Ash-green hair, skin pale as old bone.

His eye sockets sank like dry wells, and blood-threaded pupils glimmered like rusted rubies.

His body loomed like a cliff, yet his clothes hung in tatters; a black suit spattered with blood like fallen plum blossoms.

This was Wan Han, lord of the Black Fortress, a shadow that rose like nightfall.

“Heh-heh, we meet again, elven lady,” his voice slid in like cold rain.

“How is that possible!? I killed you,” her words hit like stones skimming a dark lake.

Tisinate’s eyes widened like startled deer, doubt fluttering like moths around a lantern as she stared at Wan Han. She remembered that arrow nailing his skull like a stake through rotten wood—so why did he stand here, whole as winter steel?

The churn of shock felt like storm-surge, then calm hardened like ice. If she could kill him once, she could kill him twice.

She clenched her longsword like lightning caught in a fist, and lunged at Wan Han like a hawk diving through cloud.

“I told you… until my old wish ripens, I won’t die,” his reply flowed like smoke through roots.

Wan Han’s head kinked left a clean ninety degrees, like a broken branch; every joint crackle-popped like dry twigs in fire. Tisinate’s sudden slash hissed like rain, yet he bent back with an impossible limbo, like a willow yielding to wind, and the blade kissed only air.

That flexibility was no human wave; it bent like graveyard reeds, zombie-odd and cold as grave soil.

“You… like a zombie, replaced yourself with plant cells?” The Elven Queen’s voice rang like frost on bark.

She saw it now, clear as dawn on leaves; the enemy before her had slipped past animal, becoming a grafted thing between vine and beast.

“Ha! Cuttings and grafts are a farmer’s bread and rain,” he laughed, like hoes tapping furrows in spring.

“You’re desecrating life,” her anger rose like a storm over pines.

“What is life? I am life,” his words thudded like a drum in the dark.

“Wan Han…” Breeze, cradled behind a ring of Silverwing Elves, gazed at the man who walked back from hell like smoke lifting from embers.

Awe and dread tangled like briars in her chest; each time they met, his power leaped like fire up a dry hill.

From a Murder Fiend, to a reaper of life-force, to this new-birthed thing like a green shoot through stone—his rise burned like a webnovel hero’s comet-tail.

Yet from her root-deep view, Breeze felt no hate; that feeling settled like dew. From life’s side, she even admired his attempt, like a sapling clutching light.

The World Tree Maiden herself was a weave of beast and leaf, so she could endure years like mountains under snow.

Wan Han now seemed to touch that path; if they could speak as neighbors, his work might seed new roads for life’s growth like rivers branching through fields.

Wan Han felt her gaze like sun on bark, and he answered with a calm smile, warm as late autumn.

“World Tree Maiden, I didn’t expect the wind to bring us together again,” his tone moved like leaves.

“Wan Han… I have a question,” her voice trembled first like a thin reed, then steadied like a bowstring.

“Heh… to be asked by the World Tree Maiden is an honor, like rain on thirsty soil.”

“…Wan Han, is everything you’ve done for your wife’s revival?” Her words fell soft as snow.

Silence hit him like a hammer into clay.

His strange smile froze like ice on a river, flat and lightless.

Suddenly he lifted his face, blank as a white sky, and looked at Breeze like a hawk fixes prey.

“How… do you know?” His voice was dry-cold, like a winter well without ripples.

Breeze kept her face still as stone; a cool calm floated first like mist, then her words: “When your human life ended… I heard your memory, like wind passing through pines.”

“Heh… is that so?” His breath rattled like seed pods.

“If her soul still rests somewhere, I can help bring her back,” she said, like a hand extending light. “So… can you stop this revenge, like a storm setting down its thunder?”

“Don’t shove that self-absorbed crap at me!” His roar tore out like a tiger from brush.

He seized his collar like tearing vines and ripped his suit apart like old canvas.

The horror that followed unfolded like a nightmare painting; the girls saw it as if lightning had split the dark.

Wan Han’s body was no longer human; plant tissue braided with flesh like bark over sinew, dry and dull as a withered grove.

Worse than bark and bruise were the eyes. Eyes studded his bare chest, his arms, his thighs, like mushrooms after rain.

They opened and shut without pupils, blind-lantern rounds blinking like fish mouths, a crawling plague that churned the gut like turned earth.

Even Tisinate’s courage stumbled like a horse in mud at that sight; her grip trembled like a string in wind.

“Everyone, form the Silverwing Defense Array! Guard the World Tree Maiden!” Her command cracked like thunder over a field.

“Understood!” The reply rose like larks.

Kashiya nodded sharp as a blade tip, then moved with the other Silverwing Elves like silver fish schooling. They set the Silverwing Defense Array around Ailuna and Breeze, a ring like a quiet moon.

That array was their highest shield, a pure space like snow in a sealed valley. It blocked all passage but for the World Tree Maiden and her guardians, like a gate that only recognizes a tree’s own sap.

So Wan Han, no matter his tricks, couldn’t touch the World Tree Maiden; the black holes blooming around him like night blossoms, and the energy bolts streaking like meteors, shattered against the silver-white array like waves on cliff.

Seeing it hold, Tisinate’s breath eased like dusk wind. She gathered her thoughts like arrows in a quiver and fixed her gaze on the enemy, sharp as frost.

Twisted, feral, perverse—his body was a shrine for an Evil Deity’s scribbles, those eyes like branded sigils writhing like worms under bark.

Keeping such a life-form must be a storm to manage, a constant fight like bailing a leaky boat in rain.

Ordinary life evolves over long seasons to avoid missteps, like rivers finding beds; Wan Han had cut past the river’s curve and paid with chaos like flood.

There was one answer: he fed and shed ceaselessly, devouring and metabolizing like locusts, to hold his inner balance like a juggler with knives.

So his weakness rose like a fin breaking water.

“All units, shield Ailuna,” her order flew like a falcon.

“Understood!” Voices answered like drums.

Her jeweled longsword leveled at the many eyes, its tip gleaming like a star pointed at a nest of snakes.

Wan Han saw the strike coming like a shadow sees dawn and turned to intercept, swift as a whipcrack.

Black holes budded from his arc like night berries, swallowing her sword’s trail like tar. The silver-haired girl’s body moved like a wind-slice, and she slipped past his counters like rain through reeds.

They clashed and separated, again and again, like waves and breakers.

With Ailuna nearby, her heart burned steady like a lamp in storm; she believed she could end this monster, so he’d never rise again like smoke.

But then—unexpected as a thorn in silk—something cut her focus.

A voice brushed her ear like a cold leaf. Ailuna’s voice.

“Sister Tisinate! Help!” It trembled like a fawn’s call.

While Tisinate tangled with Wan Han, none of the Silverwing Elves saw the figure that bloomed behind Ailuna like a shadow flower.

Ebony skin, brazen attire like night’s own veil, long ears like crescent blades, and a venomous gaze like oil on water.

A black-skinned elf. A Dark Elf rising like a starless cloud.

…

…

…

“Drop your weapons and surrender!” Her order snapped like a trap.

“No way!” The denial burst like a spark.

“Lady Ailuna!?” Panic scattered like startled sparrows.

The tide flipped in an instant like a river reversing. The elves couldn’t believe it; Ailuna had been seized like a lamb snatched by a wolf.

“Uu…” Ailuna’s face twisted in pain like a wilted petal. The pink-haired girl had been pouring power into the Skyship like a steady spring; a heartbeat later, a rough grip hauled her up like a hunter lifting game.

Breeze stared, stunned, like frost bitten by sudden sun. She’d been weaving a spell to cripple Wan Han like ice over a stream, yet an enemy had bloomed behind her and Ailuna like mildew in the shade.

“Drop your weapons!” The Dark Elf stood tight to Ailuna’s back like a shadow, a dagger at her throat like a sliver of winter.

The Silverwing Elves froze, lost like deer in torchlight.

Impossible—how? The scene before Tisinate felt absurd, like a dream melting in rain.

Where had their plan cracked like thin ice?

Silverwing Elves guarded Ailuna flank to flank like shields, and the Silverwing Defense Array gleamed like a fortress of snow.

Yet the enemy had slipped past the array like mist through reeds and appeared at Ailuna’s side like a ghost.

By power or by spell, it shouldn’t be possible—unless a traitor coiled in their ranks like a worm in fruit.

But Tisinate trusted these girls like sisters; they’d all lived in the Serene Garden like flowers under one tree. Betrayal felt wrong, like winter in spring.

Unless…

Suddenly, the Dark Elf’s face tugged at her thoughts like a half-remembered song.

She had seen her somewhere, like a silhouette in moonlight.

“Heh, drop your weapons,” the Dark Elf smiled like a blade’s edge.

“You are…” The title rose like smoke on a cold night.

The Elven Queen’s mind sifted memories like hands through sand.

Where was it… where?

Then the answer struck like lightning, shocking and hard to bear as iron.

In the Elven Royal Palace, she had seen a Dark Elf once—no, a portrait lifted high like a sun in the hall, adored by queens across ages like a guiding star.

“Q-Queen Canary…?” She lifted her head as if the name weighed like a crown.

The skin wasn’t the pearl-white of the painting, but the face—handsome and enchanting like carved jade—was the same: one of the heroes who saved the Elven Kingdom a thousand years ago, Queen Canary.

“Heh, you’re the current Elven Queen? So young, like new bamboo,” the Dark Elf’s gaze swept the crowd like a scythe and settled on Tisinate like a pin on silk.

“Are you truly Queen Canary? H-how can that be?” Tisinate’s disbelief fluttered like torn banners.

The longer she looked, the more alike the aura felt, like a river matching its source. The manner, the poise, mirrored as if reflected in still water.

Hard to accept, bitter as wormwood—but if the Dark Elf was Queen Canary, then slipping past the Silverwing Defense Array was child’s play, like a key meeting its lock.

She had been the World Tree’s guardian back then, a shield like a mountain.

And the Silverwing Defense Array had first been designed by Queen Canary to protect Ailuna, like a mother weaving a net.

“That’s right.” The Dark Elf nodded once, clean as a bell.

Confusion wasn’t Tisinate’s alone; the other Silverwing Elves shook like leaves in wind.

To them, Queen Canary was ancestor and hero, the savior of the Chaos War a millennium past, like dawn after endless night.

So what was this? Shouldn’t Queen Canary be interred in the Serene Garden like a noble seed at rest? Why was she here as a Dark Elf, holding Ailuna hostage like a knife to spring?

No answers came, only chaos, like bees without a queen. The Silverwing Elves stood stunned—though they didn’t drop their blades, their arms trembled like reeds, and their strength drained like tide.

Queen Canary watched their confusion and smiled like a fox. “Still kept in the dark… seems that bitch hasn’t sold you off yet. Lucky you,” her words spat like sparks.

“Sold off? Stop talking nonsense!” The protest rang like steel.

“Heh… so you’ve been tricked by the World Tree Maiden,” she sneered like cold ash. “Stand aside. I bear no grudge against you. My enemy is only that World Tree bitch,” her spit hit the ground like bitter rain.

Ailuna shivered and shook her head like a frightened rabbit. She didn’t know the why of any of this, so reflex gave only apologies, soft as falling petals.

“What are you saying! Release Ailuna now!” Tisinate’s heart burned like a brazier; she raised her blade like a shard of dawn.

Even lost in fog, she wouldn’t allow anyone to soil Ailuna with such words; that duty rooted deep like an oak.

She knew Ailuna was strange in small ways like a crooked twig, yet her effort and kindness outshone all, bright as the morning star.

“Oh… still clutching your foolishness?” Canary’s eyes narrowed like slits in stone.

“Queen Canary, I don’t know why you’ve fallen,” Tisinate said, her vow steady like bedrock, “but as the World Tree’s guardian, I’ll strike you down here,” her resolve gleamed like ice.

“Fallen? Ha…” Canary laughed, and the sound slithered like smoke from a smoldering pit. A black miasma rose around her like stormclouds, and dark sigils crawled her skin like creeping vines. “Ridiculous child, what do you know? You’ve lived only decades, a spark in wind. Do you know how long Ailuna has lived? A thousand years? Ten thousand?” Her words rolled like thunder over a black sea.

"You're nothing but a plaything in her endless years, a glass bauble on the string of her centuries!"

"Huh?"

"Am I wrong? Your mother handed Ailuna to you as an aide, didn't she? Even then, she was already like this— a simple smile like silk over a blade. For herself, she'd toss every last one of you into the fire."

"What!?"

In that heartbeat when Tisinate's thoughts flew like startled birds, the Dark Elf struck, shadow leaping like a knife.