Bang! Kraisint’s words died at his lips; the next heartbeat, Nana Shi slammed him into the concrete like a meteor gouging a crater.

A sonic boom cracked the sky, whipping the hanging dust into a shivering veil, a storm of grit hiding the world.

She felt surprise like a flicker of wind, but not respect; after all that buildup, he could only manage this.

That’s it?

She’d hoped his Power Mech would birth something fresh—some legendary school’s hidden art—yet he threw a basic swing like a dull tide.

Trash. Utter trash, the kind that stinks like rotting leaves after rain.

So trash she almost pitied him—joking. For anyone who even thought of harming Nesting Phoenix, pity was ash in her mouth.

He should count himself lucky she let him stand this long; that mercy was a leaf in winter, thin and brittle.

Pity? Not a chance.

“Alright. Playtime ends here.” Her smile hooked like a crescent blade as the dust settled; a finger lifted, light as a breeze.

“Without my say-so, how dare you?” Her words fell like sleet, cold and hard.

She hadn’t piloted this Power Mech long, but aside from Yan Xiao, no one knew its guts like she did; him using her own intel as a trump card felt like a clown juggling eggs.

Humiliation, resentment, rage—dark waters rose in Kraisint; black sigil marks crawled over his skin and mech like ivy, until they devoured it whole.

“Nana Shi—!” His roar tore up from the mud like a beast bellowing in a pit.

She snorted, a knife of sound. “I’m not deaf. Yell like that and people might think I killed your father.”

“Oh right. Moragus? I did kill him.” Her tone was sunlight on steel, warm and lethal.

Spirit Energy hummed in the air like a hive waking; in a blink, the sigil-drowned Power Mech lunged with its charged shield, a storm of iron.

Kraisint’s eyes burned red; his heart held one thought, feral and simple—reduce this woman to dust.

“Come on. Show me more. This sigil Law isn’t the whole ocean, is it?” Her voice was a calm shoreline facing a rising wave.

She didn’t dodge. She gripped Heavens Sunder, and her axe swept out like a thunderhead rolling.

A wrongness rippled past Kraisint—unlike the Stilled Time Domain, it was a subtle warp, as if the world’s threads shifted. Before he could chase the thought, Nana Shi’s axe shattered the mech’s left-arm charged shield into glittering shrapnel.

Time-Eater. Her Law again, a maw in the air.

He bit down on the pain—nerves in his left arm felt like torn rope, muscles screaming like ripped canvas—his shame and fury climbed like wildfire.

A time stop the mech couldn’t catch? Impossible. He’d been frozen once; the same Law shouldn’t bind him twice—his certainty was a brittle shell.

The mech’s data doesn’t lie—inside the Stilled Time Domain, he’d moved—iron proof that the same Law wouldn’t strike twice.

So why—?

The wrongness clung to him like a night terror, damp and cold, a shadow stitched to his back.

“What’s wrong? Getting scared?” Her black eyes pinned him like ravens; the curve of her smile grew, a silent crescent in dawn light.

“I allow it. You may be afraid now.”

Her spring-soft smile carried winter steel; her words were an ice-honed knife, sliding for his throat. “Because now I’m going to kill you.”

Whoosh— The Stilled Time Domain cracked with a piercing air-shatter. Kraisint moved first, but not to strike; he fled like a hunted wolf, tail between his legs.

Her last words smashed his mind like a hammer on glass; fear broke like a dam, a tide swallowing him whole.

He’d been ready to die fighting a heartbeat ago; hearing she’d kill him herself turned his spine to wet clay.

So, deep in his heart, her shadow still lived—a chill that never burned away.

He tasted bitterness, but mostly luck—luck at the fleeing animal’s level.

Nana Shi wasn’t surprised he ran. Those who lurked at your side for years, waiting to stab you and steal your crown, loved their own lives most.

Had he dared a death-match, she might have spared him a true glance. He ran, so he defied her order—a leaf turning against the wind.

Few in Chronos City defy Nana Shi; those who do all end the same way—bones like broken reeds, fate like a crushed moth.

Chaos of power, stolen thrones, murdered sovereigns—how long since all that flared at once? The storm had returned to her gates.

She sighed like a breeze over cold stone. The throne never sat easy; it was a mountain ridge in winter.

She measured time like beads on a string; counted the seconds until he’d reach the edge of her Stilled Time Domain. Then she moved—her Law unfurled like a hawk diving.

Closer… closer…

The edge of her field glimmered ahead like a dawn line; if he cleared it, his sigils could rally an army like locusts. Thousands of sigil bearers, a black tide.

Even with her crooked Law, numbers could drown blades; he pictured Chronos City cupped back in his palm like a stolen jewel.

KRAKOOM— Thunder bloomed above his cockpit like a blinding sunflower of light.

In the last meter before freedom, a golden lance of lightning speared him down, a fallen star stitching him to the earth.

What happened?

His waist felt skewered, pain burning like a brand; he forced the mech’s head up and saw a small girl walking in, calm as moonlight.

“Ha… just like Host guessed. You really chose to run.” She held a long spear forged of gold lightning—he knew that weapon.

Long ago, Moragus gifted Yan Xiao that spear. Mingshen. Weak in single strikes, but it split by Spirit Energy into many, and shackled Spirit Energy like chains—rare, fierce, a thunder-born fang.

So why was Mingshen in the hands of a girl he didn’t know? Was she another piece Nana planted inside the Stilled Time Domain?

“Yeah. You thought you’d escape?” Nana Shi’s voice rolled up behind him, unmistakable, like a bell through mist. “Geese don’t pass without losing a feather; beasts don’t leave without shedding their hide. You think my Chronos City is a place you stroll in and stroll out?”

What did he take her for? A soft persimmon, ripe for squeezing?

“Host! You’re here!” The girl with Mingshen skipped past him, joy bubbling like spring water. “Look, Master upgraded my gear, and it fits perfectly! ^-^V”

“Mm-hmm. Noted. Go play in the mud.” Nana Shi’s tone was a warm palm hiding a steel edge.

The kid looked so pleased—anyone would think she saved the world.

Nana Shi gave her System a gentle head pat to shoo her off, but Ningyi pouted, clouds gathering on her small moon face.

She crouched with Mingshen, drawing circles in the dust like a snagged tide; the System’s back looked a bit lonely, a single reed in wind.

Her Host was a scoundrel, and not just today; she’d gotten used to that weather.

Kraisint lay pinned, Mingshen hammered through the ground like a lightning nail. He stared, mind numb, unable to swallow the sight.

When had she caught up? He hadn’t felt a ripple—she was a shadow crossing water.

“You think I planned for your escape and, failing to catch you, stationed someone here?” Her laugh was a cold bell. “Look how high you rate yourself. Planting her here was a whim.”

She’d counted the seconds of his run, slipped to the System, lifted its time stop, then sent the freed System to this spot. Even with those detours, she could have ground his Power Mech into the floor three hundred rounds.

The Stilled Time Domain fell quiet again, a winter pond; the mech stopped struggling, like a trapped beast accepting snow.

Even if he kept lying to himself, Kraisint knew—there was no way out. If she wished, his life would be a wick snuffed between fingers.

“I… I lost.”