"Data acquisition complete."
"Energion utilization rate: under 1%."
"Conclusion: does not match expectations. Continue observation…"
The wind on Everwinter Ridge cut sharper than ever.
The Astral Express crew—three of them—stood on shattered ice alongside Seele and Bronya, facing what hovered above the fractured glacier:
Cocolia, fully fused with the Stellaron.
No—she was no longer human. She had been overwritten, replaced by something the Stellaron wore like a mask.
A name formed in everyone's mind the moment they saw her:
"Mother of Delusion."
She floated high in the air. Her blond hair had faded into a dead, pallid white; her body blended with the raging cold as if she was the blizzard itself. Golden energy—telltale of Imaginary power—flickered around her in thin, mocking strands.
"Bronya…"
Her voice layered into countless echoes, as if a thousand different mouths were whispering into the same space.
"Your mother's… final wish was for you to inherit her will."
Bronya's fist tightened until her knuckles turned white. Her gaze drifted—unwillingly—to a massive block of ice not far away.
Inside it, Huo Linfei remained sealed in frozen crystal.
Under the ice, the Phantom Qilin armor reflected a stubborn red glimmer, pulsing faintly as if refusing to admit defeat.
"My mother's will was never the destruction of Belobog!" Bronya snarled, lifting her rifle and aiming at the Mother of Delusion.
"Destruction? That's a childish word."
The Mother of Delusion sounded almost amused.
"What I do is reboot—returning Jarilo-VI to purity. Let the cold tide wash away everything. That is true 'Preservation.'"
"Madwoman." Stelle tightened her grip on the bat. "That's not Preservation's choice."
"Destruction is rebirth." The Mother of Delusion turned her attention to Stelle. Even with her face fully obscured, everyone felt the ridicule.
"And you… carry a Stellaron in your body, yet you only swing a bat like a thug. What a waste."
"Shut up!" March 7th drew her compound bow; a six-phased ice arrow locked onto the enemy. "Give Huo Linfei—and this planet—back!"
The Mother of Delusion raised one hand gently.
BOOM—!
The ice sheets of Everwinter Ridge ruptured. Countless ice spikes surged like living things, stabbing toward them.
Dan Heng swept his spear through the oncoming storm, smashing the nearest spikes. Seele moved with him, scythe slicing apart ice that tried to reform midair. Bronya retreated fast, gun barrel aligning with the Mother of Delusion's core.
"It's useless," the Mother said, voice flat. "You can't even understand—"
"The true power of the Stellaron."
She flicked her hand. The ground convulsed.
Far away, the dormant titan of metal—the Engine of Creation—opened its eyes.
Blood-red.
"What?!" Bronya whipped around.
A relic spear was embedded in the Engine's chest—an ancient lance once belonging to the first Supreme Guardian, Alisa Rand. But now it served as a conduit: black energy crawled across the machine like veins, infecting every plate and joint.
"Not good!" Dan Heng's expression hardened. The Engine raised a giant fist—slow on paper, but every movement tore the air with a brutal roar.
The fist came down.
They scattered. Ice exploded into a crater. The shockwave hurled March 7th away—Stelle rolled and caught her, but the impact still sent both of them slamming into an ice wall.
"Cough—cough… this thing's worse than the Doomsday Beast!" March 7th groaned.
Above, the Mother of Delusion watched them struggle like insects.
"Give up. The Stellaron's power is far beyond you."
The Engine's second fist rose—
SHH—!
A crimson beam fell from the sky and struck the Engine's joint with surgical precision.
The titan jerked. Its punch skewed and smashed empty air.
"That was—?" Bronya looked up.
In the comms, Himeko's voice came through, steady and urgent.
"I can only disrupt its movement for now. You need to find a way to stop it—quickly!"
"That's enough!" Dan Heng tightened his grip on his spear. "Stelle! Bronya! We pull the spear out—if it's feeding the Engine, it has to be the receiver!"
"Got it!" Stelle and Bronya moved together.
Seele carved open shadow with her scythe, quantum-phasing to clear a route. March 7th fired again and again, freezing the Engine's joints to pin its motion. Dan Heng leapt upward, spear aimed at the Mother of Delusion, forcing her to focus on him.
Stelle and Bronya sprinted along the massive mechanical arm toward the Engine's chest.
As they approached, the relic spear flared with black light; Stellaron energy surged like a tide. Stelle gritted her teeth—golden light burst along her bat as the Stellaron inside her seemed to resist the outside pull.
"Now!" Bronya shoved Stelle forward—
And Stelle's hand closed around the spear's grip.
In an instant, Belobog's history poured into her mind:
The Fragmentum's spread.
The guardians' endurance.
The despair of the cold tide.
The Stellaron's seductive whispers—
Her consciousness tore free of reality and plunged into a vast, star-filled void.
A colossal figure stood with its back to her, eclipsing a thousand stars—hammer in hand. Every strike sent tremors through the cosmos.
The Aeon of Preservation—
Qlipoth.
It didn't turn.
And yet Stelle felt its gaze.
"Hold it—"
Countless voices echoed by her ear. Before her eyes, the spear reformed.
Not black. Not frosted over.
It became amber—radiant with the will of the Builder of Cities, the resolve of Preservation itself.
Stelle seized the molten-hot grip—her brain firing off a completely unhelpful thought:
Is Huo Linfei's Firecloud Art this hot?
Back in reality, black energy was driven away by gold light. Preservation's power flowed into Stelle like magma.
She ripped the spear free.
The Engine of Creation froze mid-motion. The red glow in its eyes faded.
"We did it!" March 7th practically popped champagne on the spot.
But—
"Naïve."
The Mother of Delusion smiled, and closed her hand.
Stellaron power erupted again.
The Engine's eyes flared back to life—
This time, not red, but a pure violet driven directly by raw Stellaron force.
"Why?" Stelle stared, stunned. "Why can it still move?"
"You should thank your companion…" The Mother of Delusion descended, landing on the Engine's shoulder like a queen on her throne.
"If not for him forcing me to fuse with this body early, I wouldn't have had so much time to control this construct."
"The spear as a key was never the point," she added coolly. "Not anymore."
The Engine's huge fist rose again—
This time aimed straight at Bronya.
Bronya tried to move—but the pressure of the descending punch pinned her in place, crushing the air around her. She watched the fist fall, helpless.
"Bronya—move!" Seele sprinted, but she wasn't fast enough. Not even quantum-phasing could beat that impact window.
CRACK.
A brittle sound—almost too small to notice.
Steam rose.
For a heartbeat, everyone felt the ground beneath them vanish—meters of ice disappeared in an instant. Yet the energy that came with it didn't burn them.
A red figure stood there.
One hand raised, holding the Engine's falling fist.
Behind him, Bronya stood untouched—her coat hem not even dirty.
"Too bad," the newcomer said, rubbing the nose exposed below his mask with his free hand. "If March were behind me, I'd be way happier."
He sniffed—then sneezed hard.
"After this fight I seriously need to take some cold medicine… a-CHOO!"
And as the red armor gleamed in the freezing wind, the implication landed for everyone at once—
Huo Linfei was back.
Join here to read ahead.
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