After turning the thought over like a pebble in her palm, Shelika chose to skirt the place.

The camp sat like a thorn in the marsh’s heart, tucked dead center beneath a canopy of trees.

Around the heart of the mire, the trees thinned like a balding crown; alone, Shelika could have slipped through.

But she had the Eternal War Armor with her, a hulking shadow at her heel.

To pass unseen, she had to move like dew, twice as careful.

“No footsteps. We fly,” Shelika murmured, calm as moonlight, ordering the armor to use its core’s Battle Aura and hover-skim the ground.

Beep beep.

The Eternal War Armor blinked assent and did as told.

Woman and iron slid under night like a shadowed fish, circling the marshland barracks without a ripple.

Relief loosened her like warm tea when the campfire glow sank behind the black trees like a drowned ember. “All right.”

“You can touch down now.”

The armor obeyed; the hover died like a fading hum, and it settled to earth and walked.

After a few steps, its eye-lights dimmed like stars behind cloud.

Its pace slowed, then faltered; at fifty meters it sank to one knee, still as a stone.

Annoyance pricked like a thorn as she turned. “Out of power already?”

Beep…beep…

The reply rasped like sand in a bell, an apology without words.

“It’s fine. This humble woman miscalculated,” Shelika said, voice soft as a sleeve.

Frustration pooled like stagnant water. “I can’t switch back to Lance to charge you, not yet.”

The Heavenly Spirit Empire owned a garden of tracking spells, many keyed to Battle Aura.

Without distance, if Fulin shifted back into Lance, their trail would light up like a beacon.

And the neat story of a disappearance would crumble.

She couldn’t risk Lance, but the armor’s core sipped energy back with time, like frost drawing down dew.

“Rest a while. You’ve carried a long road,” she told the armor.

Beep beep.

Woman and armor settled like stones beside the moss, and the night breathed.

Fifteen minutes pooled like a puddle. Shelika startled, thought sparking. “I almost forgot!”

“Money,” she breathed, a single coin of a word.

Fulin wore Shelika’s skin like a mask. Among many plans for the Dark Spirit Empire, one thing was left undone.

The Dark Spirit Empire sat on the same Nordland Continent, yet Heavenly fa-coins didn’t flow there, like a river dammed.

They still used Lubi, a currency old as dust.

She opened her travel satchel.

Ten crystal beads rolled out, cold as hail.

Because of tangled history, their coinage never truly unified, like a patchwork sky.

Polished crystal spheres—glass beads—these were Lubi.

Compared to paper fa-coins, bead Lubi were clumsy to carry, like stones in a shoe.

She had ten Lubi, no more, bright as ten small moons.

One Lubi was worth about two copper fa-coins, small change in a market wind.

Ten Lubi wasn’t much for the road; travel chews silver like a hungry mule.

Lance sat on a mountain of gold fa-coins.

Between Heavenly and Dark, enemies cut the bridge.

No exchange. No mercy.

So right now, Shelika could spend only what gleamed in her palm: ten Lubi.

For travel, ten Lubi was a leaf in a storm.

“That’s grim,” she muttered, face clouding.

She fretted, a kettle on low boil. Then her eyes lit like struck flint. “Right!”

Those ten Lubi had come off the Dark Spirit assassins who hit at dusk, coins warm from other hands.

In Shelika’s memories, Dark Spirit soldiers carried money to court luck, like charms on a blade.

Even if they couldn’t spend it, they packed a handful anyway, habit like moss.

The barracks they’d skirted rose in her mind like a black raft.

The thought of dirty work made her heart flinch, a bird at a sudden shadow.

Feeling bowed to reason like grass to wind.

“No help for it. Most living is compromise,” she told herself, the words thin as rain.

“This humble woman will be right back,” she whispered to the armor.

Her figure slipped into the dark like ink in water, headed for the camp.

Inside, Fallenfolk soldiers moved under torchlight.

Human, yes, yet shaped by years cut off from Nordland and by long nights.

The shadows had carved them lean.

High-bridged noses; skin with a bluish pallor, like moon under frost.

To Nordland eyes, that lack of color looked unwell, almost sickly, like lilies in shade.

For that and creed besides, Nordlanders called them “Fallen,” a name salted with scorn.

To Fulin, the term reeked of chauvinism, like smoke on cloth.

The “Fallen” called themselves human, or Earthfolk.

It matched “Gaia” in the Gaia Empire.

All mean natives of the land, like roots.

Yet in one grim sense, the name fit—

They’d trussed a Nordland captive to a wooden frame, eyes blindfolded.

A target cross was chalked on his chest like a cruel sigil.

They threw stone darts at him, a barroom game turned butcher’s sport.

“Heh. Watch where mine lands,” one crowed, laughter thin as tin.

“No! Please—ahhh!” The prisoner’s plea cracked like ice.

Bad luck or intent, a dart took his left eye.

His scream tore like cloth.

It dragged on for a full minute, a bell of pain, then he sagged into blackness.

“Boring,” the soldiers grunted, voices dull as wet ash.

One shrugged. “Smoke him like meat.”

“Good. I’m sick of rations,” another spat, hunger feral as a dog.

They killed him, cut the flesh, and hung it over fire, flames licking like red tongues.

With no more care than chopping wood, they made a meal of a man.

Shelika saw, eyes cold as winter glass, and did nothing.

Partly pride from the Heavenly side; partly, Nordland wasn’t much better in this, like mirrors facing mirrors.

The Allied Legions would use Gaia captives for practice targets or hand them to Imperial questioners.

Mercy there was thin as paper.

In that light, helping either side felt crooked, like a blade with a warp.

So Fulin kept to herself, surviving inside another’s skin, a fox in borrowed fur.

All she could do was pray in silence that death take the man swiftly, like a wind snuffing a candle.

While she prayed, while eyes looked elsewhere, she breathed, “This humble woman gratefully accepts your offerings.”

A black wind slipped through; their purses lifted like leaves.

She returned to the Eternal War Armor like a shadow returning to a body. “I’m back.”

The armor’s eye-lights now glowed, flickering like fireflies; its core had sipped enough strength while she worked.

“We’ve got a hundred Lubi now,” she chimed, waving a pouch that glittered like a handful of stars.

Beep beep?

The armor didn’t seem to care for coin, as indifferent as a mountain.

Joy had to be shared with the night. Shelika sighed, breath a pale plume.

“Time’s about up. Let’s move.”

They set out again, north through the Mist Forest, two shadows threading fog.

They walked five full days, a string of gray beads.

The fog thinned at last, and sunrise broke like a blade through silk.

“Bite, bite—chomp.”

The hour struck, and Fulin could not hold back the Chaos Vampire itch.

She dropped her guise.

She snatched an innocent C‑rank rabbit‑type beast.

She bared her fanged mouth at the startled fluff.

Chomp, chomp—sip, sip.

Soon the rabbit went limp, blood gone, like a wilted flower.

“Sorry, little one. I didn’t mean it…” Her words fell like feathers.

She skinned it clean and set it on a spit, fire crackling like dry leaves.

“You’re too pitiful, so breakfast has to be you…” Fulin’s eyes shimmered like dew.

She finished quickly, though she hardly needed food, appetite a mask like paint.

“Kept you waiting,” Shelika said, stepping back to the armor.

Beep beep—likely, no problem.

She eyed the armor, a few small birds perched on it like blossoms. “That cooking smoke didn’t draw enemies, did it?”

The armor shook its head, motion light as a breeze, as if sparing the tiny guests.

The sight amused her. “Huh. You’re fond of life for a weapon.”

Unmeant or not, the words hit like a pebble on a pond.

The armor’s head dipped; the birds scattered like white petals.

Shelika said nothing, only watched the bowed head, the slump like a tree under rain.

A minute of quiet gaze passed, long as a held breath. She turned toward a shaft of sunlight through leaves.

Sunlight meant the edge of the forest stood near, like a door ajar.

She turned away, voice falling like a leaf. “Let’s go.”

Beep beep. They moved again, woman and iron, like two lines on the same path.

Soon, they stepped out of the trees, breath opening like a sail.

The gloom lifted at once, the world clearing like glass wiped clean.

“So this is the Kakarit Wasteland north of the forest,” Shelika breathed, eyes bright.

Warm‑red stone pillars and cliffs stood like frozen flames, wild as nature’s ribs.

Mesas rose out of the plain like islands in a burnt sea.

The view was awe‑swollen, grand as thunder.

Yet the grandeur soured into worry, a sweet turning bitter on the tongue.

Beauty or not, this was the Dark Spirit Empire’s empty border waste, as lonely as a howl.

To reach their first stop—Aurier, a southern trade city of the Dark Spirit Empire—they had to cross Kakarit.

Kakarit was grand not just in form but in spread, like a sky with no end.

“Another three hundred kilometers…” Her shoulders drooped like wilting grass.

Just then, a wagon drawn by a one‑horned rhino rumbled to a stop, dust curling like smoke.

A man of the Demonic Human Race, dressed like a merchant, climbed down and came up with a smile.

“Oh, beautiful lady, how can I help you?”