Nana Toki and Ling'er Long went on foot, two dusk shadows slipping along roads watched by hawk-eyed soldiers. To avoid exposure, she moved like mist clinging to pines.
They reached the Marl Kingdom’s capital seven days later, time dripping like rain from eaves.
The capital wore a new face, a city split like moonlight and shadow. Troops swarmed the walls like ants circling a ring, sentries bristling above.
Forget walking in; even scaling the wall with Ling'er Long felt like throwing pebbles at a steel lake.
So Nana waited, a heron on still water. She waited for Lorin’s border recruits to stir and send word.
Good news never came; bad news rolled in like thunderhead clouds.
Lorin and Jade Ring Long were spotted in a border village by passing soldiers; that alone was expected, like a deer caught in a well-laid snare.
But fate twisted. The unit that found them was the rebel vanguard of the Marl Kingdom, a storm front aimed at the Hedon Kingdom. It mixed Hedon deserters and Marl radicals.
They marched out from the capital, sharpening blades for war, and ran into Lorin’s four like wolves stumbling on a fledgling fawn.
The newborn pacification militia died in the cradle; Jade Ring Long, its leader, was seized like a silk banner torn from a pole.
Yu Ang, whom Nana had called to aid, covered their retreat. A general cut him down like a tree; he fell into a coma, life a candle guttering.
It all felt too neat, a chessboard suddenly solved. Nana tasted suspicion like iron; maybe a mole hid among the four.
She had just reached the capital, and already the other side burned. The timing rang like a cracked bell.
Worse yet, patrols thickened around the city like a tightening net. New squads appeared, as if someone inside sensed Nana and Ling'er Long lurking in the treeline.
The pattern made no sense, like stars rearranging themselves. With no better path, Nana withdrew from the capital’s rim and slipped back to the border forests to find Kurus, Lorin, and the scattered survivors.
Kurus still carried a Talisman Nana had given, a single thread in a black loom. Following its whisper, Nana and Ling'er Long found the wounded in a cave under a mountain ridge.
Half a month had passed. Lorin looked like a banner dragged through thorns—his Hero’s armor in tatters, his sword chipped and dulled, spirit weathered by hard rain.
As the Hero, the Protagonist Lord still hadn’t met the mark; his blade felt more reed than steel.
Kurus was luckier, wearing shallow cuts like scratches on bark. Yu Ang was worst—arms and knees stitched with wounds, a broken marionette tangled in string.
Even if she could heal him, Nana felt a chill: his limbs might never dance again. A wheelchair would become his winter sled.
Heaven’s Dao felt absolute, like tides that don’t ask. No matter how she bent the plot, Yu Ang faced script-kill like frost on spring buds.
“Your Highness…” Lorin leaned against stone, face dimmed like a lamp starved of oil, that boyish spark gone to ash.
Nana saw the wound beneath the wounds; Jade Ring Long’s capture had cleaved his heart like an axe.
“I’m sorry. We failed.”
“I know.” Nana entered with Ling'er Long, calm as moonlight. She pulled an Amber Talisman from her pocket and pressed it to Yu Ang’s brow.
“You hadn’t failed, I wouldn’t be here.”
“…” Ling'er Long took the gloves Nana offered, fear fluttering like a sparrow. “Can Yu Ang be healed?”
It was her first time seeing damage this raw, flesh torn like storm-shredded canvas. She couldn’t imagine the pain he had swallowed whole.
“Maybe. It depends on his will,” Nana murmured, voice cool as river ice. She channeled her ice element, a thread of Spirit Energy, through the Amber Talisman.
“If he gives up, I can’t pull him back.”
Her words fell, and the Amber Talisman flared. Orange fire folded over his brow like a burning petal; everyone jolted.
Kurus nearly smothered it, but Nana’s hand cut the air like a blade. “Don’t.”
The flame ate the old paper, turning it into pale ash, a dusting of winter on Yu Ang’s skin.
Then his body shivered, a leaf trembling in wind.
“Cough, cough!” The cave froze. Yu Ang hacked sharply, ash scattering like dandelion seeds.
His eyelids cracked open, slow dawn prying at night. “What… happened…?”
“Yu Ang!” “Lord Yu Ang!” Lorin and Kurus almost stood, joy bursting like a spring well.
Nana, who had woken him, only exhaled softly, moving her gaze like a cloud drifting past the sun.
“Why does the host care so much if Yu Ang lives?” the System spoke in her mind, voice cold as polished glass. “He’s just cannon fodder in this plane.”
In the System’s memory, Nana didn’t coddle strangers, much less a man. Caring felt like warm rain in a desert.
“Because he’s cannon fodder, I want to save him.” Nana withdrew her hand, Spirit Energy ebbing like a receding tide.
“If I derail the Heaven’s Dao script for Yu Ang, maybe his death isn’t absolute.”
“Host, you’re defying the plane’s Heaven’s will,” the System warned, stern as a temple bell. “Keep this up, and Heaven’s punishment will fall.”
“Isn’t Heaven’s punishment already falling thick?” Nana smiled, then lifted her eyes to Kurus and Lorin, steel returning like a drawn bow.
“Tell me everything. What did you do at the Marl border? Why did the vanguard find you? How was Jade Ring Long taken? Don’t skip a grain of sand.”
“…” Her tone allowed no refusal, a mountain blocking a stream. Kurus and Lorin traded a look; Lorin began, voice low as ember-glow.
Nana listened in the cave, stone cool as a silent lake, while her Spirit Energy threaded into the Talismans set outside like runes in frost.
When Lorin finished, Nana’s calm face rippled, a fish breaking the surface. “You met a ragged boy in black?”
“Yes.” Kurus frowned, memory sharp as a blade. “We’d just arrived. The Second Princess tried light magic to heal him, to set our image right.”
“But her magic did the opposite, like salt on soil. He wasn’t infected by Demon Hand. So why did light fail?”
“…” Ling'er Long caught Nana’s fleeting, strange expression. “What is it?”
“I’m thinking that black-clad boy might serve the Four Heavenly Kings,” Nana said, brows knit like crossed branches.
“!!!” She pressed the thought. “Jade Ring Long bears the Saintess Church’s inheritance. Her healing should be gold-thread silk.”
“If light still fails, that boy likely belongs to the Ghost Clan—one of the Four Heavenly Kings, or a direct subordinate.”
“And given how fast you got exposed,” she added, voice crisp as winter air, “he might be the one old books name Ebolun.”
“Only Ebolun has rare voice-transmission magic, mobilizing troops like horn-blasts,” Lorin said, the clue snapping into place. “That black boy must be Ebolun.”
“If that’s true, this cave isn’t safe,” Nana said, the thought heavy as storm-snow. Ebolun was the weakest fighter among the Four Heavenly Kings, but his intel net was a spiderweb spanning the forest.
Hide anywhere, and he’d still pluck your thread.
Yu Ang had just woken; the Protagonist Lord’s combat power remained dulled, weakened by Nana’s early interference like iron quenched too fast.
Two blades couldn’t be drawn; if the enemy hit now, she’d be dragging four burdens through a blizzard.
The words barely left her mouth when a surge of magic heaved outside the cave, a tide crashing against stone.
Boom! The Marl Kingdom’s army came knocking, drums of war pounding like thunder at the gate.
