Boom!

The massive Black Great Axe ripped past Thousandwise like a midnight tide, its edge dragging knifing wind that hissed like frost. A few red strands, shorn from her ear, drifted like shed maple leaves.

Silence pressed like snow on eaves; only the hotel floor, split by Nana Shi’s strike, kept groaning like old ice.

“What’re you dodging for?” Nana Shi stood at the center like a black pine in a white field, one hand on the Colossal Axe’s slender haft. Her voice held a playful sneer, like a blade hidden in silk. “Didn’t you say you wanted punishment? Then why hide?”

The cold voice slid under Thousandwise’s skin first, like a winter snake slipping into a sleeve, then coiled tight around her heart.

…

Fear hit first, hot and thin. As expected of the chief general who wants war with every nation on the continent—her burst is a volcano under snow, sudden and lethal.

Thousandwise stared at the floor, caved in like a frozen pond struck by a hammer, cracks spiderwebbing to the walls. Cold sweat beaded like dew along her brow.

If I hadn’t dodged that swing, I’d be split like firewood and bagged on the floor by now.

I asked for punishment, not a funeral.

Damn it… I got so excited about a new punishment I didn’t even bring a weapon. That’s a thorn in the paw.

His Majesty the Ice Emperor’s going to tear me a new one.

And yet… walking the cliff-edge with death breathing down my neck feels pretty great.

Crack… crack… The Colossal Axe didn’t fit her delicate frame; still, Nana Shi’s slim arm hauled that oversized blade from the floor like a reed uprooting a stone.

“You said you were the former ruler of Estis City,” she said, voice flat as frost. “Bringing your corpse back for study should finish that guy’s commission.”

“Hey, w-wait—” Thousandwise’s scalp tightened like a drum. What do these mainlanders from Chronos City plan to do here—dissect me in a jar? The thought rang like a gong. Before the words could land, Nana Shi was already in her face, the Black Great Axe rising like a storm wave.

“Die.”

She wouldn’t wait just because Thousandwise asked. Their cover had blown like a lantern in wind; every heartbeat now drew wolves. They had to leave before the guards gathered like rain.

Besides, this woman itched at her eyes like a thorn; Nana Shi had no thought of leaving a living problem.

In the corner, the System had ducked the fight like a sparrow hiding in bamboo. She missed Nana Shi’s intent entirely. One glance at the weapon in Nana Shi’s fist—familiar as a heartbeat—hooked her mind like a magnet.

That axe my host always keeps at her side… it was born in this era?

Stunned, the System fired a scan on instinct. For once, data flowed back like a spring unlocking.

“Let’s see… what are you?” She peered at the readout, and her soul nearly vaulted out of this lovely world.

Weapon Name: Heavens Sunder (Bound)

Weapon Data: Scan level too low. Access denied.

Weapon Description: A legendary god-arm forged from the Time Stone on the Queen of Time’s scepter, smelted with worldly metals of heaven and earth.

Holy crap. A soul-bound weapon forged from the Queen of Time’s Time Stone?

Surprise stacked like stones. First, Northland soldiers turned out to be complete masochists, fine. But my host’s weapon prototype being the Queen of Time’s scepter?

Isn’t that supposed to require the rightful inheritance? If my host can use it… does that make her the Queen’s successor in some twisted way?

Tch. No way. That’s too tall a tale. The previous Queen of Time died thousands of years ago, body and all, not even ashes left.

My host wasn’t even one of her people. How could she be tied to the Queen?

If only we could find the prophecy the Queen left behind, maybe there’s a thread. But I never found it. How would my host, who grew up in slums, find that?

Wait… the Queen’s prophecy?

The System flashed back to years ago in Chronos City, when Moragus took people away. The ones released, besides Nana Toki and Qi, included a guy calling himself an old retainer of the Queen of Time—Shi Qianshi.

He got hunted for stealing something from Moragus’s palace. It was big enough to rattle Moragus himself.

So here’s a bold guess: did Shi Qianshi steal the Queen of Time’s ancient prophecy?

The System didn’t dare chase the thought too far, though it glowed like a lantern in fog. Why else would a minister, who’d survived since the Queen’s reign, wait so long after her death to risk robbing the tyrant who killed her?

The reason was almost spelled in fire. Even as a meddler, the System could barely believe it.

If everything is as I think… then the one who frees my host’s planet and reforms it might be the very girl who jumped worlds with me—Nana Toki?

Her brain felt like a drum stuffed with thunder. Still, that would explain the weird gadgets my host keeps pulling from her sleeves. For a planetary ruler, little tools are normal as hairpins.

But what about those negative karma points? If she’s liberating a world, you don’t have to go positive, but you shouldn’t go that far negative.

A straight-up minus one hundred billion? Anyone would think she spent her first half of life doing every evil under the sun, short of blowing up the entire galaxy.

All that ran through silicon and sparks in mere seconds. Back in the wrecked room in Estis City, Nana Shi’s swing sent Thousandwise skidding like a skipped stone. Nana Shi dashed to the corner in a streak, Heavens Sunder in one hand. Her other hand yanked the System up like a cat by the scruff.

“Eh?! G-General Shi?!”

“Shut up.”

She met a face all thorns and winter, and the System’s voice died like a candle pinched out.

Heavens Sunder in one hand, the System in the other, Nana Shi moved like a night hawk. Three quick bounds, a drop from the second floor like rain off a roof, and she vanished into the shadowed mouth of an alley.

“L-Lady Thousandwise! Are you all right?”

Soldiers who’d ringed the inn stormed upstairs on the echo of chaos, but the storm had passed. The room was a field of ruin; craters gaped like dark ponds. Thousandwise dragged herself up, disheveled as a windblown willow. No wound ran deep, but spirit bled thin.

“I’m fine. Get a carriage. I’ll report those two generals from Chronos City to His Majesty the Ice Emperor at the Ice Palace myself.”

She’d been careless, like leaving a gate unbarred in wolf season. She’d thought they were ordinary mainland generals; she hadn’t expected that kind of terror. Never mind the little girl who hid the whole time. If Nana Shi isn’t handled right, she’ll become Northland’s hardest splinter.

Meanwhile, Nana Shi ran the System out of the city and into the mountain cave where they’d rested before. She set the System down like a bundle by the firepit.

“Ugh… kh—kh—” The System knelt, gulping air like a fish tossed ashore. By the campfire, Nana Shi’s face was a slate under frost. The System stood at the mouth of the cave, small as a reed, and kept quiet, not daring to rustle the still water.

The air pressed like a low sky. She twisted her hem between fingers, raised her head, dropped it again, words tangling like grass.

“I… I’m sorry.” Shame rose first, a sour tide. Following my host, I’m always the one tripping the line. Years ago or now, I keep doing nothing that matters.

If I hadn’t zoned out chasing data, and rushed in to help, maybe we wouldn’t be stuck like leaves in a storm.

…

Nana Shi said nothing, only coaxed dead coals like a monk tending incense.

They held the silence like a drawn bow. At last she struck the flint, and the fire woke like a small sun, breaking the knot.

“Why are you apologizing?”

The calm question dropped like rain on dust, and the System’s surprise fluttered like a startled sparrow. She didn’t even know why she’d said sorry. In her bones, the woman with the giant war-axe felt like a north star—always right, always steady.

All she had to do was chase that light.

But—

“You did nothing wrong,” Nana Shi said, voice level as a frozen lake. “Blown cover is normal in a covert job. If we got exposed early, that’s my bad command. This failure isn’t on you.”