In the end, Moragus’s men hauled the System away, like a tightened net dragging a lone fish from dark water.

Guilt pressed first, a cold stone in her chest. Ningyi hadn’t said a single word to her host. At least the child could slip from this wolf den for now; if Ningyi had to play the villain in Moragus’s camp for a while, it was a bruise, not a broken bone.

“We’ll meet again, right?” The task panel flickered before her eyes; under War and Resistance, a green check bloomed like frost on glass. An ice-needle pricked her heart for no clear reason.

She felt a shadow coming down the road, and the road proved true.

Dragged back to Chronos City’s military base, the System expected to be loaded like ammo and fired straight to the front. The guns stayed silent.

For now, Moragus hadn’t declared war on any other nation beyond the city walls. He had other fires to tend; after he brought the System in, the story went dim, like a lamp turned low.

She was left free‑range, wandering the vast base like dust drifting in a cavern, a day’s color washing thin and forgetting itself.

“Feels like the plot’s momentum is slipping,” the System muttered, like a wind that changed direction mid‑gust.

She had thought Moragus would unfurl his banners any day and start an expansion war. The horizon didn’t split.

Word in the training grounds was different: his next war wouldn’t nibble at a border. He planned to swallow the far frontier states like a whale gulping the sea, then roll his borders across the entire planet in one breath, unify everything under one sky.

It landed like a thunderclap. Even the System hadn’t imagined his ambition would spread like a storm front across continents.

Which meant the expansion, when it came, might wait two or three years. Big wars grind down to resource duels; in the end it’s iron, grain, and fire locked in a long winter. For someone like Moragus, challenging every nation under the sun, the coffers had to swell to astronomical numbers. Without two or three years of sharpening, the war edge would chip in a month, like a blade biting stone.

No wonder he hadn’t looked for her after tossing her into the base. He was probably hunched over maps somewhere, pinning the world with needles and plotting how to light the whole sphere at once.

She thought the quiet would hold. She was wrong.

A year turned, winter bit. On the base plaza, while the System watched soldiers drill like waves smashing a shore, Moragus summoned her to the palace.

At first, she thought he’d finally remembered the captive he’d half forgotten. Then, in the high hall, she saw Nai Nai driven forward—wrists and ankles chained, coarse hemp clothes torn, the iron smell of blood clinging like fog—and the realization hit late, like a bell missing a beat.

Her heart skipped. Her host’s face wasn’t a child’s anymore. Empty and numb, her eyes looked at all living things like winter looking at a field of withered grass.

For a breath, the System felt a stranger standing there. How had Nai Nai turned into this? Only two or three months had passed, like leaves blown across one corner of a yard.

“Ningyi, do you know why I called you today?” Moragus sat high on the dais of Chronos City’s great hall, then waved the soldiers away, like a hand brushing off snow.

“You know this little brat.” When you bargained with me months ago, she was there. Back then she wore fear like a thin cloak; now her gaze carried more blade‑edge than mercy.

“...” Ningyi held her tongue. The speed and strangeness of it all slammed down like a door in a gale. Moragus didn’t press; he glanced at the blood‑stained girl and spoke lightly, like commenting on weather. “She killed my captain. Did you know?”

“Huh?” The captain? That captain? Shiguang?

Why would her host kill him? The System staggered inside. Shiguang bore the Queen of Time’s blessing, like a seal stamped on fate. How could a normal little girl bring him down?

Even if both were plain mortals, how does a sparrow break a hawk’s wings? How does small hands topple a man in full strength?

“In my lands, a soldier’s life outweighs common folk and slum trash by thousands,” Moragus said, like scales tipping heavy with gold.

“Then why bring me?” If he wanted revenge, he could have cut the knot already. Why parry words like ripples in a pond?

“Haha, you’re fun,” he laughed, voice bright as steel on stone. “How’s life here? My soldiers look spirited enough, don’t they?”

Ningyi couldn’t read his sudden turn. She offered a fog‑soft answer. “They’re… fine.” She had watched them drill. Not as crisp as the ones in silver helms, but they had the frame of soldiers, like saplings trained to grow straight.

“But you didn’t call me for small talk, did you?” Her tone stayed steady, a line drawn in sand.

“Haha. Since you say so, I won’t hide it.” His eyes gleamed, playful as a cat with a mouse. “Rather than kill this brat, I found a more interesting punishment.”

“What way?” A bad wind pressed behind her eyes, like a storm shouldering the door.

“War’s about to rise. Cutting my numbers for nothing is foolish. She killed my captain; death would be a gift. So, I want her to live.”

“Bring Experiment Seven up.”

At his command, a soldier in silver armor pushed in a towering crystal vessel, like an iceberg gliding into a harbor.

It was clear and tall, around one point eight meters. Big enough to hold a woman like a river holding a moon.

Ningyi’s gaze slid over—and snagged. Inside the crystal… that was Seven.

Not just her host; even Seven had been dragged back into this net.

And what did he call it just now? Experiment Seven? Seven was an experimental human? Had that already begun in this era?

Shock rose like a black tide. Chronos City would someday stand as the peak of science in the cosmos, a star of iron and light. She hadn’t expected the seedlings of experimental humans to sprout this early, roots already winding the city’s foundations.

“This thing is something my team of geniuses cooked up on their own,” Moragus said, smooth as a knife slicing silk. “The aim is to replace a portion of regular soldiers in future expansion wars—let them charge and kill on our behalf. We slipped up; the little brat escaped. Didn’t expect to catch her again today.”

He spoke lazily, a man describing rain. Yet the System’s heart heaved like storm waves in a gorge.

So that’s why he dared to challenge the world: experiment humans were his iron hooves. On the field, brute strength rules; experiment units crush ordinary troops like a millstone grinding grain. Put a regular army against them, and it’s a landslide, a mountain falling onto straw huts.

Nai Nai stood shackled, then saw Seven inside the crystal. Her aura spiked like a cat with its tail stomped; a cold, foul wind spilled off her skin, making spines bristle.

“Oh! That’s a good look,” Moragus smiled, a thin crescent of winter moon. “Seems my captain taught you a fine lesson.”

“I’d rather you save that bite for the battlefield I’ll send you to. You care about this scrap of an experiment body, don’t you?”

“You spent years of savings to patch her up.”

“Honestly, you shocked me the last time we met. A slum rat carrying so much money? But money empties. A river runs dry if no rain falls.”

“How about a deal? I overlook you killing my captain. I won’t reclaim those two Time Laws living in your body—yet. You kill for me on the battlefield, and I’ll treat this broken experiment. Mutual benefit. Atonement wrapped in iron.”

“Ah… of course, if you die out there, she’ll be disposed of. Cold terms for a child, but better than a quick execution under these lights.”

“How about it?”

His voice echoed through the hall like footsteps in a cavern, fading and returning.

Nai Nai said nothing. Her black eyes stayed hollow, still water holding a dead moon. After a long silence, she lowered her head, like a reed bending to winter wind, and answered softly.

“Mm.”