Whew… the rebuilding’s racing ahead faster than I thought, like grass after rain.

Bai Zhi wiped the dew of sweat from her brow and savored the night’s work like a harvest.

Under the Royal Engineering Corps, the city’s bones were set like ribs in earth.

By tomorrow at dusk, the Imperial City should rise like a phoenix.

With magic, two days at most, and people will return like birds to their nests.

“Did Western Garden City and Eastern Mountain City’s crews arrive?” Her question rang like a bell in frost.

“Your Majesty, the Eastern Mountain crews are on the road like ants in a line, but Western Garden City… there’s been an incident.”

Bai Zhi’s gaze cooled like moonlight on steel. “An incident, huh… Is it thorny?”

The Shadow Guard kept silent, like a stone sunk in a well.

“Inside Western Garden City, life looks normal, like a stage set. But our envoy and our unit were wiped out by enemies within, like candles in a gale.”

Bai Zhi started, a small ripple across calm water. She frowned. “…Rebellion?”

“I’m not sure, Your Majesty; it felt like annihilation, not treachery, like a trap sprung.”

“The residents turn rabid the moment outsiders appear, like wolves catching blood-scent.”

“They move fast, and they resist magic and steel like rock under surf.”

“But they don’t leave the city, like chained dogs.”

“When no strangers come, they act normal, like a glassy pond.”

“Interesting…” Her smile flashed like frost-light, but anger smoldered beneath like buried coals.

“Looks like someone laid hands on my people. Do they think the Radiant Empire is easy prey, like soft fruit?”

“Pass the word: the Royal Engineering Corps keeps to schedule like clockwork.”

“I’ll go to Western Garden City myself and take a look, like a hawk skimming a field.”

“…Yes!” The Shadow Guard faded into shadow like smoke swallowed by night.

Bai Zhi glared at the sky, her mood a storming sea, and the handkerchief in her fist crumbled like dry leaves.

“You picked the worst time; this king’s mood is rotten, like thunder trapped in clouds.”

On the hills outside Western Garden City, silence lay like frost.

Forests that should have brimmed with life felt hollow, like husks after locusts.

A black-robed woman drifted through the trees like a ghost and flew to the gate like a shadow on wind.

She saw the guards still pacing, and anger sparked in her eyes like flint.

She walked inside under their stare, like a tiger entering a pen.

Everyone in the city fixed on the black-robed woman, their gazes a net cast from every alley.

As she stepped in, the gates clamped shut like jaws.

Bai Zhi pulled off her hood, revealing a face lit by fury like sunset fire.

A heartbeat later, countless zombies shed their disguise and lunged like a swarm.

Bai Zhi burst into phoenix fire, and the flames towered like a second sun.

The whole city looked wrapped in a fireball, a world of burning amber.

When the blaze fell, the zombies lay as ash, scattered like gray snow.

Bai Zhi stood at the charred center, her glare scything the ruins like a wind through wheat.

“Come out,” she thundered.

No one replied, but a woman pale as ash stepped from the rubble like winter.

She faced Bai Zhi’s blaze and only smiled, a blade sheathed in silk.

“Queen Bai Zhi, it’s our first meeting, isn’t it?” Her words fell like frost.

“Looks like you’re the only living one here,” Bai Zhi said, her tone flat as iron.

“Yes. I’m the mastermind behind this calamity. Any problem?” She posed the line like a spider on its web.

Bai Zhi’s answer was fury itself, a storm breaking its banks.

Tongues of flame melted ground like wax, and heat turned the air into boiling glass.

Ten houses fell like straw before a kiln.

The woman only brushed embers from her robe, like dust off a sleeve.

She stood untouched, like granite in rain.

“Hear me out first, Queen Bai Zhi,” she said, her voice a slow knife.

“You may be seeing me for the first time, but I know you like the face on a coin.”

“On the big screens, you show up every day; every Radiant Empire soul knows you like night knows the moon.”

“So what are you trying to say?” Bai Zhi shouted, impatience snapping like a whip.

Chains of flame took shape and struck, and explosions gouged a bottomless crater like a hungry mouth.

Bai Zhi reined the blasts, keeping the heat from Western Garden City’s edge like a shepherd holding a firebreak.

“How could a lofty queen remember a gutter rat like me?” She laughed at herself, thin as broken reeds.

“A rat in the drain dies in the drain; aside from kin, no one looks twice, like a leaf swept down a ditch.”

“But you’re different, Your Majesty…”

The strange woman slapped Bai Zhi’s flames apart like swatting moths, then leaned in to jeer like a viper.

“You did nothing, yet bask in worship like a temple idol.”

“Some are born at the finish line of others, like one foot already on the podium.”

“And you aren’t even on the track,” she breathed, cold as cave air.

“I’m sick of the sweet lies you painted in the sky; which promise have you kept, like sugar clouds that melt?”

Her eyes flared blood-red like coals, and her fingers clamped Bai Zhi’s neck like iron hooks.

“We were born to be spent, your playthings, like straw dolls.”

“If so, why give us hope, like lanterns hung above a pit?”

“You want to wring our last drop of worth, like pulp pressed to dust.”

“Even after we die, you won’t spare our children, like shadows hung over cradles.”

Her face slid to a cold smile, a winter mask with no warmth.

“But it’s fine,” she sang, sweet as poison honey.

“Even if you treat us like this, I’ll still call you once my queen, like an old title carved in stone.”

“Death is equal; it spares no life, be it human, noble, or god, like night falling on every roof.”

“None escape death; not one, like seeds blown before frost.”

“I’ll grant you equal death and spare you a fate worse than death, like a worm in salt.”

“Thank death, Your Majesty,” she whispered, black as pitch.

“Ugh—!” Veins corded Bai Zhi’s face like twisted vines, and her life ebbed like tide under a wan moon.

At the brink, Bai Zhi snapped free like a broken snare, kicked the woman back, then fired a spear of light like a comet.

Scorching flame bored through her and seared her flesh like brands, but the woman raised her head and pulled the spear out like a thorn.

“Useless, Queen Bai Zhi,” she said, her grin a crescent of bone.

“This power can’t be resisted by you; your proud pseudo-god force is sand in a storm before true divine magic.”

Black fog rose from her body like smoke from a charnel and swelled to a giant ghostly guardian like a tower of shade.

It slammed down with crushing pressure like a mountain fall.

Bai Zhi ground her teeth and gathered every spark of magic and flame, like drawing a storm into a fist.

She held the blow and did not yield, like a cliff against surf.

Seeing her ragged stance, the woman felt giddy, a triumph bright as wildfire.

She laughed, hysterical and loud, like hyenas around carrion.

“See it, Queen Bai Zhi?” she cried, words sharp as broken glass.

“The power you inherited from the former kings is nothing before us true gods, like paper before rain.”

“Even those you burned to ash, I can revive at will,” she proclaimed, hands raised to the sky like a priestess.

The earth cracked, and corpses clawed up like roots, hemming Bai Zhi in tight.

“Ha, that really is a rotten move,” Bai Zhi said with a thin smile, her calm perched like a crane on ice.

“Honestly, I hate your smile,” the woman hissed, cold as sleet.

“That fake grin ruins your fairy face, like ink spilled on jade.”

“A smile doesn’t suit you, Queen Bai Zhi, like sunlight on a grave.”

She twisted her neck; bones popped like dry branches, and her face slid back to feral hunger.

“When you die, I’ll reshape your face with care, like a sculptor over soft clay.”