“Please tell me you never know about this?” Requiem — Yuri — said to Dream in the next morning.

The Horizon Dawn was in business mode, which meant they were using the conference room and code-names. The air-conditioner inside the Perseverance was chummy. Like last night, Dream sank his body into the sofa, while Yuri sat on the chair. T floated beside Yuri in her true form, and L was nowhere in sight.

The air was thick with tension.

“You already know,” Requiem said. Dream lacked an alarm or reaction about T’s story told him everything.

‘How?’ T couldn’t believe it. She knew Dream’s range of knowledge was in the realm of ludicrous, but it was doubtful he would know her greatest secret. ‘I’ve never told that to anyone but Yuri? You might be knowledgeable, but this is absurd.’

Dream raised his eye-brows.

“‘Never told that to anyone but Yuri,’” the hero quoted, grinning a little. “I’m glad you actually care about someone, T. Maybe you and Tai might go on a different route. I cannot express the relief I’m feeling right now.”

‘I-I,’ T was tongue-tied. She wanted to say she didn’t care about the guy sitting beside her, but that would be a lie.

“Rem,” Requiem said. “Get to the point. You might have [Clairvoyance], but even that Skill has limits.”

Dream — Rem — knew who couldn’t bluff his way out of this.

“You are right,” Dream confessed. “The Dawn already knows about Tai Tianshang's biggest secret. She is categorized as a Luthor for a reason.”

“Luthor?” Requiem said.

“It is how we grade our enemies' threat level,” Dream said. “From highest-to-lowest, it is Darkseid, Doomsday, Luthor, Mercy, and Bruno.” Noticing the confusion of his audience, Dream explained further. “Darkseid is a threat to the Center Force itself, like the Malice. Doomsday is a lethal threat to the Dawn — the average Reverse Beast falls here. Luthor is mostly folks that could give us a headache. Mercy was a special category for the notable enemy who worked under Luthor.” Rem made a face. “Bruno is your average mob.”

“You mean Tai is ranked right beneath the RB?” Yuri said, clarifying the message.

“Yep,” Dream said. “For your information, Samuel Wayward is Doomsday and Orwell Mehest is Luthor. Currently, because of the threat they post to Phantasia and the stability of the Multiverse, the Fair Folks are relegated to a Quasi-Darkseid danger.”

‘Should I feel insulted you are ranking me in the same league with Orwell?’ T couldn’t help but be offended by the suggestion.

“I think it is quite fitting,” Dream said. “Orwell ranked that high because his intellect and ideology put him in a prime position where defeating him isn’t as important as killing his ideal,” He explained. “No power in the world can telekinetically choke a political ideology. Tai Tianshang is backed by the same principle.”

Requiem felt they were getting off track. “Fine,” he declared. “Just tell me how you know.”

Dream hesitated.

Requiem immediately facepalmed. “Okay,” he raised his hand in surrender, “how much would I hate it?”

“Immensely,” Dream answered. “Yuri, I know you want an answer, but you know it will distract you.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Requiem stood. “But I expected you to tell me one day.”

“I will,” Dream said. Behind the answer was the mind of the man who wasn’t proud of his action. He knew Yuri would find out about that particularly nasty event, and it would be a nasty bridge to cross.

…

That night Requiem and T hung outside of Dangxiao Er. The air was still and the darkened skies cloud everything. Requiem could hear his breath ripening with anticipation.

The clearing they were in was mostly empty plain surrounded by moderate greenery. This allowed them to observe the Wolf Hoard member they were eavesdropping in the pub. Those folks were supervising the transport of a cargo on a magically driven carriage. Despite the night clouding their vision, the full twin moons in the sky provided the illumination they needed for the stakeout.

Floating behind him, T picked that moment to speak about what was bugging her mind.

‘Dream is hiding something from you,’ T said. Unlike the previous times, there were no hints of manipulation in T’s words. The only thing that was there in that doubtful voice was concern. If T were honest, she would admit that the boy had grown on her. Alas, she had her image to keep thus she settled with a simple warning.

“Hiding?” Requiem repeated. “He is keeping things away from me, but it was transparently clear he isn’t hiding it.”

‘True,’ T agreed. ‘From what I saw, that guy is many things, but insincere isn’t one of them.’

Boom!

A fiery explosion rocked the air as the carriage exploded.

“What’s that?” Requiem drew his sword.

‘Be careful,’ T said, knowing from experience that this kind of sudden turn never ended well.

…

Dream didn’t know what happened. He only knew the jig was up.

They were only supposed to observe the movement of the mysterious cargo transported by the Wolf Hoard. Then the explosion happened. The speed and the size of the incident would cloud lesser eyes, but Dream perfectly captured what was going on. A plume of flames erupted from the self-driving wagon. The two members of the Wolf Hoard supervising the transport were caught squarely in the blast radius. Dream saw their blackened, immolated body dropped to the ground.

It was the final clue to what had transpired.

It took extreme heat to reduce people to carbon in mere seconds, eliminating doubt of the cargo's innocence. Dream fought several people with such output and all of them gave him a headache. One among them was still haunting his conscience. He internally imagined telling Yuri about that one and silently crossed his fingers. Yes, it might be rough, but it was better to tell him than let Requiem deduce the truth. That possibility came closer to reality than ever, with T starting to trust him.

Dream allowed himself to smile. The boy had potential. Somehow he brought a traumatized shell of Tai Tianshang’s clone out of her shell. His [Clairvoyance] now opened to an alternative that this ancient evil could be redeemable. Was this how a teacher should feel when they saw a hopeless-case student finally do his first calculus? Dream sighed. Probably not, the modern teaching careers were corrupted.

It was the burning heat and flames that brought him to reality.

Something was rising from the fires. It was akin to a burning tulip — white flowers tipped in red. The flaming flora unfurled to reveal a torso of a supermodel with long graceful hair. Most men would look at the body and have a flight of fancy. Those same men’s fantasies would die the moment they saw the creature face.

It was the face of a scarecrow. Hollow socket for eyes, and rough tear in the skin for a mouth. The nose was still perfect, but Dream doubted most sane men would find the offering acceptable. At least he believed so, people these days had weird kinks.

It was then he realized the monster was looking at him.

[Wisdom Eye]

In one glimpse, Dream knew about the creature's construction, its origin, but more importantly, the string holding it. He couldn’t get a full look. The interference was too noisy to do an accurate reading, but it was enough.

This thing was a Fairy — a Dryad. A mixture of several magical organisms with a certain insane bitch as a main base. However, that bitch was the least of Dream’s concern. The reason for its sudden activity was more alarming. It was reacting to his presence, a remotely triggered sleeper agent unleashed the moment the controller detected the trace of him.

Dream connected the dots. He was being observed since the White Tower. The situation had gone south. The Fairy wasn’t a disorganized mob like they originally expected. Yes, the previous scenario was already a continental disaster, but this one was worse.

“They have a leader?” Dream couldn’t help but say his discovery aloud. “How? Titania already left ages ago.”

The Sprite picked the moment in its mouth and fired a beam of high-energy photon right at the hero.

…

Yuri witnessed the beam of light fired from the burning carriage to the position his mentor was hiding. The entire area exploded in a blinding light.

“Rem!” Yuri shouted and ran toward the scene of the disaster.

Then he saw the creature they were facing. Requiem registered the beautiful figure with a stunned silence, but its monstrous face got his head straight. The knight brandished his sword.

In response, the flower monster unfurled its petals. From the beautiful dress flew seed-like spores.

Trusting his instinct, Requiem unleashed his Arcane.

[Aero Law]

The sky quivered as the air density shifted, rippling toward the spores. In response to the shift, the fiery seed quivered and ignited in a fiery explosion.

The blazing heat sent the scalding sense of pain down the Knight’s face. Thankfully, Requiem’s Aura tanked that blast of certain death. The flames never touched, but to his conclusion the damage he received was disproportionate to the reality. He backed away from the fire, his clothing steaming from the mere exposure to the flames.

‘Be careful,’ T yelled. ‘Those are hell-fire. A demonic flame from the monster of the Seven Forbidden Zones.’

“Thanks for the head-up,” Requiem muttered. “How do I deal with it?”

‘Hit it with a range attack!’ T said. ‘I’m getting L. She is way better at dealing with this crap.’

“You’re asking for help?” Requiem replied, raising his blades to prepare for another incoming attack. “You of all people?”

‘I’m bad at dealing with this kind of enemy!’ T shouted. ‘You can ask me about every combat manual under the sun, but this mystical super-weapon is something more in that bitch’s wagon!’

The Dryad didn’t wait for Requiem to get more breathing room. She opened her mouth and spewed the photon beam. It was the attack coming at the speed of light — able to penetrate an army of lesser men.

Thankfully, green as he was, the hero called Requiem was already superhuman. He reacted to the beam in time, blocking the light beam with his sword. His Aura received the ray, splitting the light into several streams that burnt a swath into the ground and igniting the grasses in around them. Requiem’s eyes squeezed against the blinding light, but he held on.

Finally, the beam faded, leaving Requiem holding a half-molten hilt.

Requiem’s heart sank under his chest.

The Dryad danced in the air, seizing the opportunity of disarming its opponent. It swooped down. The tear of mouth lit on fire, preparing to devour the weaponless man.

‘Yuri!’ T cried, trying to push him out of harm.

As expected, her ghostly form only went through him, accomplishing nothing in stopping the Knight from being turned into a headless chunk of meat.

Or was it?

The moment T went past him, something took Requiem’s body over.

…

Yuri Ushakov saw an image of a paradise city.

Yuri was standing atop a luxurious tower with a beautiful lawn covering the parapet. The shining cityscapes stretched below him. Above him were the golden skies decorated with runes and sigils of projection. He could hear a bell ringing. Smells of mystic hang in the air like perfumes.

It was then Yuri heard the swooshing sound of metal flowing in the air. He turned toward the source of that sound and felt what he didn’t feel since he first gazed upon Charon — awe.

A woman with a cool-face and brilliant silver hair was drilling with an ornate sword. Mana swirled around her like a musical melody. Her posture was perfect. The forged steel in her hand articulately sailed along with her measured momentum. This girl was the pinnacle of purpose and focus. Silvery Mana sharpened into the blade’s edge fluctuated with her stance, lengthening and shrinking along this young mistress of the saber.

Yuri heard about her from T.

This was her at the peak of her era — the unblemished sword noble. The expert who existed before the current times, before she died and reincarnated into Tai Tianshang. It was the identity that made the Heavenly Daughter of Steel such a threat that Rem ranked her alongside Orwell. Even when pushed into a losing position, Rem didn’t believe for a second that Tai could be underestimated.

It was her past life as the Royalty of the Ancient. Before the age of the Divine Race, Tai Tianshang — T — was Tiara.

Yuri was witnessing her past before the fall of her civilization, before Taira of the Blade used a spell to reincarnate into the present times to revive the era of the Ancient.

…

Requiem — Yuri — returned to reality.

He was still fine, not a piece or hair was missing. Behind him laid the Dryad with her lower abdomen cleanly sliced away.

Yuri glanced toward the melted blade in his hand. The sword was still damaged, but a silvery wind-blade replaced the damage part. He then realized he was in another stance entirely. The one Dream never taught him.

T gaped in awe at what she had witnessed.

‘Those are my moves,’ T gasped, ‘Sky-blade, and Zen-state counter. Just how did you do it?’

“I don’t know,” Yuri gaped.

The downed monster, severed in two, twitched. It abruptly flew in the sky and bare its mouth toward the Knight in a silent scream. Its jaw opened wide for another photon beam.

Bang!

Without a warning, a hole speared through the Dryad’s torso, leaving a wound of fiery sparks in its path.

Bang! Bang!

The second shot wiped out part of the monster’s skull. Another shot took the rest of its head.

A frazzled Dream walked over to them, holding his Magnum. He was signed, but otherwise perfectly fine.

“I thought she got you,” Requiem said.

“She caught me by surprise,” Dream said.“But it would take more than that to kill me.”

Requiem nodded, “What is she anyway?”

“A bloody Fairy like the Bugbear,” Dream explained. “That clown Arby talked about — maybe the Wolf Hoard too — is in leagues with the Fair Folks.” Dream frowned.“No, that is unlikely. It is more likely they got infiltrated. There are probably sleeper cells of these things waiting for us in Danghai.”

Requiem gulped, “How many?”

“No bloody idea,” Dream said. “But more than enough to take the city and took the International Conference hostage.”

‘That sounds like a disaster,’ T raised a concern. ‘Just one of these is probably enough to cripple the Frisnia military, but an army? There is no way Danghai will be left standing.’

“I’m not worried about the army,” Dream said. “Someone, Something, is giving them marching orders. With the Queen of Fairy gone, this shouldn’t be possible.”

“What do we do now?” Yuri asked.

“Now we go to Danghai and regroup with Chronicler,” Dream said dreadfully. “We need every ally and power we can reach to get out of this in one piece.”