“I’ve got a reliable way to check.” Fangzhe, the academy’s sharpest eye for elemental threads, stepped forward like a reed swaying toward a current. “The Sea Siren used a Divine Artifact to wall the continent off from water affinity. Because of that, her own water affinity rose like a tide at full moon… If Qingsheng Tangxue is her child, then no matter the degree, she has to carry water affinity.”

“Say it. How do you test.” Xuewei’s gaze slid over Fangzhe like frost over glass.

Beads of cold sweat broke on Fangzhe’s temples, a chill river running down his spine. He pushed through the pressure and spoke. “Heavenly Melody Academy keeps a crystal orb for measuring elemental affinity. It’s special—like a clear lake that feels every ripple—it can even sense a three-element affinity.”

The words had barely fallen when someone gasped. “Three-element affinity?! Two can already make a body burst like a boiler—how could three exist… unless a reactor grew self-aware.”

History did hold a few meteors with triple affinity, but they burned out mid-sky. Two elements was the body’s edge; add a third, and inside you it’s a constant storm of reactions, lightning striking in your veins. Surviving it is a question with teeth.

“Hahaha.” The City Lord’s hall filled with laughter, light as dust motes in sun.

“It was possible,” Fangzhe muttered, a thorn catching. He disliked being cut off. “The Blood Clan’s queen is baseline triple-affinity. The three-element strain does crush a child’s body, but with the Blood Clan’s monstrous recovery, it’s no barrier. And once grown… the element reactions are drizzle to a peak powerhouse, no real impact at all.”

“…Forget it. You’d need Blood Clan.” The words fell like a shutter.

“Teacher! I brought the crystal orb—” At the door, a golden-haired girl with twin ponytails hugged a giant sphere, smiling like a sunrise peeking over waves.

“Tangxue… Auntie, I missed you so muuuch—” Ying Xuan’er, still clutching the orb, tripped on momentum and face-planted on flat stone.

“Your Highness, careful!” A tiny maid dove like a swallow, wedging herself under Ying Xuan’er right before the floor did.

“Waaah!”

“You two… honestly.” Xuewei’s helpless smile melted and refroze. In the palace, these two were jeweled prodigies, laurels like stars. Why did they turn into a comedy duo the moment they came here?

As expected, foolishness spreads like summer dandelions.

Xuewei cut me a glance.

…Huh?

Everyone present knew this princess held grudges like a ledger. Laughter swelled like a bubble, then stopped at the rim—no one dared let it burst. One scribble in her little book and you were done for.

“Finished?” Edgar’s patience snapped like a bowstring. “If the orb’s here, test.” He loathed children like sand in his teeth. Worse, Ying Xuan’er had almost smashed the orb. If they hadn’t saved it at the last second, he’d have sworn the two brats did it on purpose.

“Then let’s begin. I’ll demonstrate the orb’s effect.” Fangzhe’s voice smoothed like oil over water.

He lifted the crystal with his magic, letting it float before him like a moon. He placed his hand on it.

“Like this. Pour your mana into the orb, then let go… The orb will drink the ambient elements like mist, and show them inside.”

“See? I’m attuned to fire and wind.” He watched the orb as if watching embers in a brazier.

The sphere hung before everyone, clear as ice. Inside, a thread of wind curled and a flame flickered—then both sank back into the void like breath fading in cold air.

“I want to try!” Ying Xuan’er rose onto her toes, right hand up, touching the orb and sending mana like a warm stream.

Inside, a red-gold flame bloomed, molten like sunrise on armor. It wasn’t Fangzhe’s fire; even through crystal, heat kissed the skin. Edgar felt it most—the blaze tugged at him like a lion’s stare.

That golden fire was no common fire element.

“Tsk tsk. The Radiant Empire’s royal Tianyang Fire—no wonder…”

“Edgar, care to try?” Fangzhe turned, voice flat as stone.

“No need. Our Blood Clan royals don’t rely on elemental affinity.” Edgar’s tone was cool water, but his face carried a proud edge like a knife’s shine.

I looked at the orb, a quiet ripple inside. “Then it’s my turn…”

This orb had craft in its bones. Unlike those clunky testers I’d met before, this crystal left no easy cheat. But… that’s for other people.

I smoothed my expression like calm on a lake. I pressed my right hand toward the orb.

An ice-blue flower opened inside, delicate as frost on a window. Around it, black-and-white light flashed like yin and yang stones skipping across a pond.

“Another dual affinity? Space and ice?!” someone cried, voice cracking like ice.

“Worthy of Heavenly Melody Academy, cradle of the continent’s future—geniuses bloom here like spring wisteria.”

“Space affinity… how long has it been since we saw space?” The room hushed the way snow hushes a forest.

“This child’s talent is terrifying,” another breathed, awe rolling like a wave.

“Now. Do you still have anything to say?” Xuewei pinned Edgar with a winter stare; the air around her cooled, crisp as frost.

“This is impossible! That brat used some secret art—no… the orb’s faulty! You’re all in on this!” Edgar’s eyes flared, locking on me like a hawk’s.

Xuewei stepped in front of me, a blade of ice.

“Ling Xuewei! Dare you test the orb?!” Edgar’s voice scraped like iron.

“Ridiculous. Out of tricks already?” Her pupils deepened to icy blue, killing intent glinting like starlight on a blade. “I can’t lay hands on you now… but next time, you won’t be so lucky.”

“You! I get it—you two are in this together!” Edgar’s laugh was all teeth. “You and that little mermaid are the same breed! You’re fooling everyone here! Otherwise why won’t you touch the orb?!”

Xuewei reached out and tapped the crystal with a single finger, like flicking a raindrop.

“Touched.”

“…”

“You mocking me, woman?!”

“What else?” Xuewei tilted her head, fist tightening like a coiled spring.

“You and that little harlot are the same race! You two from across—”

“Is that so good?” Xuewei actually laughed, a spark landing on dry tinder. Her temper was already close to breaking; now it leapt.

“In that case, gutting you on the spot would be only right, wouldn’t it?!”

Edgar dropped into ice, the survival urge yanking him behind the crowd like a man dodging a falling tree.

“Don’t—don’t come closer!”

“Your Grace Kerlinveil Xuewei, be calm! Now’s not the time!”

“Your Grace, please—keep calm!”

In the end, under hands restraining like ropes, Edgar only took a single kick from Xuewei—sent tumbling out the door like a broomed leaf—and suffered little real harm.

So the farce ended… right?

Hardly.

Deep night. Edgar, who should have slunk away, clung to the City Lord’s manor like moss to stone. His excuse: only a manor under heavy guard kept him from “hurting people,” as if fear were a virtue.

In Starfate City, the manor was just where the City Lord worked, not Fan Chen’s home. It still held guest rooms—a place for important visitors to rest like birds on a high branch.

But a Vampire who’d slaughtered countless lives stood as a “guest” on the Blood Clan Queen’s token, allowed to lodge in this city. Irony hung like a blade.

As a Vampire, Edgar didn’t sleep at night; darkness fed him like wine. He lingered here for one reason.

“City Lord… do you have time to see me?” Edgar stood alone outside Fan Chen’s door, voice soft as velvet but cold underneath.

“Edgar, the day made it clear as a winter sky. I let you sleep here only for the Queen’s token. If you think I intend to befriend you, get lost. I have no mood to bond with a butcher who burns and kills.”

“Heh. My daytime act was a play for those two women.” Edgar’s smile was moonlight on oil. “I knew the orb wouldn’t matter. Even if it did, with Kerlinveil Xuewei there… what can anyone do about the little mermaid?”

“You think I’ll swallow your little wedge?” Fan Chen’s voice came from inside, iron wrapped in dry bark.

Edgar didn’t flare like he had before; he kept smiling, a snake sliding over stone. “I have something you’ll want. I know very well what you’ve sought since you became City Lord.”

He drew a blue rhombic shard from his storage space, a cold river in his palm.

Fan Chen skimmed it with his spiritual sense, lazy as a wind. Then his mouth froze, breath catching. That blue, transparent diamond—was…

A mermaid scale.

Catching the shock, Edgar’s grin widened like a cut. “I tore this from the mermaid in our last fight. To prove her identity… just place it on her. The scale will sink of its own into a mermaid’s body.”

“…Come in.”

Edgar’s smile flashed as if a trap had finally sprung, then smoothed as he stepped through the door.

“…A mermaid scale indeed.” Fan Chen held it, thoughts storming like waves. He would never forget this pattern, this chill.

“Heh. That little mermaid slipped the orb somehow at noon. But whether she is or isn’t, you can test it with this, can’t you?” Edgar’s words dropped like baited hooks.

Watching Fan Chen’s silence, Edgar’s lips curved, pleased as a wolf under a full moon.

That woman’s end was coming like a dark tide.

…

Years since becoming City Lord, Fan Chen had never stopped searching for a way to kill the Sea Siren outright. He rallied teams like campfires on a coast; he went alone into the sea like a lone blade. And laughably, he never even saw her shadow. The vast ocean sometimes held no life at all—only silence like a desert of salt. What he met were beings who could match him or erase him like a wave erases footprints.

Every time, it was nine deaths and one glimmer of life.

He never ceased his revenge on the Sea Siren.

He hated her because his elder brother, his grandparents, even his parents—all their deaths tangled with the Sea Siren like nets and broken masts.

His family were fishermen by blood. They lived by the nets’ breath. His grandfather respected nature and feared it as a storm. Before every catch, he prayed to the sea god, earnest as dawn. At each festival, he offered food—plain fare, but given with faith. The family was devout like candles in a shrine.

Until… the upheaval over a century ago. The empire forbade fishing, barred the seas like gates of iron. Soon after, war came like locusts.

War swept the Radiant Empire’s every corner, a wildfire that ate towns. The people starved; famine spread like frost. For Fan Chen’s grandparents, it was snow upon snow. To feed their family, they braved the ban and put out to sea—and that was the first step of a tragedy that rolled like thunder.