“No wonder they used to call you Lord Yan, the Smiling Yama; you played Moragus like a chess piece, and now you dare count me in too.”

Killing intent smoked off Nana Shi’s words like frost off a blade, yet under the other’s gaze it thinned and blew away like mist at sunrise.

“I do everything for Nana’s sake. Nana won’t be mad at me, right?” The woman in black sounded playful, like a cat batting a bell in moonlight. Nana stared at the shadowed hood for a long beat, then slid her eyes aside.

“I’m sick of that excuse. There won’t be a next time.” Her reply fell like a cold pebble into a still pond.

The hooded woman didn’t rush to answer; in Nana’s mind, the face under the hood must be holding a crescent smile, like a moon behind thin cloud.

They didn’t linger over old times. When Nana stepped out of the independent space, dusk had already salted the sky; the continent’s sun sank slow as an ember into the sea.

She walked the streets of her own royal city, thoughts left as empty as a beach at low tide.

The feeling of carrying so many shackles bit like cold iron; compared to being Nana Shi, being the earlier Nana Toki had felt light as wind through bamboo.

People hurried past like a stream of ants, and no one noticed the Chronos City Lord drifting among them like an unnoticed shadow. Nana’s pace was unhurried; her gaze brushed the streets now and then, as if tracing memories on an old scroll. In the end, her feet didn’t stop.

Only when the sun slid under the horizon and night inked over Chronos City did she finally move on, leaving beneath the streetlamps that burned like twin rows of fireflies.

“Your Majesty...”

She had barely stepped back into the palace when a soldier peeled out of a corner of shadow like a fish from dark water. Black cloth wrapped him head to toe; only sharp eyes glinted like cold stars. Nana’s face stayed calm, a lake unruffled by wind.

“What is it?”

She’d laid this line before her coma, a spare pair of eyes to watch Chronos City and net everything that happened these six months.

“Regarding all events in Chronos City over the past half year, we’ve confirmed them all. Aside from the research division under Lord Yan and the military directly under Your Majesty, virtually every ministry is implicated. There are over a hundred ministers under suspicion. Your Majesty, how should we proceed?” His report came like a map of rot, roots winding under a garden.

The spies the continent’s nations planted while Nana slept had been withdrawn like tidewater, yet many ministers still whispered to them in secret, like moths courting a candle. That stank of disloyalty.

“...” Nana didn’t answer at once. She stood in a moon-washed garden like marble in silver rain, ink-dark eyes on the crescent, as if watching the moon—and something farther than the moon.

“What do you think I should do?” Her voice finally rose, a cliff wind at night that could flense bone.

The soldier behind her kept silent and shook his head, like a reed before a storm. He wanted to say they deserved the sword, yet cutting so many at once would drag whole offices down like a net snagging half the river.

At worst, the city’s economy might seize like a choked wheel, which would be deadly to both Chronos City and to her.

“They think I’ll fear that, so they act with impunity, waving that threat like a rusty chain. They’re wrong.”

Her mercy had burned to ash long ago, like joss paper in a brazier. What she felt for the common folk of Chronos City was never sainthood; it lived only on the warmth of their loyalty to her. When that warmth vanished, she could cast them off as easily as cutting a dead branch.

“Kill them all.” The girl drew her gaze back and walked toward the palace halls, footsteps quiet as falling ash.

A night breeze poured in from all four gates like water over stone. Only then did the soldier feel the sweat soaking his back like rain through linen.

Fools. Do they not see Chronos City survived Moragus only by Your Majesty’s spine?

If the day comes when Your Majesty tires of this life, do they truly think their pillows will stay soft and safe?

He let out a long, muddy breath, gathered himself, and slipped back into the night like ink into paper.

Chronos City was fated for a sleepless night, but Nana didn’t care. She fell into bed and slept, then woke the next day living as if nothing had happened, like snow that refuses to stick.

She had warned them. She didn’t mind little tricks under her hand; sleeping by the throne is sleeping beside a tiger, and she knew that better than anyone. But if she bans something in public, and after a warning they still do it, they should be ready to die someday. That’s the steel under the silk.

“Your Majesty, the prison watch in the south of the city’s been lax...” Morning light poured over the throne room like pale tea. The minister reporting the city’s petty matters stammered, words tripping like pebbles. No one looked different, yet the court was thinner by several hundred, where it had been crowded as a marketplace yesterday.

That wasn’t a small number. Space had opened like a suddenly cleared path, and the woman with sky-reaching means didn’t even ask. She didn’t have to. Everyone knew what the night had carved.

“What? I sleep a few months and even the prisoners in the southern gaol want to test me?” Her voice cracked like thunder on a clear day.

“N-no, that’s not it. The southern gaol holds felons beyond pardon, and rumors say the continent is restless. I fear a change down there... so I... advise reinforcing the watch...” He met her eyes and shivered as if doused in winter water. They were timid men to begin with; after her recent storms, who dared stir mud? What should be said was said; what shouldn’t, not a word.

“Fine. Send some people.” Nana propped her chin on her hand and drew her gaze back like a blade to its sheath.

“Guards.”

“Here, Your Majesty.” A soldier stepped forward and bowed, crisp as a drawn bowstring.

“Take five thousand men. Guard the southern prison.”

“Yes.”

“Anything left to say now?”

“N-no, Your Majesty... nothing...”

“You’re dismissed.”

“Y-yes...” The minister fled like a freed fish, almost weeping with relief.

Honestly, standing next to this woman turned a man’s knees to water.

“Other than that, does anyone have anything else to report?” Nana slouched on the high seat, lids heavy as dusk. She swept the kneeling ranks like a hawk over stubble fields; no one spoke. Boredom settled like dust.

She flicked her hand as if shooing a fly. “Forget it. If there’s nothing, you’re all dismissed.”

“Yes.”

Governing was dull as boiled rice. Nana ate and slept, slept and ate. When bored, she’d stroll to the hall and scare ministers like scattering sparrows, then wander off to watch the view like a lone cloud.

She found herself missing the days of drifting through the mental plane, like a swimmer missing the sea.

“Host.”

“Hm?” The familiar voice struck her mind like a pebble tapping a window. Nana reclined on her throne and cracked an eye, but no one stood there.

“Host, Master has reinstalled my data into your mind. Even if I’m not beside you, we can talk across the air now, though only within Chronos City.”

“That so.” It did sound handy, like a hidden door in a wall.

But...

“Got something to say?” That one never did anything useless. If the System pinged her now, the Master must have orders but couldn’t come.

“Yes. Master and I are in the middle of research, so the independent space’s passage is temporarily sealed. Don’t worry, our coordinates remain anchored in Chronos City. Also, per Master’s intel, Chronos City may get noisy soon. Please be careful.”

Not peaceful, huh?

Nana thought back to the whirl since she returned. Chronos City had been anything but calm.

“Got it. Ping me if anything else.”

“Okay.”

Their exchange blinked by in ten heartbeats, words like sparks. When Nana cut the link with her System, she rose and stretched, a cat in a sunbeam.

This life was too dull.

I’m going home.

She suddenly remembered: before the System drafted her into the independent space, she used to write at home, tapping away like rain on a roof.

Nothing urgent now. Why not pick it back up, just to kill time?

She still remembered the outline, clear as ink lines on silk. Starting a new serial and bailing shouldn’t be a problem, right? She’d ghosted enough of them; one more hole in the ground made no difference.

Thinking that, Nana left the hall first and headed home, steps light as wind through grass.

Days spent digging new holes fly fast. By the time she finished the outline and the first three chapters, the sun had just dropped, staining the clouds like spilled wine.

She uploaded the fresh pit without fuss, shut down the computer, and moved to climb into bed, sleepy as a cat.

Whoosh—

A razor wind whispered past her ear like a knife’s kiss. Nana’s head tilted on reflex; the water cup on her desk exploded into porcelain snow.

“Who!”

White shards skittered across the floor like ice, and dark water spread like a stain. Nana’s face went cold as a storm front.

Speak of the devil, and the devil knocks.

Someone on this continent still dared to make trouble on her turf.