Fulin didn’t finish them fast; she banked her fire and ground them down like millstones, because caution sat in her chest like a coiled serpent.

First, she didn’t know if those five were all of them; if not, stalling would draw the rest like fish to a net, and she could haul the whole school in one sweep like a moonlit drag.

Even if someone held back and watched comrades die, she had ways to deal with cold hearts, like frost biting through thin silk.

Second, they were elite of the Heavenly Spirit Empire; by her composite level 320 they were straw before a furnace, yet she couldn’t always act in her true body, so she needed to test their steel like tapping a blade on stone.

The result was clear as a sunrise: by Nordland standards, they were strong, a winter gale in human shape; without her timely true body, she’d have eaten a storm of pain.

As for riding the Eternal War Armor rather than unleashing her power, she feared the annihilation strike that Divine Warrior had shown, like lightning that leaves glassed sand in its wake.

She couldn’t swear it wouldn’t scar her; and, yes, she feared pain like any mortal flinches from flame, so she chose the “Elf King’s antique,” to meet steel with steel and gods with gods.

Come, she called, voice steady as a drawn bow, issuing her challenge from the cockpit as a knight salutes before lances tip.

Both machines stood ready, mountains of iron under a thunderhead, but the enemy still drowned in the grief-rage of fallen comrades like a wolf with blood on its teeth.

The Imperial Knight’s Divine Warrior stomped forward, each step shaking the street like drums of war, and raised a stance sharp as a spearline.

“You monster! For the Empire, for Nordland, I’ll erase you here!” His voice cracked like ice on a river.

Fulin’s Eternal War Armor leveled a finger of iron at the ruins around them, wary as a cat on a fence, and her answer rang cold as winter rain.

“You call me a monster. You butchered innocents as lightly as dust on your sleeve; look in a mirror if you want a monster.”

She sank into a fighter’s guard, coiled like a spring, and drove a heavy straight punch forward like a battering ram through fog.

The Divine Warrior snapped both arms up, a steel wall against the wind, and caught the fist before it crushed his helm like a falling bell.

“I act at God’s command. You stand as God’s enemy—die!” His words hammered like church gongs at noon.

He blocked, slid back a long stride, crouched like a panther, then uncoiled into a brutal uppercut, a geyser of force from the cobbles.

His Divine Warrior had the edge in raw performance, a deeper engine under the hood; Fulin read the blow, but the armor couldn’t slip it, so she raised a hand like a shield and still got hurled back like a boat in surf.

“Tch.” Her Eternal War Armor skidded three steps, iron feet carving sparks like meteors.

The foe’s momentum rose like a tide at full moon; his punches came faster, fiercer, a rainstorm drumming roof tiles.

Under that flood, Fulin felt the fight turn thorny, brambles snaring her ankles.

After a flurry, she felt the arm joints loosen, a whispering creak like an old door, and her motions slowed as if wading through mud.

That lag flashed as an opening, a lantern in fog, to the opponent’s hungry eyes.

“Just an antique from the old age!” the Sky Knight roared, and his Divine Warrior snapped a piercing jab through the gap like a bolt through parchment.

Boom!

With a blast like a collapsing cliff, Fulin’s Eternal War Armor was knocked flying, an iron kite cut from its string.

She was about to slam back-first into the stone, but the foot and back thrusters flared like twin comets; full burn kicked in and caught her before the hard kiss of earth.

Still, she dragged backward through the air for hundreds of meters, a wounded hawk holding a ragged glide.

The enemy machine gave chase, a shadow on her tail like a storm following a ship.

The battlefield slid from the west gate ruins to Oril City’s north side, like a chess match tipping to a new corner.

The north was home to humans and the Demonic Human Race, a hive of lives, and the beast tide’s main fang, snapping like wolves at a fold.

The walls still stood, but flying and crawling monsters had already poured over like locusts, spilling into streets like ink.

So this became the fiercest front, a forge roaring with blades, until two iron giants barged in and threw oil on the fire.

“What is that? A monster?” People stared up like deer in torchlight.

Even the beasts faltered, spooked by the titans, their claws pausing mid-gouge like quills mid-stroke.

Fulin saw the crowd, a sea of faces in the smoke, and while she steadied and the foe bore down, she used the armor’s systems to cast Shelika’s hologram to every side like lanterns blossoming.

To steady those baffled eyes, Fulin gave Shelika a voice, warm and clear as a bell.

“I am Shelika, the third princess of the Dark Blood Clan.”

A beautiful face, a sculpted figure, a solemn tone, a dignified gown—set on a knife-edge moment—and memory lit like old embers; people recognized the Blood Clan’s third princess who left sixty years ago like a swan taking wing.

“It’s Lady Shelika!” an older hunter cried, joy breaking like dawn.

“Lady Shelika? Who is that?” young soldiers blinked, faces blank as fresh snow.

“The Blood Queen’s third child!”

“What? Someone that important?”

“So Her Highness is inside that iron thing?” Awe rose like steam from hot stones.

As the crowd caught up, Fulin tapped the panel, and Shelika’s poise—noble as a willow by water—held a breath, then spoke again, voice like silk over steel.

“Everyone, calm down. Listen to me.”

The clamor sank like dusk, and eyes fixed on her like stars pinning the sky.

“This deadly beast tide was made by human hands—by certain people of the Heavenly Spirit Empire—twisted to slaughter this city’s innocents.”

“What? So that’s it!” Shock cracked like thunder.

“Those damned White Spirits!” Hatred flared like dry straw.

Every Shelika turned as one, a ballet of mirrors, and pointed those jade-branch hands, slender fingers like white arrows, at the approaching Divine Warrior.

“The one who started this tragedy is inside that Divine Warrior.”

Almost every gaze became a spear, and all those spears aimed at the iron giant like a hedge bristling.

Voices surged, a river in flood, drowning the street.

“Damn White Spirits!”

“Let’s take him down!”

But as the crowd bristled and bent to charge, Shelika called them back, a bell cutting fog.

“Everyone, calm down.”

Before the gentle tone, a harsh mic howl raked the air, annoying as sand in the ear, yet it snapped every eye back to her like a whipcrack.

“Listen. You can’t beat it.”

One line of truth fell like cold water; people woke up, faces dimming like lamps in rain—how could flesh fight a mountain of iron?

Many stepped back, hearts sinking like stones in a well.

Then Shelika’s voice warmed like a hearth, lifting them by the shoulders.

“You still have your task. Many civilians here haven’t evacuated. Protect them. Leave that Divine Warrior to me. Remember—”

“You are this city’s last hope. Guard the innocent.”

It fell like sweet rain, like grace from the high heavens; so pure a plea, so bright a vow, it shone like a halo.

In their eyes, a Holy Maiden had descended, candlelight on a quiet altar.

The crowd answered like a prayer, thunderous and devout: “Rest assured, we’ll do as you say!”

They moved at once, flowing backward like a tide, gathering those who hadn’t left, shielding and guiding them away like shepherds with lanterns.

But the enemy wouldn’t stand idle; he watched the evacuation with a wolf’s snarl, as the streets emptied to beasts pacing without prey.

A Strategic Bureau knight carried no “knight’s honor,” only “complete the mission” and “serve the Empire,” words sharp as razors.

For him, wrecking this thinly guarded city meant more than smashing stone or crippling pipes—it meant mass killing to seed terror, because without people a city is a husk, a drum without skin.

So he hated what Fulin was doing, bile rising like smoke.

“You monster, look what you’ve done!” he barked, voice like a lash.

He moved as he ranted, and his Divine Warrior’s shoulder armor grew spike arrays again, wicked as thorns, and spell-light pooled at the tips like venom beading.

He meant to throw another storm of light orbs, a hail meant to mow the crowd like wheat.

Fulin saw the glow tense to fire and panic nipped her like frost; she had no time, no line, nothing to cut that volley.

Then text flickered on her forward screen, a candle in a cave: Report: enemy unit’s core power is unstable; body output down by 50%.

That single line in Nordland’s common script lifted her heart like sunrise splitting a canyon; the dead end cracked open like ice in spring.

Her cherry lips parted; she breathed the truth like a secret: “So that’s it. That’s the Divine Warrior’s weakness.”