After the Imperial Embassy formally notified the palace, the whole royal court fell into a taut, perilous hush, like a storm rolling across tiled roofs.
Officials hurried down the outer corridors, boots drumming like rain.
On the palace square, squad after squad of knights formed up at a quick march.
Mages streaked in one after another, answering the crown’s call like falling stars.
Even in the grand hall, with no view of that rush outside, the air alone scratched nerves raw.
In the hall, Gio Robel lifted his head and watched Lance climb the Eternal War Armor.
Worry roughened his voice. “Brother, you’re really going to Mubay alone?”
Lance said nothing. He kept moving, step by steady step, then kicked up onto the chest plate.
His answer was action, clean as steel drawn in silence.
Unwillingness bit Gio Robel. He raised his voice again. “How about this: my troops have battle-mages for forced marches.”
“Go with that vanguard. You’ll reach Mubay in a day.”
Horses without sleep take three days from Maple Leaf to Mubay.
So one day is already fast, like wind at your back.
Yet Lance’s calm words carried a hidden heat. “I can’t wait even a day.”
That heat wasn’t only impatience.
The enemy fleet reached the kingdom’s border waters a week ago.
By now, a landing wouldn’t be surprising. Lance had to race the clock.
Another reason simmered.
“She dares test me?” Lance said, anger shading his pride, or perhaps not.
Satia, that Celestial Spirit woman, struck Fulin as reckless.
She questioned the “quiet life” to his face and tried to test it, almost in mockery.
Fulin would never allow that, like guarding a flame from the wind.
Lance’s mutter spiked Gio’s unease. “She—Lady Satia? What did she say? Did she threaten you?”
Lance glanced back, eyes cool. “It’s my business. I’ll handle it properly.”
The words hit Gio like a dull blow. He stared, stunned.
Before the echo died, Lance gripped the chest plate, twisted up, and slipped into the cockpit.
“Hold the line. Do your duty.” He left the words behind and launched the Eternal War Armor.
Through the open vault of the hall, that massive silhouette soon faded into moonlight’s silver.
Gio watched the flight path, unwilling yet helpless, and lowered his head with a sigh.
“He takes all Doran, all Nordland as his own burden... Blazing Fire Knight, you’re too sure of yourself.”
The unwillingness swelled, then softened. Gio lifted his gaze to the distance, regret brightened by pride.
“You solve things alone. That’s why men envy you, Blazing Fire Knight. When will I ever...”
After a brief pause, Gio Robel drew in his thoughts and firmed his face.
“You told me to do my part. Then I’ll do it well.”
He turned on his heel to face the assembled ministers, like a blade meeting duty.
While palace drums beat tight and fast, Lance took the Eternal War Armor into the high sky.
He deployed the glider arrays and arrowed toward Mubay.
From the outside, the armor was opaque.
Inside, the cockpit walls felt clear as glass, a full panoramic screen laying the world bare.
Moonlight poured in like cold water.
The high air was quiet, a hush above clouds.
Perhaps that calm scene soothed the heart. Lance’s agitation thinned, anger cooling like iron in snow.
Faces surfaced instead. He recalled Alice and her words—
“Because I like you!”
Without Alice’s truth and courage, Fulin might have shed the Blazing Fire Knight’s shell.
A question ached up first. If she let that shell go, what life would follow?
Maybe a life wholly different. New companions. The same goal of a quiet life, like water seeking level.
But one thing was certain.
Without that shell, a tall tree calls the wind.
The tree longs for stillness, yet the wind won’t rest. Quiet would be harder to keep.
Beep-beep!
The Eternal War Armor sounded a warning.
When the frame tags an enemy, it alerts the pilot.
Fulin folded her thoughts and refocused through Lance’s eyes.
Following the tone, Lance scanned the panoramic screen.
Hundreds of tiny red dots pricked the view.
Those dots were the armor’s enemy markers.
They clustered in a forest six thousand meters below, a crowd of foes.
The distance and the night kept both sides blind to each other.
“The machine’s eyes really are sharp,” Lance said, praise like a pat on steel.
Beep-beep— the Eternal War Armor replied with a pleased chirp.
Then the image zoomed and brightened like night vision.
Targets came clear.
From posture and gear, they were Shadowspirit Legion fallen-men warriors.
About six hundred hid in that thick forest.
The forest grew twisted, uncanny plants, and breathed out heavy miasma.
Fulin knew this place, the Demon Realm Forest.
Nostalgia rose like mist.
Here she first gathered essence in Nordland, and cut down many beasts.
When Lance went to the Republic, the big cat—her tamed phantom beast—returned to this forest.
Maybe, for the big cat, this forest was home ground.
The nearer she drifted to beginnings, the more memories broke the surface, bitter or not.
Fulin’s drift lasted only a moment.
Lance tightened his focus and stared down at the Demon Realm Forest from the heights.
The forest marks the northern border of the Mubay region.
Reaching it means Mubay City is close.
Yet six hundred fallen-men waited here.
They weren’t here for nothing.
Dark Spirit ships had almost certainly landed at Mubay.
Unease pooled in Lance, deep as a well.
He couldn’t spare time on these warriors.
“I’ve got to reach Mubay, fast!”
He pushed the Eternal War Armor harder and tore toward his goal.
The closer he flew, the more the moon dimmed.
Clouds thick as ink smothered the light, and Lance had to drop lower.
As he descended, he glanced up.
The clouds carried a buried red glow, like banked coals.
Seeing that red at this hour tightened his chest.
The bad feeling grew and grew, a drumbeat in the ribs.
After about ten minutes, Lance reached the skies over Mubay City.
Fire covered the city like a sea.
Beasts ran wild in the streets.
The wind heaved embers upward, a river of sparks into the dark.
At that sight of calamity, Lance’s deepest unease came true.
