Playing Lance taught Fulin to grow a thick skin, like bark weathered by storms. It taught her to face hardship with calm like still water. Wearing Shelika taught her to move like a poised woman.
So when Rex spoke, Shelika answered with ease, a coy little “green tea” lilt like honey over ice: “Don’t you want to see me?”
To stall a bond yet keep it breathing, like holding a kite in low wind—that’s the “green tea” dance. Even if Fulin hated it, she was becoming what her past self despised, like looking into a warped mirror.
Rex jerked, like a stag hearing a twig snap, then said solemnly: “Of course not. I’m glad to see you, Shelika…”
Seriousness settled like cold rain, but the word “glad” wouldn’t light his eyes, like a lamp without oil, because—
He’d come to Shelika carrying trouble, a stone in his boot and a knot in his brow.
“Shelika, you know I’m the ‘Oblivion’ Knight, serving the Gaia Legion, an officer in the 318th Special Knight Unit… you get my drift, a hint like smoke.”
He didn’t mind flashing rank, but not to Shelika; his handsome, soft-edged face inked with worry and tangle like calligraphy, and he finished at last.
“I understand,” she said, her voice like a soft bell. She glanced at Rex, then at his two escorts—powerful Demonic Human Race knights—her voice curved like silk: “So, Rex, plan to take me by force?”
His eyes flew wide, like a startled hawk. “No, no, no!”
“Maybe I wasn’t clear, and you took it wrong; let me be blunt, like a blade on bamboo—”
“My superior—who commands multiple special units, flawless in strength—the Nether Knight, her name falling like a shadow.”
“You’ve heard her name, right, like thunder over distant hills?”
She nodded, her mind leafing through memory, pages fluttering like autumn leaves: the Nether Knight.
As with the Heavenly Spirit Empire, the Dark Spirit Empire holds Sky Rank Knights—less than Sun Knights, yet fearsome like storms penned in flesh.
These knights were walking annihilation engines, cyclones in armor.
One could match hundreds of thousands, and alone erase a mid-sized nation, like a scythe through ripe grain.
The Nether Knight was one of them, among the Dark Spirit Empire’s strongest, a blade kept in night.
At that thought, Shelika’s heart shrank like a leaf in frost.
Yet the fear sank like a stone under still water; her face stayed sweet like peach blossom. “So then, does that honored knight want something from me?”
He wrestled for words like chewing tough bark. “It’s not that the Nether Knight seeks you; the Legion prompted her, like a signal in winter.”
“What exactly is it?” Her voice was a thin wire like silver thread.
“I’d rather you meet the Nether Knight and hear it from her directly,” his tone steady like a pillar.
She sighed like a flute note fading. Seeing Rex so troubled, like clouds knotted across the sky, she knew it was big and hard to refuse. “Fine; I’ll go with you.”
Charlotte poked her head from the wardrobe, worry pooling like rain in her eyes: “Elder sister…”
“I’m fine; keep the house, like a lamp guarded from wind,” Shelika soothed.
Rex glanced over like a hawk taking stock, then suggested: “Bring her too.”
A prickle of alarm rose, like thorns under skin.
Fulin, a former Earth girl steeped in dramas and street-seasoned like leather, knew this hostage tactic too well, like a script she’d seen.
She knew it wasn’t Rex’s intent, a shadow cast by a faithful sun.
Her tone sharpened like a blade. “Rex, what do you mean? Isn’t dragging me alone enough?”
“Shelika… I know you’re tense, but don’t misunderstand,” Rex cleared his throat, a cough like gravel. “My superior, the Nether Knight, is very upright. After hearing you risked yourself to save Oriel City, she’s curious to meet you, like a cat in moonlight, and to know what kind of friends you keep.”
Shelika met his eyes, steady like stone, then looked away and agreed in a low voice like dusk: “All right.”
She turned to Charlotte, words placed like talismans: “Come with me. If anything happens, protect yourself.”
“Okay!” At the thought of walking with Shelika, she lit up like a grade-schooler before a field trip, starry-eyed and pure as spring water.
Maybe the promise of guarding her beloved sister made that joy bloom like wildflowers.
“Then… let’s go.” Rex looked around like a captain on deck and took point.
They set out like a small caravan, heading for the Shadowspirit Legion’s base on the outskirts of the Holy City.
The Legion’s base was a colossal Mobile Fortress, looming like a steel mountain.
Through such fortresses, the Legion ferried endless troops and supplies to the front, then back, tides in iron and smoke.
Inside, everything a city needed; soldiers and officers swarmed like bees in a hive.
Soldiers drilled in vast halls like thunder; officers rushed through corridors on duty, a current of boots and breath.
Rex, the Oblivion Knight, was famed within the army too, a banner others saluted like sun to a rising flag.
As they advanced, everyone they met snapped to a salute, blades standing like pine trees in snow.
Rank demanded it, perhaps, yet Shelika saw sincerity, respect rising from the heart like a clear spring.
For Shelika—or rather for the Lance Fulin had once played—such treatment was unimaginable, like a dream turned upside down.
Before the Dark Spirit Empire, her Lance in the United Legion was treated like a chained prisoner. He was ordered about and abused like a beaten dog, just for offending a Celestial prince.
The Mobile Fortress was vast; they climbed three levels on foot like terraced fields, then took an elevator to the destination.
The place felt like a supply room crossed with a command hall, spacious and polished like lacquered wood.
“Here we are,” Rex said at the door, laying his hand on the control panel like a seal on jade.
The panel read Battle Aura for authorization, like a lock tasting wind; only key Legion officers like Rex could open it.
Beep—whoosh—the door slid open like a parting curtain.
Inside lay an office dressed like the outer rooms, plain yet dignified like stone under rain.
A young woman of the Demonic Human Race sat within—beautiful and impeccably built like carved jade—yet austere enough to forbid offense like frost.
From her attire and the sword at her hip, Shelika read rank like ink on parchment. Her Battle Aura was restrained yet flaring like a coiled dragon. Shelika knew: this was the Nether Knight, rumored yet unmet even by the original host.
The Nether Knight’s gaze fell on Shelika, a moonlit blade under calm eyes. After a measuring glance, she smiled with meaning like incense smoke: “Welcome, righteous one of the Blood Clan… no, I should call you the Holy Maiden who saved Oriel City, shouldn’t I?”
