Three days remained until this month’s worship day in the Holy City, like the last leaves clinging to a cold branch.

People from the Crimson Temple had come five times since they learned where Shelika was staying, their visits a steady drip like rain on eaves.

This time, a Count-rank priest arrived with three Vassal-rank faithful, a neat formation like pawns around a bishop.

They took turns to persuade her, voices circling like moths around a lantern.

First to press the attack was a Vassal-rank Dark Blood Clan woman, academy-polished and elegant, her every word trimmed like a scholar’s brushstroke.

“Honorable Shelika Laffield, surely you know our Blood Clan is beautiful and long-lived, and we wield unique arcane gifts, the finest stock in the Gaia Empire…”

Her pitch was smooth as silk, but Shelika’s patience was sand in the wind, worn thin by four prior attempts.

“So what.” Shelika let the words drop like a pebble in a well, then loosed a lazy yawn that fluttered like a cat stretching in a sunbeam.

Book learning shines like lacquer, but without worldly grit, youth cracks like thin ice.

“So—so you should—” The girl’s cadence broke, her composure slipping like a glove in a storm.

Sensing the falter, the Count-rank priest waved her back and stepped forward, steady as a seasoned oarsman on rough water.

Among the Dark Blood Clan, rank follows strength, and strength often follows age, like growth rings marking a tree. The usual ladder climbs Servitor, Vassal, Count, Elder—mirroring novice mage, mid-tier, high-tier, archmage, each rung a carving in bone.

With the Queen’s bloodline, there’s another ladder: Attendant, Princess, Grand Princess, Queen—titles drawn not from might but from the depth of blood, like a river judged by its source.

Shelika stands a Count on the first ladder and a Grand Princess on the second; by either measure, her station is a mountain peak above the mist.

The priest changed tone at once, reverence landing like snow. “Shelika, as the Queen’s third child—”

“As a paragon of our kind, you should stand with our Hymn Guard Mage Corps, shoulder to shoulder, and help the Empire win at the front. Let rightful station and honor speak with steel—”

“So our clan’s radiance can endure beside the Gaia Empire’s long, blazing history!”

If not for courtesy and a lady’s poise, Shelika would’ve shown him a middle finger, sharp as a thorn.

Because it was all wind—“status,” “glory,” and clouds, clouds—and no mention of “terms,” not once.

Like any living job, there should be pay. No coin, no song.

If they wanted Shelika working for the Hymn Guard, they needed to lay out a price, clean as a ledger.

Call it mercenary if you want—yet the body’s original owner opposed the Hymn Project from the roots, like a tree refusing bad grafts.

“I am very busy. If there’s nothing else, please take your leave.” Her voice was a closed fan, crisp and cool.

Panic flashed across their faces like birds startled from brush; they’d have trouble reporting back.

“How could you—!”

“Please go.” Shelika shut the door, the latch clicking like a period at the end of a sentence.

In truth, she was busy—busy as a hive in spring.

The “Rose Traveler,” a room once meant for sleep, was now packed with bottles and jars, glass glinting like dew on a web.

Serious-faced Charlotte flipped into top-student mode, arranging tools with the neat grace of a calligrapher lining up strokes.

“Elder Sister, the last bottle of mana potion is done~!” Her voice rang bright as a bell, hope tied up in the tail note.

She set down an ampoule glowing deep blue like twilight over water, sealed it with care, then placed it among dozens of siblings, a row of tiny stars.

All went into a special potion case, cradled like eggs in straw.

The case had an injector too—load it like chambering a round, and you could punch mana into a vein in one smooth motion.

She could feel a harsher battle coming, a storm with iron rain; for half a month, she’d spent most of her time on mana-potion prep—earning coin for reagents, and gathering herbs outside the Holy City, plants that held the wind and brightened the brew.

With this many potions, Shelika could summon a drone army of hundreds of vanguards at a whistle, and crush foes with number and fire like a tidal barrage.

Beyond potions, she had weapons and gear ready, steel and silk laid out like a ritual.

Primary weapon was the True Crimson Whirl, already a divine weapon. For emergencies, she’d packed a repeating crossbow firing paralytic bolts, and three Spellburst Crystals—each good for a blast equal to a 7th-tier elemental spell, like bottled thunder.

Armor-wise, as Dark Blood Clan girls, neither she nor Charlotte could wear heavy plate; their defense had to be sewn into cloth, like knives hidden in lace.

There was a masterwork-woven robe, fragile to the eye yet turning blades like a quiet river turns pebbles.

A masterwork power bracer held a special spell-core, set to blunt Battle Aura, a palm-sized shield against invisible hammers.

And a treasure-grade movement scepter, inlaid with another core—feed it mana, and you could blink short distances, a swallow’s dart between eaves.

Not just these, either; taken together, Shelika and Charlotte were fully kitted, head to toe in legendary-grade gear, battle-ready like tigers at the ridge.

Not long after the Crimson Temple retreated, another Shadowspirit Legion column passed outside to the rise of drums and brass, thunder and sunlight braided together.

Boots struck in perfect time, and the horns pressed forward like a bright wind; the unit’s momentum rolled like a wave.

People along the street cheered, joy leaping like sparks.

With the worship day nearing—and for other reasons—the Holy City saw more and more Shadowspirit Legion troops, shadows pooling at the city’s feet.

Counting the garrison, the army here swelled to nearly fifty thousand, a forest of spears under a gray sky.

Most had been rotated back from the front, hard as old oak, eyes seasoned by smoke. Strong knights and veteran mages were as common as stones in a riverbed.

Charlotte glanced out the window, then lowered her head; worry gathered in her eyes like rain, two bright drops trembling.

“Elder Sister, are we really going to fight them when the time comes…”

The thought tasted bitter, but necessity was iron. “If on the worship day we learn the Wasteland Deity is truly being sent to Doran in Nordland, then a clash will be hard to avoid.”

Charlotte kept her head down, tears glassing her gaze. “Elder Sister…”

Shelika sighed, a soft wind through bamboo. “Don’t worry, Charlotte. That’s the worst case.”

“I know, Elder Sister…” Her sobbing eased, like a string gently loosened.

She asked, hesitant, stitching courage word by word: “Elder Sister—no… little sister Fulin, I never understood. Why do you yearn so much for a quiet life?”

Her small eyes were earnest, lanterns lit in a quiet lane. “And you—though you’re a Chaos Vampire, you’re still Blood Clan. If you explain things clearly, someone will understand you!”

Shelika let out a deeper sigh. She looked to the clouds beyond the window, white sails drifting, cut off from the street’s roar, and envy flickered in her eyes. “If everyone thought like you do—trying to talk first, fix later—there wouldn’t be wars.”

Knock, knock, knock.

The sound tapped her nerves like fingers on a drawn bow; she went alert in an instant.

“Charlotte, we’ll talk later.”

“Mm…”

She’d placed an Archer drone at the corridor’s far end; linking to its sight, she watched the hallway as if through a hawk’s eye.

Three visitors stood outside. The one knocking was someone she knew—Rex.

Even after she’d shaken him off, he still pursued with a steady flame; serious by nature, handsome in line, and a Sky Rank knight of the Demonic Human Race.

The other two, from their dress and stance at his flanks, were likely his aides.

All three wore formal attire, starch and duty like armor; Shelika could already see he’d come for official business.

She sighed in her heart and went to open the door, the handle cool as river stone.

When Rex saw Shelika at the threshold, a tangle of joy and regret flickered across his face like sun through leaves. “Shelika… you really haven’t left.”