Inside the dream—
Sylvia was on her way to meet up with Mei when something unexpected stopped her in her tracks. Nine parts out of ten, she was stunned.
"Duke Inferno???"
Sylvia stared wide-eyed at Duke Inferno, who'd appeared out of nowhere. She must've gotten up too fast—she was seeing dead people in Penacony now, even if this was only a dream.
Sure, it might be possible to survive as some lingering consciousness here, but Duke Inferno had been cut down by Mei in a single slash. If he was still alive, then ghosts really did exist.
Sylvia tried opening the Truth-Seeking Sigil, but even through its sight, the figure before her still looked exactly like Duke Inferno. This wasn't the kind of illusion Sparkle used.
"Am I really seeing a ghost? Or is this one of his kind pretending to be him?"
While Sylvia was still thinking, the false Duke Inferno raised a hand. Flames bright and fierce as daylight burst forth.
"Sylvia, I've returned from purgatory! As promised, I'll bring a glorious destruction to Penacony, and the flames of that destruction will begin with you!"
The fire swallowed the entire street in an instant.
Clang—!
Sylvia drew her greatsword and split the wall of flame like a parted sea, blocking the iron-hard cane that came crashing through it. She kicked Duke Inferno back, flipped through the air, and drove forward with another slash.
The greatsword dragged the surrounding fire into its wake and came down amid a rolling shriek. It missed Duke Inferno's chest by a hair, but the blade tore open the ground and blasted the flames away in a pillar of fire.
Sylvia arched a brow. He was a little weak—not helpless for a Pathstrider, but nowhere near the real Duke Inferno.
She'd been there when Mei cut him down, and she'd felt his presence before he died.
The man in front of her had his appearance and nothing else. He was probably one of Duke Inferno's kin, but where had he come from, and why was he pretending to be Duke Inferno?
Sylvia had finished testing him and was about to end the fight when nearly a hundred people poured in from every side of the street. They shouted a mess of slogans and opened fire.
"That's her! Once we take the mask, we'll have everything!"
"Don't let our leader fight alone! We must rebuild the Ever-Flame Mansion!"
Sylvia's face filled with question marks. She switched her core over to the Herrscher of the Void, opened dozens of spatial gates, and swallowed every bullet into subspace before sending them all back to their owners.
"That's strange. The Ever-Flame Mansion was wiped out, so who's still using its name for this nonsense?"
Sylvia shook her head. In the time it took to trade a single blow, every last one of them had gone down.
The fake Duke Inferno had clearly lost the will to fight. Even the flames drifting around him had begun to tremble, which only made Sylvia more certain that he was an impostor.
The real Duke Inferno was the kind of man who could say, "Destruction is a glorious instant," and walk calmly toward his death. Even as an enemy, he'd carried himself like a Pathstrider worthy of respect.
"Impostor, Duke Inferno may have been my enemy, but he was still worthy of respect."
Sylvia raised a hand and pointed at him. A Subspace Lance appeared beside her, followed by several layers of spatial gates that stretched it through warped space and built crushing pressure around it.
"Since we're in a dream, all I can give you is a lesson. Next time, though, I'll send you to your death."
BOOM—!!
The Subspace Lance shot forward with a roaring gale. The impostor didn't even have time to beg before it struck him.
The impact churned his Memoria into chaos. The instant he felt death, the dreampool forcibly severed his dream.
--+--
Inside a guest room at The Reverie, a Fire Demon who looked almost identical to Duke Inferno thrashed his way out of the dreampool.
"Aah—!!"
Wild flames spread from his body, scorching the floor and walls black. He gasped for air and stared around in panic.
"Hah... hah... How was that woman so strong? Was I tricked?"
He belonged to the same Fire Demon clan as Ifrit. His faction had never amounted to much, but he happened to look almost exactly like him.
After Ifrit's death, someone had found him and backed his attempt to gather the shattered Ever-Flame Mansion again.
The rebuilt group was weak, since all its elites had died in that disaster, but they'd received one vital piece of information: whoever took Penacony's mask could become a top power known across the cosmos.
So they'd come to Penacony under the name of Duke Inferno. Somehow, they'd even managed to check into The Reverie after losing their invitation, and they'd all assumed the real threat was the Galaxy Ranger, not Sylvia.
"No... Why did I throw everything away just to attack Sylvia?!"
The more he thought, the more he realized something was wrong. Even if Sylvia had truly been weak, how could they have been sure the Galaxy Ranger wouldn't come after them?
He'd never planned to make such a loud attack. His original plan had been to hide, learn the situation, and decide what to do afterward.
So why had he done it?
"My, my~ You actually noticed? I suppose you weren't completely worthless after all."
Thump. Thump.
The dull tap of high heels sounded against the carpet. A black-haired woman in a white dress appeared as though she'd stepped out of thin air, a devil's tail swaying behind her.
"You... It was you?!"
He remembered her now. Constance had been a member of the Ever-Flame Mansion, one of Duke Inferno's children who should've died with him.
She was the one who'd found him and coaxed him into posing as Duke Inferno.
"You controlled me. You pushed me into rebuilding the Ever-Flame Mansion, then forced me to attack Sylvia. What are you trying to do?"
"Hehe~ Nothing much. I only wanted to say hello, and entering Penacony alone would've drawn too much attention."
Constance walked toward the dreampool one slow step at a time. Each step sounded like the next tick of his death sentence.
"So I'm useless to you now?"
"Oh? I thought you'd beg. You've got more backbone than I expected."
Constance lifted a hand. Deep blue flames carrying a soul-gripping force pressed toward the false Duke Inferno.
"Woman, even if I die, I'll make you pay!"
The impostor spat out the curse in a rush. His instincts as a Fire Demon drove him toward the glory of mutual destruction.
Flames erupted from inside him. Light and heat twisted into a violent reaction as he burned all his remaining power for one glorious instant, all to make the woman before him pay.
Boom—!!!
The blast of fire tore apart the doorframe, but The Reverie's safety systems triggered almost at once. Before the blaze could spread, fire-suppression devices activated throughout the room.
White foam sprayed from every direction, and strange machinery joined in. Within seconds, the flames had been crushed, leaving behind a ruined room and a blackened hall.
The fire hadn't spread more than ten meters down the corridor. Even so, several guests in nearby rooms and a few of the Family's attendants were caught in the blast.
"Heh~"
A soft laugh vanished beneath the alarms and cries for help. The woman in white was already gone.
"Sylvia, Sylvia~ I've come for you. You'll make the finest piece in my collection~"
--+--
Sylvia heard about the incident later in Golden Hour, from people talking as they passed by. The Ever-Flame Mansion had launched a terrorist attack on The Reverie, Ifrit had died at the scene, and the Family had detained every surviving member.
The Family had also compensated all affected guests with extra dream time as an official apology. Sylvia and Mei exchanged a look.
"That's it? It feels far too deliberate," Mei said with a frown.
One moment, the Ever-Flame Mansion had been surrounding Sylvia. The next, Ifrit was dead and the rebuilt faction had been taken into custody by the Family.
The remnants really were insignificant, and the false Ifrit had only been an impostor, but being weak didn't mean they had to be stupid too. Losing to Sylvia wasn't reason enough to blow himself up.
Something was clearly wrong.
Sylvia nodded. "It's too deliberate. It's almost as though someone wanted to tell me there was something wrong with the Ever-Flame Mansion."
"Could this be the work of a Lord Ravager? Maybe one of them came to Penacony to greet you?" Mei didn't sound convinced, but anyone capable of gathering the Ever-Flame Mansion's remnants would've needed some status and influence. Could one of Ifrit's kin really have commanded that much loyalty on his own?
"...Zephyro doesn't seem like this sort of person. Isn't he more of a musclehead who'd charge straight at me and throw a punch?"
"That's true."
Mei agreed at once. Zephyro wasn't the type to wander around much, but when he did act, he was always blunt and brutal. This didn't feel like his style.
Sylvia thought for a moment, and the image of a woman in white drifted through her mind. Her brows drew together.
"Mei, could it have been Constance? The one we met at the Ever-Flame Mansion that day?"
"Constance? That strange Pathstrider of Remembrance?"
"Yeah. From what I know about those Remembrance types, it's possible. You weren't taking your swing that seriously, so she might've escaped the aftershock."
Mei's slash back then had already been restrained enough that even Jepella hadn't been erased by Nihility. Constance had also acted strangely from the start, so if anyone present could've survived, she was the most likely one.
Mei considered it. "It's possible. Her identity would've been enough to rebuild the Ever-Flame Mansion, and memory manipulation could've made the false Ifrit do all those senseless things." The impostor's death had been far too strange to dismiss as chance.
"Either way, both Remembrance and Enigmata are good at tampering with memories. Who the hell knows which one we're dealing with?" Sylvia clicked her tongue. People on those two Paths were troublesome because they appeared and vanished without leaving a trail.
At least neither Sylvia nor Mei was vulnerable to that kind of mental attack. Whatever scheme was at work, it wouldn't catch both of them without either noticing.
"Tch. I knew Sampo was up to no good. He's dragged every kind of nonsense toward me."
Mei laughed. Sampo was still helping with the auction, after all. If people tried to kill him every day, he wouldn't get any work done.
"Fine, whatever. Sparkle vanishes all day and never tells anyone what she's doing, but at least Sampo's a little more reliable."
Sylvia sighed and walked with Mei toward Yukong and the others.
--+--
"Bailu? You really came. And... who's this?"
"I'm Yunli, from the Xianzhou Zhuming. I came to ask you for guidance in swordsmanship."
Yunli crouched barefoot on the sofa with both hands gripping the backrest. She stared at Sylvia with such bright intensity that she looked ready to pounce at any second.
Bailu, meanwhile, held a fork in one hand and stuffed herself with cake. She only spared enough time to lift her other hand and wave twice at Sylvia.
As for how Bailu had made it here, Sylvia decided not to think too hard about it. Jing Yuan had probably arranged something again.
Bailu soon noticed Mei. With her cheeks still puffed full of cake, she hurried over and offered to examine her for free.
Mei didn't mind. She sat calmly in front of Bailu and held out her wrist, while Sylvia glanced over once and left them to it.
That left the young girl named Yunli. Her lips were pressed into a tiny W as she watched Sylvia with open expectation, while Sylvia studied her in return.
So this was the style of the Xianzhou Zhuming: a short top that was almost a vest, a short skirt, bare feet, and a striking headdress. The details were different, but the outfit reminded Sylvia of something from an old historical drama with a far-western flair.
Was the Zhuming so hot because it specialized in forging?
"Swordsmanship? Why did you decide to ask me? Aren't there enough sword users on the Xianzhou for you to challenge?"
"Because you defeated Phantylia! And Grandpa—I mean, the general of the Zhuming said you're good with a greatsword, just like me!"
Yunli's eyes went wide and seemed to shine. If she'd had a tail, it would've been spinning like a propeller.
"Uh... Sure. We can try it if you really want."
Sylvia couldn't bring herself to admit that she'd learned most of her swordsmanship in a hurry. In most fights, she relied on hitting hard enough that technique stopped mattering.
The moment Yunli heard her agree, she pushed off the back of the sofa and sprang down in front of her. Her skirt fluttered with the jump, and Sylvia politely shifted her gaze away.
Clang—!
Yunli pulled out something huge, black, and heavy enough to look like a slab of iron.
"Whoa—now that's the Heavy Xuan Ruler!"
Sylvia stared in shock. The broad, door-like blade, the hilt, even the apparent weight—it looked exactly the same.
"What Heavy Xuan Ruler? This is a sword—" Yunli started to protest, but her eyes dropped to the blade. Her attitude changed at once. "Hmm. You like that name? Fine. Once Old Mettle's fully forged, maybe I'll use it as a nickname."
"Heh~"
Sylvia laughed. At this rate, Yunli might as well rename herself Xiao Yan too.
Yunli didn't know why Sylvia was laughing and assumed she'd found it strange that she talked to her sword. She pursed her lips, then settled into a fighting stance.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL