“Woooaaah—”

A child’s cheer rang from the sky, bright as a bell tossed on the wind.

In a sky washed in blue, a single black dot bloomed like ink on silk—impossibly bold, impossibly clear.

On that dot sat Alicia and the others; the “dot” was only a dragon, huge as a hill in morning mist.

Yep. That’s right.

The “big dragon” was Ninety Nine Maiden—Jiu Jiu.

Alicia’s group had been trapped underground, already eyeing their worst, last resort, when Ninety Nine Maiden appeared like a star falling into a well.

She dove from high heaven, a hawk cutting through cloud and light.

Air split with a whoosh; she skimmed past the pit’s rim where tiny flowers trembled like lanterns in a breeze.

Wingtips kissed the wall, throwing off sparks like fireflies shaken from bark.

“A trail of sparks and lightning”—the old phrase turned real, a comet stitching the sky.

No surprise followed; Ninety Nine Maiden landed, steady as a mountain settling into place.

Her oversized wings shaved stone as she came down; pebbles rattled like chimes while she wore a hero’s calm, dawn-bright gaze.

By rights, Alicia’s group under the pit should’ve been crushed; with Ling there? Not a chance, as if a river could drown a fish.

They had already slipped aside a breath before Jiu Jiu the Dragon King touched down.

Only Edmund’s big frame couldn’t fully hide; falling stones nicked him, tracing shallow lines like cat-scratches in dust.

He couldn’t help wondering if he was born under a cursed star, RNG doomed and luck soured like rain-soaked tinder.

Then he sighed—he was the only male in the party; maybe this was the man tax, the wind’s toll on a lone tree.

Ahem. Enough rambling.

Bottom line—the arrival of Ninety Nine Maiden cut the knot that strangled Alicia’s biggest problem, like sun melting frost.

And Jiu Jiu, a Dragon King, flew faster than any ‘Flight’ spell—hawk against snail, thunder against dripping eaves.

‘Flight’ magic crawls a day or two, barely twelve kilometers an hour; Jiu Jiu needed half an hour, a lightning strike compared to a candle’s drip.

She didn’t plan to dump them at the rim and leave; she meant to carry them home, a ferry across a night river.

So there they were: a blonde little girl perched on a dragon’s back, mouth open to the wind like a seashell drinking surf, wobbling out, “I—am—an—al—ien.”

Yeah… dumb. So dumb it circled back to cute, like a goose honking at thunder.

“Hey, Sister Alicia, are we… on the surface now?”

Arthas said that, voice small as a reed flute.

As for “Sister Alicia,” Arthas weighed it carefully—for a grand total of three point zero seven two seconds—then chose it like picking a pebble from a stream.

“If you mean the ground, we already passed it,” Alicia said, a smile like sunlight through leaves. “Right now we’re higher than ground, in the open sky.”

She’d thought Arthas would beam at “higher than ground,” like a kite catching a fresh gust.

But to Alicia’s surprise, Arthas’s face stayed calm, a lake with no ripples.

Alicia didn’t know—what’s the difference between sky with only white cloud, and underworld with only stone wall?

To Arthas, both were empty rooms: one infinitely high, one infinitely deep, two silences wearing different robes.

Seeing that faint crease of displeasure, Alicia scratched her cheek, sheepish as a cat caught stealing fish; she had promised to take Arthas to the surface, and delay made her word feel like thin ice.

“All right, all right, just a bit more. Jiu Jiu’s fast—give it a moment, and we’ll be back.”

Comfort worked like warm tea; at least the stiff line on Arthas’s face loosened, a thaw in early spring.

Alicia let out a breath, soft as mist leaving a valley.

—

“Mmm…”

A low hum drifted out, like wind in a hollow reed.

It slipped from the mouth of a black hatchling sprawled on the ground, a shadow catching its breath.

“Hey—when do you think the Dragon King and her lot will be back?”

The hatchling asked the giant dragon standing beside him, a cliff with wings—one Jiu Jiu had “assigned to play” with him.

“Why are kids this bad at boredom? It’s only been a moment! You’ve asked that four hundred fifty times!”

The giant dragon growled, thunder under stone; the black hatchling clicked his tongue, tsks like pebbles, then turned away and shut his eyes, prickly as a hedgehog.

Truth was, the hatchling didn’t find the dragon’s attitude strange at all; “playmate” meant warden, a lantern watching a moth, making sure he didn’t stir up trouble again.

Yes. Exactly.

This black hatchling was the culprit who pushed Ling into seeking the Undead, a pebble that started an avalanche.

He’d been trading insults with Ling before; now he sat in “semi-house arrest,” a bird in a half-closed cage.

Why “semi”?

Because Jiu Jiu the Dragon King had said only his head was confined—if he wanted to go out, he just had to leave his head behind, and the rest could roam free.

How is that different from full house arrest?

It isn’t. Not one feather’s worth—dead serious.

“Hmph…”

He snorted his displeasure, steam from a kettle, but swallowed the foul words, scales flat against the grain.

Inside, though, he wished Ling would just die out there among the Skeletons, bones chewing bones.

They’d been gone so long; surely something had happened, a storm eating a boat.

Of course, best case? The Dragon King returns alone, and those damned humans stay in that Skeleton sea, waiting to become new Undead—good riddance, like rot trimming itself.

“Hey! Look—something’s coming!”

“Yeah! Really—something’s flying this way!”

The dragons’ shouts crashed around him like surf; the hatchling cracked one eyelid, lazy as a cat, and watched a black dot grow on the sky, a seed swelling in rain.

One look was all it took; he lurched up from his sprawl, shock snapping him upright like a bowstring.

Golden pupils widened, twin suns over a winter field, disbelief written there like frost that refused to melt.