With the new evidence Nana Toki dug up about the human experiments three years ago, the police brought judgment down on Aoto Games like a winter hammer.
As that gaggle of fools clanked into iron cells, Nana’s main quest slammed complete, a bell tolling through mist.
[Ding! Main Quest complete...]
Pff!
A numb calm iced her heart; as the System’s chime rang like rain on glass, Nana sat in her apartment, then snatched a fruit knife and slit her throat in one clean, moonlit stroke.
System: "..."
[Ding! Side Quest complete.]
[Ding! Main Quest complete.]
"..."
"..."
[Ding! Initiating plane settlement...]
[Plane settling...]
[Main Quest: complete]
[Hidden Quest: complete]
[Current Karma Value: -99,999,990,000]
[Current Item: Queen of Time’s Sorrow]
[Current Points: 65]
Back in the isolated space, Nana stared at the LCD’s river of numbers, her mind drifting like a leaf on black water.
Ten thousand karma for this run—an entire mountain handed over in one snowfall.
She’d never pulled half that for finishing both main and hidden strands; now one main and one side, and the river flooded—something stank like smoke under bamboo.
“Spit it out! Are you trying to bribe me with ten thousand karma so I won’t see Nesting Phoenix?” Her anger rose like a hot wind, snapping prayer flags in her chest. “Not happening! Next plane, I’m seeing her.”
But even storms have exceptions.
“By this System’s calculation,” the LCD flowed like a calm stream, “you did nothing especially malicious last plane, kept a good attitude, pushed the main quest, and didn’t interfere with the plane’s male and female leads. The ten thousand karma is rightfully yours; no bribery here.”
“Also,” the words rippled, “my master watched your actions last plane and wants to discuss something. If you’re ready, turn around—he’s waited behind you for a long while.”
The System’s master had something to say—her temper tightened like a drawn bow.
Nana tipped her head back; in the shadowed corner behind her, a figure wrapped head to toe in a black robe stood like a pine at dusk, silent as snowfall.
“What do you want from me?” Her gaze swept him up and down like a lantern beam; six or seven meters of polite distance felt like a stone bridge over deep water. She couldn’t fathom how he’d slipped behind her without stirring even a leaf.
“Cut the crap. If it’s the same stunt as last time, we’ve got nothing to talk about.” Her voice was a blade against ice. “Even if you throw a hundred thousand karma, I won’t agree.”
She still figured they’d try to buy her away from Nesting Phoenix, like coin tossed into a dry well.
“Hey—Nana, that sounds awfully distant,” the black-robed one said, voice a genderless synth, neither salt nor sweet, like wind through a wire. “Do I look like the kind of vicious person who breaks up other people’s bond?”
“You don’t know yourself? That’s rich.” Nana’s eyes narrowed, cold as ink.
Black Robe: "..."
“Ahem. No matter what I am in your heart, today’s topic will interest you,” he said, words dropping like stones into a pond.
“Oh, will it?” Nana’s brow lifted like a wing. “Go on. If I’m not interested, I’ll tank the next plane on purpose.”
System: "..."
“Relax. You won’t, because our topic is Nesting Phoenix.”
The instant the word fell like a pebble, the System inside the LCD saw Nana’s face freeze, a blood-scented intent rippling off her like heat above dunes.
“Easy, Nana. It’s not that something happened to her. I’ve kept her well, like a lamp under glass. Only…”
“Only what?” Nana looked up, her eyes black and still, a lake in a midnight forest that made your heart misstep.
“Someone’s going after her.”
“Who?”
“We don’t yet know who, but the target is Nesting Phoenix—of that we’re sure.”
His right hand cut the air like a fan, and a vast virtual screen rose between them, pale as a hanging moon. Nana turned; the feed showed planes she’d lived through, moments replayed like dew on grass.
So this guy had been watching her like a hawk—eyes behind clouds.
She drew breath to speak, but he moved first, voice a shadow sliding across stone.
“Nana, you remember the first plane where you met Nesting Phoenix. The barrier sealing her inside Cloudpeak Sect—do you know why it collapsed for no reason?”
“Wasn’t it the Cloudpeak Sect’s Grand Elder, coveting his own temple?” She sounded puzzled, but her doubt sat like sand in teeth.
“What about the force in Dragonbreak City that severed your link to the hidden space? Are you saying Heaven’s Will meddled on purpose?” His words rang like bamboo cracking.
Nana stumbled for once, her silence a cold drizzle.
“You’ve felt it, right?” he pressed, voice steady as a metronome. “No one inside those planes could do those things. The one who broke Phoenix’s seal and cut your line to the hidden space wasn’t of that world.”
She watched the videos, and his tone turned thread-fine and taut, like silk drawn across a blade. “You’ve got something foul on your back. They trail you from shadow to shadow, wanting to use you to find the Nesting Phoenix I’ve hidden across specific planes. You’re in danger. That’s why, last plane, I told you not to meet her—to smoke the filth out from the reeds. Sadly, nothing surfaced.”
“If that’s so, why tell me things I shouldn’t know?” Her voice cooled, but her thoughts flashed like lightning behind clouds.
Images bloomed in her mind: Trollop in Ghostfiend City and the words he’d dropped like ash—this master poking at an experimental subject’s spiritual world. Threads braided by unseen fingers.
Now this—she could smell eight or nine parts of the truth, like incense on the wind: that “subject” was Nesting Phoenix.
“I need your help, Nana.” His eyes under the hood were a pair of embers. “Their goal is Nesting Phoenix, and the only one who can shield her now is you. If we keep letting them slip into her mindscape, that sea will go wild.”
“If Nesting Phoenix’s mindscape runs wild, what happens?” An unhappy chill coiled in her chest, a snake under frost.
“She dies.” His words fell heavy, like soil on a coffin lid.
Her breath hitched, reeds shivering under a cold gust; expected or not, the answer still bit like iron.
“Then why only me?” She swallowed fire back down like bitter tea.
Her gaze cut past the floating screen and pinned him like a spear. “You study her mindscape—why can’t you protect it?”
“Because we can’t set foot there.” His reply came quick, but honest, like clear water.
“Nesting Phoenix’s body fell asleep long ago, deep as winter. The Phoenix you meet while crossing planes is her preserved subconscious, a candle inside the heart. Researchers like us have no right to touch that. We can only send outsiders’ consciousness in to converse and guard; beyond that, our hands are tied.”
“If I agree, what do I do?” Nana asked, voice flat as slate.
“Keep everything as it is, like holding a teacup steady. We’ll handle the rest.”
“...” The pause hung like fog.
“You know me,” she said at last, face smooth as a lake with knives beneath. “I hate liars more than drought hates rain. If I find you twisted even one word, start carving your own headstone.”
She turned away from him like a door closing, walked back to the LCD, and laid a palm on its cool surface, calm as snowfall. “System, send me to the next plane. Next time we meet, bring me good news. Deal?”
“Host...” Inside the screen, Little One faltered, a sparrow caught in wind, unsure where to fly.
“Little One, send her,” the master ordered, voice low as thunder over distant hills.
A few seconds of stillness, then the reply came, thin but firm, like a thread pulled taut.
“U-understood, Master!”
“Initiating plane transfer... 3... 2... 1...”
A white light blossomed, snow-bright; it wrapped Nana like silk, and in a heartbeat the glare faded. The spot where she’d stood was empty as a cleared altar—she was already on the next plane.
“Ah.” The master watched the last shine drain away, his gaze lingering like rain on stone. “As she said, the study of Phoenix’s mindscape won’t be as smooth as I imagined.”
“The higher-ups couldn’t hold back, just as she foresaw—they made their move on Nesting Phoenix.” His voice was a quiet temple bell. “In what comes next, can Nana endure, and will our path cut clean through the thornbush?”
