Lamp-Burning Realm

Refracted light ricocheted through the underground space for three full seconds.

Then it faded.

Inside the load-bearing structure, not a sound could be heard.

The three Fallen Beasts that had been charging with furious roars, along with the dozen or so mobbing the Action Team in the passage, froze in place. Then, like snowmen melting in the sun, they crumbled into ash from head to toe.

The Action Team members stood petrified, guns raised, fingers poised to fire.

"What are you standing around for?" The captain was the first to recover. "Seal the floodgate! Check for casualties!"

But Love was already gone.

A pink figure flashed down the passage, racing toward the densest cluster of crystals.

Wherever she passed, eerie green crystal lights burst one after another, as though someone had set off a string of pink firecrackers underground.

As she ran, she spoke in Knight's mind.

"Miss Knight, can you hear me?"

Onstage, the intro to the fifth song began. Knight held the microphone, her lashes trembling slightly.

"If you can hear me, blink—oh, right, you can't see me. Just listen, then."

"Leave everything down here to me. You focus on one thing—look."

Look?

Knight faltered for a moment.

"That's right. Look."

There was a smile in Love's voice. Behind it came faint, muffled thuds, like someone cracking nuts.

"Look at the eighty thousand people in front of you. Look at your comrades beneath your feet. Look at everything you always thought you were carrying on your shoulders—"

"What you've been carrying was never a burden, Miss Knight."

"It was the love everyone placed in your hands."

Look.

Knight held the microphone and sang the song she had practiced for three weeks. For the first time, she truly opened her eyes wide and looked out at the crowd.

She saw them.

Eighty thousand glow sticks rose and fell with her voice, like a gentle tide following her lead.

Eighty thousand people sang along, off-key and at the tops of their lungs, their faces flushed red. It wasn't really a song they were singing. With every breath, they were calling out: We're here. We're all right. Thank you for watching over us.

She saw her mother in the front row, holding her glow stick high. Tears streamed down her face, but her smile was dazzling.

The security guard beside her mother scanned the surroundings warily, yet every few seconds, he couldn't help glancing up at the stage. There was light in his eyes.

Over the comms, she heard Old Wei's voice, already hoarse, still directing everyone again and again.

Ranger had just sent a voice message. Fallen Beasts roared in the background, but excitement made her voice soar. "Reporting in! Love's here! We're saved, hahaha—"

She could feel that mighty Magic Power tearing through the underground passages. Crystals burst in quick succession, like someone lighting a string of fireworks in the deepest darkness to tell her they were safe.

So that was it.

Knight suddenly understood.

All these years, she had fixated on what she had failed to do: the Fallen Beast she hadn't stopped, the half a street she hadn't protected, the rank she hadn't reached, the unique ability she hadn't awakened.

She had treated the word "Knight" like a suit of armor, sealing herself inside it and telling herself: It's not enough. You're still far from good enough. You have no right to stop.

She had devoted herself so completely to protecting others that it had become an obsession.

An obsession that had blinded her—

She hadn't noticed Old Wei rewriting his reports over and over, afraid that one harsh word would make her blame herself. She hadn't noticed the water and candy citizens pressed into her hands on patrol, or that her mother had saved a screenshot of every news story about her. And she hadn't heard what that pink girl kept trying to tell her, time after time.

Protecting everyone had never been hers to do alone.

While she protected them, they had been protecting her in their own ways.

Love, it turned out, came full circle.

"Can you see it?" Love's voice suddenly sounded in her mind. The bursts in the background had grown sparse. "Not bad, right?"

Knight tilted her head back and kept singing. Tears spilled from her eyes without warning.

She didn't wipe them away.

With tears all over her face, she sang the final line of the fifth song, her voice steady and bright:

"—I see it."

She answered softly, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

"I see all of it."

"Attention, all units! Crystal readings are down to zero!"

In the command room, the monitor operator's voice cracked as he shouted, "I repeat, every Negative Emotion Crystal in the underground utility network has been cleared!"

On the third level underground, the last speck of eerie green light went out beneath a soft pink fist.

Love shook out her hand and looked around.

The passage was a wreck. The black mist was dispersing, and members of the Action Team slumped against the pipe walls. Some had started laughing dazedly; others buried their heads in their arms and sobbed.

Over the comms, Ranger's incoherent cheers mingled with Masked Heroine's laughter, unrestrained for once.

"All done." Love patted the dust off her skirt and nodded in satisfaction.

Then she stopped short.

She felt it.

Above her head.

Beyond thick layers of earth and reinforced concrete, something was awakening.

Warm and bright...

Love tipped her head back. The direction of the surface was reflected in her starry eyes, and she broke into a smile.

"Oh my."

"Someone's about to shine~"

Onstage, the final song.

The instant its last note faded, Knight stood quietly beneath the spotlight. She didn't bow or take her curtain call.

Because the light had come.

Not the stage lights.

Light was pouring from her own body.

"Wait, another abnormal Magic Power reading!"

The monitor operator's tense voice sounded over the comms again.

Before anyone could panic, excitement swept into his voice.

"No... it's not an enemy... it's Knight!"

Onstage.

Silver light rose from Knight's feet. At first it was no more than scattered firefly glimmers. Then it gathered into streams, into rivers, into a vast sea of light. No longer cold and forbidding, it surged outward in every direction, warm and keen.

Eighty thousand people held their breath at once.

They watched the figure at the heart of that sea of light change before their eyes. Her silver armor shed its old sheen piece by piece and reforged itself, its patterns growing more intricate and sacred. The sword-shaped badge shone more brightly than ever before.

In the command room, Old Wei sprang to his feet, knocking over his teacup.

"Magic Power on this scale..."

On the monitoring screen, the energy curve representing Knight shot straight up at an impossible angle—

It broke past the Firefly Rank's upper limit.

Then it settled, steady and sure, on the mark she had spent an entire year gazing toward.

"Lamp..." Old Wei's lips trembled. It took him a long moment to force out the rest. "Lamp-Lighting..."

"Lamp-Lighting Rank!! Knight—she's advanced!!!"

A deathly silence held the Stadium for five full seconds.

Then the roar hit, shaking the very ground.

Eighty thousand people leaped to their feet. Cheers, sobs, and screams tangled together, and the sea of glow sticks erupted. The live-stream comments came so fast the servers groaned under the strain.

[She advanced?! Right here onstage?!]

[Did I just witness history?!]

[Lamp-Lighting Rank! Our city has someone at Lamp-Lighting Rank!!]

At the center of the stage, Knight slowly opened her eyes.

Her tears had yet to dry. Her smile was radiant.

She looked down at the warm light in her palm, then raised her head toward the pitch-dark floor, through which she could see nothing.

She knew Love was watching.

"Thank you, Love."

This time, Knight did not use telepathy.

Before eighty thousand people and the cameras broadcasting across the city, she spoke clearly, one word at a time.

"And—"

"I did it."

Deep underground, Love heard her voice carry through the layers of earth. Her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

"Mm," she said softly. "You did it."

"Congratulations, Miss Knight."

"Welcome to the Lamp-Burning Realm."