After a brief, brutal clash, the crimson shield in the sky finally shattered. Fortunately, because of tonight’s ambush, not only the nearby university district but the students and staff of other schools had already gone ho on early holiday to prepare for the New Year, so even if the fighting spilled into neighboring campuses, casualties wouldn’t be severe.
Once she broke free of the elental-lockdown kill zone, Yvette and the Green Angel surged upward, shifting the battlefield to the city’s night sky.
For a ti, magical currents rolled back like an inverted Milky Way. Yvette cycled through elents and bombarded in turns, trying to find a countering attribute. The Green Angel, using a kind of mimicry, manifested swarms of elentally condensed creatures—firebirds of pure fla, dragonflies of pure wind—to attack her.
A battle this fierce was bound to draw attention. People on the streets below tilted their heads with cries of alarm, and more than a few started live streams on the spot.
A dozen minutes later, when the tempo eased, Yvette widened the gap, alighting on the roof of a skyscraper to face the Green Angel from afar. She tallied the tens of thousands of units of aberration mana she’d burned tonight and felt her heart bleed.
What a ripoff.
She had to admit, though—this Green Angel was the toughest opponent she’d t so far.
It wouldn’t die, couldn’t be shaken, and forced a slugfest of trading wound for wound. Worse, what she spent was precious aberration mana, while what she leeched back was only ordinary mana. Even if she hurled that ordinary mana back in attack, she was still losing badly.
The Green Angel’s glow was visibly dimr and its offense less savage than at first—but to grind it down completely, who knew how much aberration mana it would take?
Just then, a low engine roar tore through the din. A sleek, intimidating, pitch-black light airship,
escort craft bristling around it, ripped the night like a steel leviathan and hovered at the edge of the fight. On its hull, the United States of New Eden’s star-striped insignia glead under searchlights.
Yvette’s eyes narrowed. The federal president?
Then she decided that was unlikely. With combat this intense, a figure like the president would keep his distance and send subordinates to observe, not co in person.
She flicked a glance at the Green Angel still prowling nearby, hesitated, and decided to hold position and see what the ship wanted.
So long as Lingman cared about the international situation, they wouldn’t let the Green Angel keep attacking—not right now.
A minute later, the presidential craft—simultaneously stately and lavish—drew close, hovering precisely before Yvette’s building.
The hatch slid open without a sound, and a figure appeared in the doorway.
Black suit razor-sharp, bald head shining in the lights, signature black-frad glasses, and a fully ard presidential guard at his side.
Yvette blinked, a bit taken aback—it really was the president in person.
Faced with one of the two most powerful people in origin civilization, she didn’t know what to say for a mont.
On the other side, the president seed to be studying the silver-haired girl whose warped light-and-shadow mask hid her true face. After a few seconds, he smiled. “Are you our nation’s heroic citizen—‘Naless’?”
Yvette paused, then answered, hesitant, “…It’s .”
“Are you in trouble, Miss Naless?” the president asked, voice carrying just the right touch of concern.
“…Yes.”
“Then co aboard. This ship is our sovereign soil. Back ho, no one can get in to harm you.”
Yvette fell silent, unsure what kind of play this was,
but she truly didn’t want to keep tangling with the Green Angel—and the president before her was certainly less threatening than it.
She glanced toward the Green Angel and saw Imogen Ashford’s figure take shape beside it, her expression so dark it could drip—but in the end she made no move.
Yvette didn’t hesitate further. She burst into a swift shadow, flashed across dozens of ters, and landed steady before the wide hatch,
and said, “Thank you for your help, Mr. President.”
As she stepped through the hatch and passed John Tito Lokiweed, a whisper as faint as a breath brushed her ear: “We are proud New Edeners—citizens of the planet’s strongest nation. How could we stand by while a hero suffers? Isn’t that right, comrade?”
Comrade?
At that final, near-inaudible address, Yvette’s pupils constricted. She finally understood why Firebearer’s voice had always felt so familiar.
Because he was their nation’s president—the notorious man reviled as a corporate lapdog, the worst president in history!
—John Tito Lokiweed!
The hatch sealed behind Yvette without a sound. President John gestured for her to follow him toward the aft cabin,
and once the guards had withdrawn, in the galley Yvette was quiet for a mont before asking, “What exactly is going on?”
“My apologies, comrade.” John’s face showed genuine remorse. “Though I had the intelligence services watching constantly, we still failed to detect Lingman’s trap for you at the first mont. Otherwise, I would have warned you in advance.”
“That’s not what I an,” Yvette cut in. “Why are you Firebearer?”
“That’s a long story—one that goes back to before I even ran for president.” John’s expression took on a trace of reminiscence; then he smiled. “Let’s set the past aside and deal with the present first.”
Yvette grunted assent.
John looked at her, hesitating. Yvette then rembered she hadn’t dropped the light-and-shadow masking her face—right now she looked exactly like Zero, which in principle she shouldn’t reveal. But trusting Firebearer, she dispelled the distortion and said, a bit awkwardly, “Been a little… de-aging lately.”
Taking in the adorably childlike face that was entirely Yvette’s, paired with her calm, mature bearing and tone, John stared for several seconds, at a loss for words.
He knew Naless and Zero looked alike, but seeing it with his own eyes, he hadn’t expected it to be this extre—they were the sa person in all but na.
If not for multiple proofs they had existed simultaneously, he would have suspected the one before him was Zero herself.
“Miss Naless, you aren’t Zero’s avatar, are you?” John ventured a possibility.
Humanity didn’t have such technology yet—but she was a special existence empowered by divine molt. So odd abilities were only natural—after all, Lingman had created the baffling Green Angel.
“No, I’m not her. I don’t have her power. Just think of as a clone,” Yvette said, unwilling to elaborate.
“All right.” Trusting Naless, John exhaled. In his judgnt, Zero was the genuine source of destruction; the casualties in the Fusjiang Incident had said enough. So long as Naless wasn’t Zero, she was still the comrade he knew.
Yvette returned to her earlier question. “You took away so publicly—are you sure that’s fine?”
John smiled. “Does Lingman have lawful evidence of attacking you? For example—clear proof you were the Greenlight Tower intruder, or footage that you initiated tonight’s fight at Lingman University? Or any trace bearing your unmistakable biotrics?”
“No.” Yvette shook her head. Even in the Greenlight Tower affair, she had never admitted her identity—not even verbally.
“Then it’s Lingman assaulting one of our citizens.”
His gaze shifted to the porthole, where Garde City’s lights—bright as a river of stars—reflected on his black fras with a cold gleam. “Whatever the case, I am the president of the Union. Glenaut’s pri minister might seem tough on the surface, but he’s soft at the core. During the last tariff war, I tossed out a couple of threats and he called to beg off. This ti will be the sa.”
He paused. “As for Lingman—rest easy. They’re even softer at heart. Besides, they attacked our national hero without cause. Why would they be the ones to make trouble? I should be the one making trouble for them.”
Yvette dipped her head and said nothing more. Only then did it occur to her that, in rank, there were indeed two people in this world more exalted than the heads of the Eight Corporations: the presidents of the United States of New Eden and the Future Union.
The two nations might change presidents every four years, but for those four years, they stood above all—gacorps included.
No wonder Firebearer had been able to pass her so many secrets—especially those touching Black Tower Pharmaceuticals and senior governnt officials—as hard intel. She had thought the Civilization Preservation Society was fathomless, secretly embedded in the heights of states and corporations. Turns out he was the heights all along—
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