Shelika sized up the man, arms crossed like a folded fan against her chest, a ripple of annoyance in her voice. “You don’t recognize this humble one?”

Her words sent a small cloud of confusion over his face, his gaze skimming her and the massive iron brute behind her like a shadowed cliff.

He took off his hat, revealing a bald crown like a barren hill, hat cupped in his hands like a begging bowl.

He tested the waters with a respectful tone, careful as a cat on wet tiles. “Are you perhaps a beast handler serving in the Gaia Legion?”

Clearly, he truly didn’t know Shelika, his eyes blank as winter ponds.

She lowered her head like a weeping willow in wind, a soft ache in her breath. “Fair enough… sixty years have drifted by.”

“Miss?” Another voice came, brisk as hooves on stone.

A bigger freight wagon rolled up, drawn by a one-horned rhinoceros in its prime, a living boulder that would match the Eternal War Armor if it reared.

The driver hauled the reins, hopped down with dust curling at his boots. “Dad, why’d you stop?”

The first man turned his head, concern flickering like a lantern. “I saw a lady in trouble.”

“Travelers, out here?” The question fell like a pebble in a dry well.

Then he saw Shelika, breath catching as if a bird struck his ribs, and after a beat he blurted, “What a beautiful woman!”

Shelika’s glance slid over him like moonlight over water, then she asked the balding one, “He your son?”

“Mm. He’s Robert, I’m his old man, Pete,” said the Demonic Human Race merchant, pride lifting his chin like sunrise as he strode to the wagon and lifted a corner of tarpaulin like a stage curtain. “As you see, I’m a trader. I sell supplies to the Legion and buy up their spoils.”

“Is that so.” Shelika’s courtesy landed light as ash.

Robert shuffled forward, shy as a fawn. “I–if you’ve got anything to sell—”

Before he could finish, Pete slapped his head with a crack like a breaking twig.

“Idiot! Why talk business now? Can’t you see I’m showing you how to speak to a lady?” His anger flared like dry grass.

Robert blinked, lost as a lamb. “But Dad, didn’t you say, with strangers, start with business?”

“Idiot! That’s one thing, this is another,” Pete barked, veins popping like knotted rope. “I’m worried you’ll never find a girlfriend, so learn from your old man’s life lessons!”

Robert muttered, wounded as a rain-soaked pup. “But Mom ran off with another man…”

Pete swayed with rage, face going purple as a storm eggplant. “You—why you—!”

Their back-and-forth turned the air into a slapstick stage, like crows arguing on a fence.

After a moment, Pete shuffled back to Shelika with a sheepish grin, guilt fluttering like a caught moth. “Sorry, miss. The boy doesn’t know better.”

“It’s fine.” Shelika tilted a small smile like the first cut of dawn. “I’ve yet to introduce myself.”

Pete flicked a glance at the Eternal War Armor looming like a mountain, and his tone went solemn as temple bells. “No need. Far as I know, the Blood Clan rarely travel. If you’re out here, you must be a beast handler for the Legion, am I right?”

“No.” Shelika shook her head like a bellflower in breeze. “This humble one is no more than a common Blood Clan.”

“But beauties like you aren’t common at all,” he said, warmth spreading like tea.

“Exactly!” Robert chimed in, eager as a sparrow.

“Perhaps,” Shelika paused, then opened her folded hands like petals, and to avoid suspicion she spoke with steady grace. “This humble one’s name is Shelika, an ecological surveyor.”

Of course, none of that was true; it was the mask Fulin had forged for “Shelika,” a paper lantern glowing bright.

“Eco… surveyor?” The word landed cold; the father and son wore matching question marks like hats.

Thanks to years of playing Lance, Fulin’s Shelika wore an academic mask and spun lies with a straight face, each word crisp as frost. “My duty is monitoring the environment and climate shifts around the Mist Forest. Don’t let it sound trivial—this is vital to the Empire.”

“Oh? Oh.” Their minds fogged up like a window in winter.

Seeing she had them moving to her rhythm, Fulin’s heart grinned like a fox, and Shelika’s strict air softened like thawing ice. “But this humble one’s work is done, and I should return to the Holy City. No one from the Bureau came to fetch me—”

“Was I… forgotten here?” Her voice trembled like a rain-beaded leaf, sorrow layered until it glistened.

The pair were moved, pity rising like a warm tide. “Oh, poor girl! What can we do?”

Shelika blinked, a glint of false tears like dew. “Could you take this humble one to the trade city, Oriel City?”

The simple-minded Robert agreed at once, words leaping like a young dog. “No problem, leave it to me!”

Pete’s eyes hardened like flint, his rebuke sharp as a slap. “You brat, think before you promise!”

“Think? About what?” Robert’s face went blank as chalk.

“See the lady’s servant?” Pete jabbed a finger, voice tight as a bowstring. “It’s as big as the rhino pulling your wagon! You sure our wagon can fit it?”

“Wh–why not?” Robert blinked, then pointed at the freight container behind his rhino, indicating space where the Eternal War Armor could lie like a felled tree.

“Idiot! It’ll crush the goods beneath!” Pete barked, fury snapping like firewood.

“R–right!” Robert flinched, panic flushing like a sudden gust.

“In short, if it’s just the lady, we can give her a lift,” Pete said, tone practical as scales. “But with the servant, we can’t afford it. Those crates are our bread.”

Shelika glanced into the lifted tarp, eyes skimming the cargo like a hawk. “No problem. My servant can walk behind.”

Pete hesitated, worry creasing like plowed fields. “I heard Blood Clan spend a lot of mana just to keep a servant manifested. Are you sure?”

“No problem,” Shelika answered at once, voice calm as still water, but his eyes stayed doubtful, so she added, “If there’s trouble, we can find another cart in the town ahead.”

“Alright,” Pete agreed, then put on his business face like armor. “But we’re traders. It’s fifty kilometers to the nearest town, and three hundred to Oriel City. You get me?”

“How much?” Shelika lifted her chin like a drawn blade.

“Three hundred rupees.” The number jumped out like a lion’s maw.

“So steep?” Shelika frowned, doubt pooling like a shadow.

“Well…” His tone carried a thorn, awkward as a pebble in a shoe. “Since the Earth Mother bestowed Her ‘Divine Grace,’ the wilds swarmed with more beasts, and the roads went bad. Three hundred’s a friendly price.”

“Very well.” Shelika sighed like wind through reeds, then turned as if to leave, her steps a cool draft.

“Wait, miss!” he blurted, panic flaring like a match.

“What is it?” Shelika looked back, gaze clear as winter sky.

“If you can be our guard, we can cut it down,” he offered, the words landing like a safety rope.

Shelika thought a moment, the pause tight as a drawn breath, then nodded. “Agreed.”

“Great. Which one will you ride?”

Pete’s small three-wheeled carriage, or Robert’s big six-wheeled freight wagon—two boats on the same dusty river.

“Yours,” she said to Pete, a half-smile like a blade’s edge. “Didn’t you ask me to be a guard?”

Robert’s shoulders drooped like wilted grass.

“Hop on, then,” Pete said, relief loosening like a knot undone.

The moment she sank into the carriage’s soft cushions, Shelika’s calves, sore from three days’ march, sang with relief like thawed streams, and her feet flicked up with a soft pat.

Soon, the halted wagons rolled again, cutting a pair of tracks across the Kakalit Wasteland like twin brushstrokes.

As Pete warned, they hadn’t gone far into the barrens before beasts slid out from rock shade like shadows peeling from stone.

There were dozens—wolves a size larger than their wild kin, and big cats whose names were lost like old maps.

The pack closed in with storm-front momentum, a ring of fangs and breath like hot iron.

On the driver’s bench, Pete jabbed a finger, voice cracking like dry branches. “Th–those are the beasts!”

The two harnessed rhinos bellowed like drums in a gorge, stamping but holding their ground like rooted stumps.

Seeing the men bristle like porcupines, Shelika looked bored as a cat in sun. “Just these?”

Then she stepped down, light as a falling leaf.

The door opened, and the pack’s gazes snapped to her like knives catching light, hungry eyes pinning the “offered meal.”

Even under a forest of predator stares, Shelika stood unmoved like a lone pine in snow.

They held, and the wind that had been howling across the plain grew still, like lungs pausing before a shout.

Another few tight heartbeats ticked by like dripping water.

“Come, then!” Shelika cried, voice ringing like a bell.

She flared her wings, wind exploding whoosh like a sudden squall, and surged skyward in a blink like a hawk.

Father and son squinted into the blast, awe flaring like sunrise. “What a stunning technique! So this is the Dark Blood Clan!”

She didn’t just rise; midway up she struck, and her Blood Armament bloomed like a crimson storm.

Her wings shed dense blood-mist, the crimson gauze thickening at her altitude like a hanging cloud.

Dozens of blades took shape from that cloud, edges gleaming like ice in dawn.

As soon as they formed, they shot toward the pack like sleet from a winter squall.

The blades hit fast and true, bites of steel sliding into flesh like cold rain into soil.

Tsss, tsss, tsss—wet sounds stitched the air like tearing silk.

Beasts screamed, a chorus rough as rusted hinges, and fell in heaps like toppled haystacks.

Yet the survivors didn’t break; blood in the dust stoked their bloodlust like wine thrown on coals.

They bared fangs and growled low, hackles rising like bristles, then charged claw-first toward where Shelika stood moments ago.

They leaped—and found only air, their shadows landing empty as broken promises.

Blades chased them, merciless as winter, and cut them from the back ranks like ripe grain.

The fight’s shape was clear: with the sky in hand, Shelika held absolute advantage like a hawk over wolves.

But as more beasts fell, the iron smell of blood pulled more from the wastes like tide calling to tide.

What began as dozens swelled to hundreds, the ground crawling like an ant hill burst, and two hulking giants lumbered in like moving boulders.

Minutes passed, and sheer numbers pressed on her like a grinding millstone.

The blades she conjured with Blood Armament began to lag, their count a thin rain against a storm sea.

The tide turned ugly; pressure closed in like a tightening noose.

A beast leaped high, fangs flashing; Shelika twisted away with a spin like a swallow, retreating by a hair’s breadth as danger roared past.

Robert watched, pain clenched like a fist. “Dad, it’s too much for her alone—shouldn’t we—”

Pete felt the same knife in his gut, but helplessness hung like fog. “Idiot! With this many beasts, we’d just die in the churn!”

The noose drew tighter, teeth and eyes shifting like a living net.

Some sly beasts saw her falter and turned their hunger toward the merchants, forcing father and son to raise weapons with hands shaky as reeds.

Seeing the path narrow to a blade’s edge, Shelika brought out her hidden card, voice cutting like thunder. “Manifest, my familiars!”

The blood-mist ceased becoming blades and unfurled into dozens of circling Vanguards, each a crimson construct wheeling like hawks.

Shelika gave her order, command ringing like steel on stone. “My familiars, break them!”