Shock hit like cold rain; why was Blue Magpie here?!

Where was that idiot System, the shadow that should’ve kept her under its wing like a night hawk?

I’d told her not to let Blue Magpie act alone, like a lone crane skimming a frozen lake.

Thump, thump, thump...

Thump, thump, thump...

Her heart raced with a warped acceleration, like a drum under stormwater.

Flat on a heap of broken stones, Nana Toki watched Blue Magpie jog toward her, a sprig of blue cutting across gray rubble.

A nameless agitation swelled like heat shimmer; an invisible arm clamped her chest like iron vines, and even breathing felt like a fish flopping on dry shore.

Next plane... Nesting Phoenix, doomed to die—like a candle guttering in a draft.

Trollop’s words crawled back like a nightmare moth, beating dark wings in her skull.

“No... don’t...” Her voice frayed like torn silk as Blue Magpie closed the gap inside Ningxian Hall, a shadow drawing near across pale tiles.

A thousand storylines whirled through her mind like fallen leaves, yet her body gave no echo, like a bell packed with snow.

Move! Rage sparked like flint in her skull, trying to whip muscle and bone to life like a herdsman’s shout.

Nana bit down hard, silver teeth like frost, sweat the size of beans rolling like rain down her brow.

No matter what she tried, the body slumped in the rubble stayed mute, like a dead log in floodwater.

Tianqi Yu’s last strike had cut her strings, leaving her limp for a time like a puppet without hands.

Whoosh—! A gold flash knifed past, a spear of sunfire, and it punched clean through Blue Magpie like lightning through paper.

The world dropped into silence, like snow swallowing sound.

Nana stared, empty-eyed, as Blue Magpie fell just a few steps short, a bird stilled mid-flight.

Scarlet blood opened in the air like flowers, sprayed like rain, and then puddled into a red stain like dusk on stone.

The golden spear looked monstrous, a fang of metal, as if it had rammed straight through Nana’s own chest like a stake.

Even she began to gasp, rough and broken, like a bellows fighting wet ash.

Pain, suffocation, helplessness, nausea, fury—threads tangled into a knot in her chest like briars.

Was it Blue Magpie who died, or Nesting Phoenix, like twin flames guttering together?

Faces of women she knew flared before her eyes like lanterns in a wind, one after another, then blinked out.

Then foreign memories surged in like a black tide, battering the shore of her mind.

“Ah!!!” The cry tore free like a torn banner flapping in gale.

Something hit a breaking point; Nana clutched her head with shaking hands like claws.

Her whole body curled tight in the rubble like a wounded animal, shuddering as if lightning crawled under her skin.

“Host!” The System arrived late, like a messenger panting in the rain, and saw Nana Toki and Tianqi Yu both sprawled on the ground.

Blue Magpie lay in the center of Ningxian Hall, a golden spear through her body, life or death uncertain like a candle behind frosted glass.

How could this be? She’d marked Blue Magpie with a special tag, like a red thread, to warn the instant distance stretched too far.

Why hadn’t the warning sprung like a snare?

Rumble—

Rumble—

Rumble—

In those stunned seconds, black clouds smothered the sky above Ningxian Hall like a lid, and golden lightning fell in chains like molten vines.

“Damn!” The plane had begun to collapse like a cliff face sliding into the sea.

The whole hall shook and cracked under the mad rain of golden bolts, like an old temple in an earthquake.

The System’s heart lurched like a startled bird; she’d never seen a collapse of this force, a storm grinding bone to dust.

“Host! Get out of there!” From the doorway, the System saw space near Nana splinter like glass, spiderweb cracks fanning out in cold arcs.

Shards of space fell like slate into the plane’s darkness and vanished like stones into a deep lake.

The world split and listed, a broken raft ready to go under, as if the next second would scatter everything into the endless dark like ash.

But Nana, kneeling before Blue Magpie, seemed deaf inside a shell of pain like ice; even danger’s scent dulled like smoke in rain.

“This is cursed,” the System hissed, the words like sand in her teeth.

She’d never seen Nana so wretched, like a hawk with clipped wings, but there was no time to think, not with collapse and night pouring in like floodwater.

Xiao Yi had lost both arms, sleeves hanging like withered flags, and could only push her internal plane database by will like a monk spinning a prayer wheel.

She searched its halls like tunnels of bone, and found no permission to pull Nana out to the independent space, like a key missing from the ring.

Goddammit, the Master hadn’t upgraded her with that basic clearance, like a door left bolted in a fire.

Oh, for— She swore for the first time, the word like a spark in oil.

The ruptured world and the dark closed fast like jaws.

At the final heartbeat, Nana and Blue Magpie blinked out like fish slipping through a net.

While the System stood stunned, the world shattered into uncountable fragments like ice on a river and sank into black.

...

The System didn’t know when she booted back up; harsh light stabbed like needles, though a being without a body shouldn’t feel it like sun on skin.

Yet a white glare hung before her like a curtain she couldn’t see through.

When the brightness thinned like mist, Xiao Yi finally adjusted to the light like eyes opening underwater.

This was... the independent space, clear as a moonlit pool.

She looked at her own armless form, sleeves empty like hollow reeds, and frowned, puzzled like a child at a riddle.

If she was back, why was she still in human shape like a mask she hadn’t taken off?

“Xiao Yi, are you awake?” A familiar yet strange synthesized voice brushed her ear like a cold breeze.

Xiao Yi blanked for a beat, then snapped her head up like a startled deer.

“Master! You saved the Host and me,” she cried, joy blooming like firecrackers.

“That’s not the point,” the black-clad figure said, voice cold as shadow, a winter knife wrapped in an electronic hush.

He pointed at Nana Toki slumped against the wall, eyes dull and lifeless like burnt embers.

“I told you—Nana and Nesting Phoenix are top priority, like two lanterns I swore to shield.

I even set the main and side quests to optional so you could cover them like an umbrella.

So why are they both hurt, like flowers crushed by a passing cart?”

Anger rode his voice like thunder under silk, and even the synthetic filter couldn’t drown it like a river can’t hide a rock.

“I—I’m sorry, Master... it’s my fault,” the System stammered, legs weak like grass in wind, and she dropped to her knees with a thud like a drumbeat.

He caught himself, aware of the heat in his words like steam off a kettle, then helped her up with a sigh like a loosening knot.

“It’s not all on you. I underestimated how much Trollop’s lot could interfere with the plane, like worms in the root.

That’s how you were dragged, unprepared, into Nesting Phoenix’s deep mental world like a diver without a rope.”

“Though Nesting Phoenix took a mortal wound in the last plane, the soul-worm Nana acquired keeps a flicker alive like an ember under ash.

But Nana’s own brain injury...” He trailed off, the silence heavy like snow on a bending branch.

“Will the Host stay like this forever?” the System asked, guilt biting like frost, meeting Nana’s lifeless black eyes like stones in a well.

“There is a way,” he said at last, the words slow as falling leaves, “but I’d planned to wait until Nana grew stronger, like a tree taking root.

Now we’ll have to move early,” he sighed, a sound like wind over reeds.

“I should’ve known it would come to this, but I didn’t want to admit it, like a man refusing to see thunderheads.”

“Eh? Master, what are you talking about?” The System wore confusion like tangled threads, but hope sprang bright as dawn when she heard Nana could be saved.

Master really was the best, a steady lighthouse in a squall.

“Ah... nothing much,” he said, dismissive as a hand wave, then turned, eyes steady as night water.

“You’ve been curious about who Nana really is, like a cat at a closed door, haven’t you?

While we rebuild the memories in her head, you can learn her truth too, like reading a palimpsest.”

Some things can’t stay hidden, like ink bleeding through thin paper.

Better to lay the cards out early, like sunlight on damp stone.

He drew a virtual screen into the air like a sheet of light, fingers tapping fast like rain on eaves.

“Learn about the Host?” the System murmured, gaze drifting to Nana’s empty face like a moon without its glow.

As a proud, secretive woman, what had her first half of life been like, like a river before it meets the sea?

“But is that really okay?” She lifted her head, eyes steady as flint.

“The Host hates anyone probing her roots, like a tiger roused by a touch.”

“Emmm, true,” he said, scratching his head theatrically like an actor on stage, “but if you don’t know her origins, it troubles me like grit in a gear.”

“So Master already knows the Host’s true identity!” the System blurted, realization popping like a soap bubble.

“I’ve been the one kept in the dark, like a fish in a covered tank?”

“Hm? Is that so?” He tilted his head, playing dumb like a fox in daylight.

“In that case, Yi-chan will work hard in the next plane, like a seed pushing for sun.”

“I believe that even if, once her memories return, Nana comes for you like a storm, she’ll spare you for helping her, like rain easing at the ridge.”

The System fell silent, dots of thought drifting like floating pollen.

Was this really okay, like walking a tightrope over mist?