So coffee doesn’t need ice?”
“Of course not. Only cola wants ice~ like summer hail in a glass.”
“Oh, got it! But it’s strange. Why can cola handle ice, and coffee can’t?”
Curiosity pricked first. Ji Wan leaned toward the just-heated cup, careful as a cat nearing a sunbeam.
The beans’ aroma rode the heat like a warm breeze, washing over the dragon girl with hearth-soft warmth.
“Eh? What is it?”
Blankness flickered first. Zaocun looked up at the ceiling, a white sky with no answers.
Maybe a textbook said why, but back in class this catfolk either napped or daydreamed, and the facts fell away like autumn leaves.
“Ugh… I can’t remember! But my senior once said: when it’s hot, drink cola; when it’s cold, drink coffee…”
Dejection sank first. Zaocun’s head drooped, and her black cat-ears wilted like wet petals. Ji Wan’s fingers itched to rub that fluff and feel the soft clouds.
“Mm… drinks really are magical.”
Naivety kept her blind to danger. As the dragon girl reached out—
Boom!!
The kitchen door flew inward with thunder, splinters leaping like startled fish.
“Wow, coffee’s here, coffee’s here! > <”
“Zaocun, wait… those aren’t our sisters!”
Alarm snapped first. Ji Wan’s pupils tightened, and her body moved before thought like a spark on dry tinder.
Amber flame hardened into a straight blade, heat rolling out like desert wind. It hewed toward the intruder at the threshold.
“Hrr-woo!”
The creature had just lunged in when Ji Wan’s strike met it head-on and split it cleanly in two.
Rot-black flesh caught fire, flames licking like hungry wolves, and a swamp-stench burst out, choking and vile.
“Ugh, so smelly! What is that?!”
“That smell… Undead! Zaocun, quick—save the coffee and the food!”
“Eh? Got it!!”
Zaocun snatched up the fresh coffee like a squirrel packing treasures and swung the main pantry door shut with a thud.
Outside the kitchen, more horrors pressed like a tide against rock, eager to force their way through.
...
...
Nalette and Cassie were the first girls to spot the raid.
They were stationed in the lounge, so they braced at once, steel settling like shields in snow.
Nalette had master-level skill, and Cassie excelled against the undead. A fight that should’ve been easy froze into a stalemate.
Because the enemy before them… wasn’t ordinary at all.
Its speed was ghost-quick, a flicker at the edge of sight.
It wore a thick cloak. Black cloth veiled its face. Yet it moved like it had eyes all over, slipping past every angle of attack with eel-slick grace.
Nalette had captained the Royal Guard, forged for grinding fights and holding lines, like stone set against waves. Against hit-and-run shadows, she found no purchase.
Cassie was cut in the first clash. Just a skin-deep nick, yet her body reeled like a drunk boat on dark water; even her magic sputtered and died.
“Captain, leave me! Go save Princess Lia!”
“How could I? Should I flee again like I did two years ago?”
“B-but…”
“Then shield Princess Lia for me, Cassie.”
Resolve rooted first. The red-haired woman stood her ground and clenched her warblade, the steel a cold moon in her hands.
Facing that flickering foe, Nalette went still and closed her eyes, a lake smoothed to glass.
If her eyes couldn’t catch its path, then she would stop looking and listen with her bones.
In the dark, everything blurred like rain—yet everything sharpened like a bell at midnight.
Now was not the same as two years ago.
Princess Lia was no longer a girl who only cried like a lost fawn.
And she was no longer the Royal Guard wreathed in spotless honors, a banner in sunlight.
Though this reunion lived half in dreamlight,
Nalette knew—
she
could never stand at Lia’s side again…
In the days of the Chaoslands, her hands had soaked in blood like dye in cloth.
But Lia had grown, a princess who could bear the sky on her own shoulders.
As for me…
I can only…
...
...
“H-help! Help!!!!”
That hysterical cry was the limit of what Emily could do, a fragile bird beating at a storm.
This foe was beyond her. She didn’t even have the courage to meet its gaze.
Emily fell to her knees, frozen like a deer in frost.
But Tiger Girl clawed her way upright, fury blazing like a campfire in wind, and glared at the horror before them.
“Damn you, damn you! What are ya? Get away from my partner!”
This “person” had appeared out of nowhere, a shadow stepping out of a doorway.
Thick plate. A visor hiding any face. At first, Tiger Girl thought he was a spirit warrior Lia had summoned, just another patrol like her.
But the wrongness surfaced fast, like oil on water.
The armor was filthy, worn by ages; paint flaked to nothing; no metal gleam, only the dullness of old bone.
Then a nose-stinging stench seeped from the seams, rising like sewer steam, and even Tiger Girl’s stomach turned.
As she braced to react, the metal knight struck first, movement snapping like a sprung trap.
“Insect!”
Impact flashed first. In that instant, Tiger Girl saw the truth: inside the armor wasn’t a person, nor any spirit warrior, but a swarm of bug-like things clotted together.
Emily froze at the sight. That mass of crawling life shredded her reason like moths through silk, and all she could manage was a desperate scramble.
Tiger Girl still punched, a stone-breaking blow that could split flagstone, but it did nothing to that churning body.
It was a body made of insects; ordinary strikes had no purchase, like fists through sand.
The knight’s flail whipped back and slammed her midair, and she flew like a leaf in a gale.
...
...
“The enemy has breached the ship’s interior!”
The cockpit report hit first. Kashiya ran to Tisinate’s side, words tumbling like pebbles down a slope.
(Kashiya: former Silverwing Elf captain who once tried to arrest Qiu Baimo at a body-pillow shop in the Elven Capital.)
“I know. Set the magic array. We wait here for the enemy to come.”
“Huh? We’re not supporting the others? The elves from Linyun Academy are still in the cockpit…”
“No need. Our mission this time is only to protect Ailuna.”
“Y-yes. Understood.”
Calm settled first. Tisinate gave her orders, a still river under moonlight, then sank into thought.
Dixue had guessed right. Though Tisinate wore a mask of bold maturity, she was, at heart, a cautious Elven Queen.
Even with news that the enemy had entered the Skyship, Tisinate didn’t frown; her mind was a steady lantern in wind.
As she’d discussed with Dixue—three World Tree Maidens, two guardians of the World Tree, and Silverwing Elves hardened by modern war—the Skyship’s might was unprecedented.
Even facing a Demon God at its peak, they had the confidence to seal it. This foe was only a Red-Giant Demon God, limping across a thousand years.
If the Evil Deity wanted victory, it wouldn’t happen on open ground. It would choose schemes and shadows, like the apostles sent earlier to spook the World Tree Maidens.
So this attack was likely a lure-the-tiger-from-the-mountain ploy. In the brief chaos, the Evil Deity meant to do something to the Skyship—or… to the World Tree Maidens.
As long as she held position and shielded Ailuna and Breeze, there would be no slip, no crack in the wall.
Tisinate’s judgment was sound. Her stance against the sudden raid read the Evil Deity’s plan cleanly, like ink on snow.
As the Elven Queen who, for the first time in a millennium, had touched the Inner Ring civilization, Tisinate’s capability was beyond doubt.
Only—
she never imagined
that the one who finally broke through to her,
would be that person.
...
...
