The Tianrao Battle Emperor

Tianrao City.

A city that bore the Battle Emperor's name — and was ruled, to this day, by his family.

The thought struck Lu Yuan just as he was turning to leave: *Xue Wang.*

He glanced back. Off to one side, draped across Xue Ren's motionless body, lay Xue Wang — his frame shaking with shallow, uneven breaths.

*He's still alive?*

Lu Yuan sprinted over and checked. Pulse present, barely. He yanked a First-rank Potent Serum from his pack without hesitation and poured it straight down Xue Wang's throat.

White light spread across Xue Wang's body. The brutal wounds covering him began closing in real time, sealing shut before Lu Yuan's eyes. His shattered arm rebuilt itself. The deathly pallor drained from his face, warmth flooding back in its place.

In just a few breaths, he looked whole.

Xue Wang groaned. His brow creased, and his eyes cracked open. He looked around in bleary confusion — then his gaze found Lu Yuan, and a weak, strained smile crossed his face.

"Old Lu. You saved me?" A pause. His eyes swept the area. "Hey — where is he?"

His gaze drifted past Lu Yuan to the distant shape lying on the ground.

The smile died. His expression went blank, then dark.

Lu Yuan stood beside him and couldn't find a single thing worth saying.

Then Li Qinghe's voice rang through his mind.

He stiffened. *A voice — inside my head?*

*Long-distance voice transmission?*

Li Qinghe caught his surprise. "It's a minor Spirit Power technique," her voice said lightly. "You don't know it yet? Sister will teach you when we're back."

*There's a lot to take in here,* Lu Yuan thought.

He walked a short distance from Xue Wang and quietly recounted everything — finding him alive, the battle's end, what had happened with Xue Ren. Li Qinghe listened without interrupting.

She was quiet for a moment after he finished.

"Even a man like that," she said at last, her tone carrying something complex and unhurried, "had something human left in him. To recover his own will while fully assimilated — Xue Ren genuinely loved that son of his."

Lu Yuan nodded slowly. "Yeah."

He thought it over. Then added: "And he was pretty brutal about it."

Li Qinghe gave him an odd look.

A gentle smile played at the corners of her mouth. Her mind was clearly running somewhere behind it.

"Your friend is impressive," she said. "Had the guts to risk death engraving a Boss Grade gene — couldn't fully integrate it, but that kind of nerve is rare. He'd be a good fit for the Night Watchman headquarters."

Lu Yuan blinked. "You mean Old Xue?"

"Yes."

"Old Xue is indeed pretty strong." Lu Yuan thought back to how Xue Wang had fought, the sheer recklessness of the attempt.

Then Li Qinghe paused. "...You said you encountered a Mirage Dragon?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "Right. Big one. Gold-green. Kind of intimidating..."

Li Qinghe stopped walking. She stared at him, eyes wide. "...You could see it? You can *actually* see a Mirage Dragon?!"

"Aren't Mirage Dragons hidden in the mist?" she pressed. "You can only ever see a scale or two."

Lu Yuan looked puzzled. "Can't you just look through the fog?"

Li Qinghe stared at him. Seeing him look so completely matter-of-fact about it, she found herself almost wondering if she'd misremembered the basic facts.

"You're sure about that?" she said, very carefully. "How could you see through mist that thick?"

Then, out of curiosity, Li Qinghe put another question to him.

Lu Yuan answered it.

*How does any answer to this not end with me getting buried?* he realized, a half-second too late.

Li Qinghe reached out and pinched his face.

He froze completely.

The look on his face seemed to delight her enormously. She released him with a serene smile. "Sister forgives you this time. But try not to make the same mistake again."

Lu Yuan rubbed his cheek, thoroughly at a loss. *What did I do wrong?*

He thought about it for a long time and arrived at one conclusion: he probably shouldn't have answered that question.

His gaze moved toward Xue Ren's body. Whatever else the man had been, he'd been the host of the Soul-Devouring Orb. There might still be danger lurking there.

Li Qinghe appeared to follow his thinking. A brief flash of cold intent passed through her eyes. She produced a talisman and crushed it between her fingers. "I'll have people stationed here. It won't be a problem."

By then, Xue Wang had pulled himself slowly to his feet. He turned to Lu Yuan and managed another pained ghost of a smile. "Old Lu — head back. I want to be alone for a while."

He walked to Xue Ren's side and knelt down.

Lu Yuan watched him for a moment. Then he walked over and laid a hand briefly on his shoulder.

"Alright," he said quietly. "Take all the time you need."

"Let him be," Li Qinghe said, voice gentle.

The two of them left together.

**Great Qi Star — Lion Empire.**

Deep within a complex as lavish as any palace, tucked away at the heart of its sprawling architecture, was a pink room overflowing with stuffed animals.

In it, on an enormous princess bed, Amy Algaibi opened her eyes in her little bunny-print pajamas —

— and immediately whimpered in pain.

Cold sweat had already gathered at her temples. Her delicate features scrunched up as she bit down on her lip, fighting it.

Her small body curled inward on the mattress, trembling. Tears pressed at the corners of her wide eyes.

*I'm Amy Algaibi. Amy Algaibi doesn't cry over something like this.*

She held on. For about two seconds.

Then discovered that she absolutely could not hold on, and burst into tears.

"**Waaah~~** Lingling! It hurts so much! I'm dying!"

The door flew open. A beautiful girl in a black-trimmed white maid's uniform rushed to the bedside. "Young Miss! What's wrong?!"

Amy flung herself into the girl's arms, sobbing.

Wang Lingling rubbed gentle circles on her back, eyes soft with worry. "It's all right, Young Miss. It'll pass quickly. Your body's been remolded — what you're feeling is just residual soul sensation. It's already fading."

Amy cried for a while. True enough, the pain subsided faster than expected.

She sat up in Wang Lingling's arms, took a breath, and gave her own chest a thoroughly proud pat.

*Right. A true Algaibi doesn't break down at the first sign of hardship.*

Wang Lingling smiled warmly and ruffled her hair. "Young Miss is so amazing! If she can hold back the tears next time, she'll be even more amazing — truly worthy of the Algaibi name."

Those words worked like a switch. Amy straightened up immediately. "Next time I definitely won't cry!"

Wang Lingling kept smiling, while internally noting that the young miss was sixteen and still utterly flat, and that all those cups of papaya juice had apparently accomplished absolutely nothing. She began mentally running through alternatives — and wondering if she'd ever find anything that actually worked.

The door opened again before she could settle on one.

A tall, golden-haired woman stepped in. Her features clearly shared a mold with Amy's, but where Amy was still soft and girlish, this woman was composed and polished, every movement carrying an unspoken authority.

Wang Lingling rose to her feet at once. "Madam."

Amy saw her — and her throat immediately tightened.

She threw herself at her mother instead of crying. "Mom~~ it hurts so much! I actually died! I died horribly!"

Gwen Algaibi caught her and held on tight, eyes sweeping Amy from head to toe, her face etched with barely contained alarm. "Are you hurt? Are you all right?"

"Mom, I'm okay now!"

Gwen let out a slow breath. Then her expression shifted to something caught between exasperation and relief. "I died out of the Land of Origin myself, came back, and went straight to your room — I could sense your Spirit Power there. Checked and you weren't in your bed. I nearly convinced myself you'd been kidnapped. So I came running to find you."

"Mom, you also died?"

"Hmph." Gwen smoothed Amy's hair back, expression still tight. "I told you to bring an escort to Tianrao City. You insisted on going alone. And now look."

Amy sniffled dramatically. Then, rallying: "Mom! You have to avenge me! Go get them! Charge, charge, charge!"

A flicker of cold killing intent passed through Gwen's eyes. "Was it a man or a woman? What did they do to you?!"

"Mom... honestly, you can't avenge this one. Just let it go."

"Don't you dare underestimate your mother. Tell me who it is and watch me deal with them personally."

Amy hesitated.

"...It was a Mirage Dragon."

Silence.

Gwen stared at her daughter.

Then, very carefully: "...Ahem. My dear. Are you sure it was a Mirage Dragon?"

"Of course! Bad luck — the Mist Forest started fogging up out of nowhere. I was right there in the forest, had just cut through dozens of Gnolls and Kaman warriors, was almost at Tianrao City — and then the mist rolled in thick. The Mirage Dragon appeared. It glanced at me, then it solidified the fog and crushed me flat."

Gwen and Wang Lingling looked at each other.

"Amy," Gwen said slowly. "Are you sure you weren't seeing things?"

Amy planted her hands on her hips. "I am not blind! It was enormous, right in front of me! Why wouldn't I be able to see it?!"

"But—" Wang Lingling hesitated. "Mirage Dragons are always hidden in the mist. You can normally only catch the briefest glimpse — a scale here, a claw there..."

Amy looked between them with the expression of someone utterly baffled by the implication that she had somehow lost the use of her eyes.

"And there was someone else with me," she added. "He saw it too. Two people don't hallucinate the same thing."

"There was another person?!" Gwen blinked.

The two women exchanged a glance.

"Wait," Wang Lingling said carefully. "Amy — you said the Mirage Dragon looked at you. How do you know it was looking at you specifically?"

"Because I could see its eyes on me! I saw them looking at me — that's how eyes work!"

"..."

Gwen and Wang Lingling looked at each other again. Both seemed to realize, at roughly the same moment, that they had been directing their disbelief at the wrong part of this story.

Gwen cleared her throat. The expression that settled across her face was grave. "Amy. Come with me. We're going to see great-grandfather."

Amy blinked. "Do I really need to bother great-grandfather with something like this?"

"Amy." Gwen's voice had gone quiet and level. "You don't understand yet."

Something in that tone reached Amy. It wasn't panic — it was calmer than that, and somehow more serious for it. The glow of pride she'd been quietly carrying since sitting up in Wang Lingling's arms faded. In its place, something more resolute settled into her eyes.

She gave a firm nod.

"Come, then." Gwen turned to Wang Lingling. "Tidy up the room. Get some rest — you've worked hard."

Wang Lingling gave a small bow. "Taking care of Young Miss is what I should be doing, Madam."

"Lingling." A brief softness passed through Gwen's voice. "You've worked hard."

She swept Amy up and moved through the corridors at a pace that had Amy holding on tight, arriving quickly before a quiet, secluded courtyard tucked away from the main buildings. Purple vines draped the stone walls, brilliant flowers woven through them in every shade, the air carrying a soft, sweet fragrance.

Gwen called out to the closed gate: "Grandfather — Amy and I have something important to tell you."

The gate swung open.

A middle-aged man in white robes stepped out. Handsome, unhurried, bearing nothing remarkable about him whatsoever — he might have been any ordinary man you would pass without a second glance.

When his eyes found Amy, his face softened into something warm and indulgent.

Both Gwen and Amy looked at him with quiet, unmistakable reverence.

"Little Amy, little Gwen — come in."

They followed him inside. The courtyard bloomed in every corner, flowers of every kind growing in abundance, the air dense with their fragrance. They settled in a small pavilion at the heart of it.

Adams Algaibi sat across from them, composed and unhurried. "What is it you want to tell me?"

"Amy saw a Mirage Dragon," Gwen said.

Adams gave a brief, dismissive laugh. "Ah. A Mirage Dragon."

"Grandfather." Gwen's voice was careful. "What I mean is — Amy saw the Mirage Dragon's actual form."

The laugh stopped.

Adams went very still.

His gaze moved to Amy. All the warmth had left his face. "Little Amy. Is what you told your mother true?"

Amy met his eyes steadily. "Of course it is. I really did see it."

"...You could see the Mirage Dragon." He said it slowly, as if measuring the words. "Its actual form. In mist that thick." His eyes stayed on hers. "That isn't possible. How could you see through fog like that?"

Amy's expression was one that had exhausted its patience for this particular question. "I have said this to everyone who has asked me. I am not blind. It was there. It was enormous. It was right in front of me. And it looked at me."

"Wait." Something shifted in Adams' eyes. "You said it looked at you. How do you know it was looking at you specifically?"

"Because I could see its eyes looking at mine! I saw them looking at me!"

A beat of silence.

"...And there was another person present who also saw it?"

"Yes! We can't both be making this up!"

The pavilion was very quiet.

Adams studied Amy for a long moment. Then he looked up, past the vines along the courtyard walls, at nothing in particular.

"The Mist Forest began fogging," he said softly, more to himself. "No wonder little Amy came out of the Land of Origin."

"Yes," Gwen confirmed, voice carefully steady.

Adams nodded, slow and deliberate. The warmth that had greeted them at the gate was entirely gone. In its place was something still and measured — and behind the stillness, something cold.

He was the Tianrao Battle Emperor.