Violet didn’t catch it—the flicker like a gust between her brows when Ophelius heard “Yi” and “Augustus.” Before his mind could brace, his senses sank like mist drowning a valley.

“Thanks to this gift… almost half… if not for monsters, I would…” Her voice thinned like rain fading at dusk, and her shape smudged into fog.

Ophelius felt himself become open-eyed yet blind, open-eared yet deaf, like a night traveler swallowed by snow.

Light cut in like a blade, joined to a booming laugh—the kind of bold laughter only a fearless woman throws at the sky.

“Hahahahahahaha! Nice! Your qi’s condensed well. Come, taste my sword!”

Before Ophelius could think, her huge, exaggerated greatsword fell from above, hammering toward the soil under his feet like a meteor.

He didn’t grasp the scene yet, but the strike couldn’t be blocked, so instinct rolled him aside like a leaf caught by wind.

Even the air her weapon dragged heaved like a storm, tossing the loose fringe at his brow left and right.

She missed by a hair, then ripped half her blade out of the ground like a fisherman hauling net, reset in one breath, and swept a horizontal cut at where he’d dodged.

What’s happening? Is this some illusion?

The surge was sudden, but Ophelius kept his core steady, like a stone under a river.

He dropped low and slid toward the right side of her grip, into the inner circle of that greatsword’s swing, like slipping under a turning millstone.

He knew: a greatsword is still a greatsword; close the distance, and the arc becomes a cage for its wielder.

It was exactly what the bold woman wanted. She let go of the hilt like shedding a skin, and the hulking blade bit the brittle brick in front of Ophelius under its own momentum.

Borrowing that release like a hawk veering mid-flight, she backhanded a crescent blade from her waist and let it drink air.

He hadn’t expected her to abandon her weapon like cast-off armor; mid-slide, he couldn’t reforge strength, like a bow without a string.

Her scimitar drew a moon of steel straight for his head, bright and cold as winter.

Clang!

At the last instant, an invisible wind-edge kicked the harvest away, like a gust snapping a scythe from its path.

His body moved on its own, borrowing a power not born in him, like a river switching channels under night.

He sprung from the ground with a bent waist, then drove a short sword toward her right side like a quick flash over water.

He roared by instinct as the cut fell, but in the corner of his eye a red ghost flicked like a flare.

Thunk!

She caught the short blade in her right palm, skin and steel kissing like flint and ember.

The green short sword wedged into her hand; even that abnormal sharpness only buried in flesh, like a thorn tempered in jade.

No matter how Ophelius strained, he couldn’t rip his weapon free from the woman whose palm was pierced clean through like a lantern split by wind.

“You’re qualified. Beautiful work, kid. But I don’t let captives stand. You lie down first.”

She didn’t follow with more cuts. Her right hand tightened, stole the short sword completely, then punched his lower belly like a hammer striking a drum.

“Urk!!!”

He couldn’t manage another counter. Exhaustion hit like a wave, and the sucker punch almost erased his awareness, like dusk swallowing a field.

When he blinked back, he was flat on stone, the world cool as ash.

He didn’t remember ever wielding such a short sword; he didn’t know what had happened, the fight arriving like lightning and vanishing like smoke.

Retelling it in his head felt like catching shadows—everywhere, threads of doubt.

“General, aside from the one the Grand Duke wants, we’ve captured thirty-four. We haven’t searched the city yet. Strong men—this might be all. I’ve set the troops to camp.”

“Good, good, I know, I know. Don’t bother me with this. Handle it yourself.”

She shooed the soldier away like brushing off dust. When he’d gone ten paces, she strode to Ophelius, eyes playful like a cat circling a sunlit window.

“Kid, you can move already, right? Why play dead on the ground?”

A glance was enough for her—this agile one had recovered to “can stand,” and this lying act was a mask, like a fox feigning sleep.

“…………………………”

Ophelius didn’t answer. He stared at the sky with a cold face, heart like a locked well—she hadn’t guessed one bit right; he still hadn’t processed what swept him under.

“Oh? A temper too? Good. The Grand Duke who mutters mysteries all day might like you.”

She teased without hurry, voice like silk over steel, though her gaze slid past him to a slender figure in black that had arrived like a shade.

“General Lie-Lotus, even if you can’t beat me, no need to belittle me behind my back, right?”

That black silhouette sauntered to Baine’s side, unhurried as a moon crossing clouds, and finally revealed her face.

So beautiful…

For a breath, Ophelius’s heart trembled, swayed by the woman’s soft smile like a sail caught by a warm breeze.

Straight black hair spilled down a pale neck onto her shoulders like midnight water.

Ruby eyes held a sediment of history, glinting like gems sunk in a deep river.

A black dress, accented with hints of silver metal, traced her line like ink along porcelain.

Translucent straps couldn’t hide the tender slope of her shoulders, and her not-quite-plush breasts kept a girl’s freshness, like buds shy of full bloom.

Her soft waist and legs sheathed in black silk whispered mature charm, like shadowed lilies at dusk.

Her body spread like a flowering branch, unabashed, offering beauty to every gaze like spring in a courtyard.

For a heartbeat, Ophelius thought she was some imperial socialite. Then he saw what hung at her waist.

A vermilion scabbard with a slight arc, its lacquer etched with an iris crest, and a tassel fading from red to pale like dawn.

It looked like an art piece, a weapon he’d never seen. Yet somehow, a kinship stirred in him like finding an old song.

“Belittle you? Hahahahaha. Grand Duke Shilwen, you’re joking. How would a subordinate dare such insolence? This kid’s what you asked me to hunt down. Want to test him?”

Lie-Lotus waved, laughing, to the woman called Shilwen, while a maid spotted her mistress and hurried over like a sparrow to its nest.

“If you truly think I’m your superior, start by using my proper title. What weapons does he use?”

Shilwen smiled and bent, black hair about to spill onto Ophelius’s face like night brushing a lake.

From the side, it looked like a flawless girl simply gazing down at him, but Ophelius felt danger rise from her like cold seeping from marble.

He could stand already, but now was not the time; he held still, stone-still, while Lie-Lotus took a short sword and a short bow from his “body” and handed them to Shilwen.

“Oh? … You did pull in something.”

Shilwen lifted hair from her ear, revealing a faint blush like winter cherry, and the green short bow trembled at her touch like a plucked chord.

“Because of this bow, you make me think his quality exceeds what I expected.”

She crouched, patting Ophelius’s cheek with her right hand like someone stroking a cat, skin soft yet cold like spring water over jade.

For a moment, he felt her transparent ruby eyes read straight through his thoughts, like lantern-light passing bone.

“You’re wondering what this is, aren’t you?”

Her lips moved, and her voice coaxed like honey sipping marrow, sweet and unsettling.

“What you see now is my Yi’s past—”

——————

!!!!!

His surprise hadn’t finished when the scene smeared again; his senses slipped away like sand through fingers, then another memory surged in, seamless, like a river breaking into a new bed.

“In the East, the Luoyang main house births only twins, generation after generation; any extra child is stillborn or dies early, like frost-bitten seedlings.

“One twin is chosen as material for the sword, and the other trained to wield that divine blade forged from a brother’s blood and bone.”

The scene shifted to a stone chamber, walls like cold cliffs, and the woman named Shilwen faced Ophelius, telling a story like a winter tale by a brazier.

No—if she spoke truth, this was Yi’s memory, a past that had unfolded like a script chiseled in basalt.

“The forging’s material is a paired crystal called the Zu Stones. Their origin’s lost like stars swallowed by dawn; only their method survives.

“The head of Luoyang’s branch replaces the chosen child’s heart with the larger sub-stone, like setting a ruby in a living chalice.

“The wielder receives the smaller mother-stone, planted in the bones of the hands like seeds under bark.

“Once the rite completes, the forging begins, like thunder waking in a sealed valley.”

Shilwen paused, licked her lips with a teasing gloss, and smiled at “Ophelius” like fire curling around silk.

“This is what those people told you back then—your mission, isn’t it, my Yi?”