Chapter 5: Going towards heaven

The sky above Tengu City seemed to tear open. The DEM ship sent no warnings, no surrender messages. 

He simply deployed his cargo.

Dozens of Bandersnatch units—autonomous combat robots equipped with Realizers—descended like metallic meteorites. 

But among them, one figure stood out: a woman with platinum blonde hair, enveloped in a state-of-the-art CR unit that emitted an aura of absolute coldness.

—Target confirmed: "Empress"—Ellen Mira Mathers' voice crackled through the communicators, icy and precise—. Threat level: S. Proceeding with capture. Use of lethal force authorized if recovery becomes complicated.

Shido felt the pressure in the air increasing until it became unbearable.

"Shido! Get out of there!" Kotori shouted through the earpiece. "Ellen isn't like the AST, she won't hesitate to erase you along with the Spirit!"

Li Wei, however, did not back down. On the contrary, he stepped forward, placing himself between Shido and the rain of machines falling from the sky.

—“Lethal Force”? “Recovery”? —Li Wei closed his fan with a sharp swish that generated a shockwave of red fire—. What curious terms these metal creatures use.

Internally, Lin Wei was curious about why this woman acted with more confidence than the previous girls. Outwardly, she just looked at the new girl with the disdain one might show at a slightly larger insect.

In her view, if all you used was poorly refined Qi, you were from the Lower Realms. Moreover, her method of using it was still artificial and inferior.

"Shido," the Empress said without looking at him, "do you see that woman leading the swarm? She has a rather solid amount of power for her kingdom... It's a pity that her strength, in my eyes, is as dull as her face."

Ellen stopped in mid-air, about fifty meters away. Her eyes narrowed as she saw Li Wei's spectral "maidens."

—AST mages transformed into quasi-spirits... a post-mortem organic matter manipulation ability. Efficient, but grotesque—Ellen commented, raising her lightsaber, Caledfwlch.

"It's grotesque to fly so inefficiently using those toys!" roared the Empress. "Hónglián Fēngshàn: Third Form - Fan of Solar Devastation!"

Li Wei unfurled the fan and, with a circular motion, traced an arc in the air. No fire emerged, but rather a distortion of heat so intense that the oxygen in the area simply vanished.

The Bandersnatch units that entered that arc did not explode; they melted instantly, turning into drops of liquid metal that rained down on the crater.

"What?!" Ellen exclaimed, somewhat agitated, activating her defenses to the maximum. "That energy surge doesn't make sense! There was no prior fluctuation!"

On the Fraxinus, the technicians were shouting.

"The temperature at the epicenter has risen to 3,000 degrees in milliseconds!" Mikimoto reported. "Shido's shield is at its limit! Kotori-sama, if Empress keeps this up, she'll accidentally incinerate Shido!"

Li Wei realized the danger. His "area damage" was too much for the poor man "Lían" had taken an interest in.

"Damn it, I'm going to cook him!" With an agility that defied her own heels, Lian turned, grabbed Shido by the waist, and pulled him close to her body.

"Close your eyes, child," she commanded, as a giant crimson petal enveloped them both in a protective bubble. "This Empress does not allow her treasures to wither prematurely."

Shido found his face buried in the Empress's soft, perfumed, and enormous breasts. He was terrified, but also... strangely comfortable. The affection marker on the Fraxinus made an "error" noise while trying to process the data: 62%.

"Shido is... he's being embraced by disaster!" Kannazuki cried, weeping with emotion. "How enviable! What a glorious fate!"

Ellen, seeing that her units were useless, dove into the air.

—If I can't capture you with machines, I'll do it myself. Pendragon, full activation!

Ellen's sword flashed with a blinding white light, crashing into Lián's lotus barrier. The impact created a shockwave that shattered all the glass within a three-kilometer radius.

Lián withstood the blow with one hand, using the closed fan as a shield. Her golden eyes shone with a divine fury.

—You have gone too far, inferior cultivator—the Empress's voice dropped several octaves, becoming truly terrifying—. [Eternal Lotus Judgment].

Beneath Ellen's feet, the ground didn't explode... it became a giant lotus of energy that closed over her like a flytrap.

Amid the chaos, Li Wei thought, "Given the information I've gathered... if I win this, this woman's bosses will come after me with everything they've got. If I lose, I'll be an experiment for some government group or whatever they are. There's only one option... I have to escape with Shido."

"Shido!" she shouted through the din. "Tell me where your home is, or any place that will do! This Empress has decided that your affiliation will be my temporary refuge!"

Shido, still stunned by the overly intimate physical contact and the battle of gods above his head, could only point towards the sky.

—Up above...in the sky! There's a ship called Fraxinus...!

Sido wasn't sure if this was a good idea, but he took a leap of faith by giving her this information. On the other hand, Kotori's lips twitched.

"A spaceship in the sky? Well, I see you're not so primitive after all." Lián smiled, a smile that promised plenty of trouble for Kotori. "Phoenix Ascent!"

With a burst of fiery feathers, Li Wei propelled himself into the sky, carrying Shido like a princess, leaving behind a trapped Ellen and a damaged Tengu city.

♦♦♦♦

The ascent was a trail of crimson fire that sliced ​​through the clouds. Shido, his face buried in the Empress's sandalwood scent, felt as if his heart would burst. It wasn't just the fear of falling; it was the overwhelming presence of the woman supporting him.

On the Fraxinus bridge, the proximity alarm reached a shrill tone.

"The Spirit is approaching at incredible speed!" Mikimoto shouted. "Imminent impact on the secondary hangar!"

"Don't fire!" Kotori ordered, rising from her throne. "If we attack her now, she'll use our own ship as a projectile. Open the access doors to Hangar 3. If she wants to come in, we'll roll out the red carpet. We have no other choice if we want to get Shido back alive."

The hangar doors slid open with a dull metallic groan. Seconds later, an explosion of lotus petals flooded the pressurized compartment.

Lian landed with the lightness of a feather. Her silk heels barely made a sound as they touched the metal. Behind her, like a funeral procession of terrifying beauty, the twelve spectral maidens—the former AST mages—crossed the threshold, floating in absolute silence, their veils billowing without a breeze.

Lian lowered Shido with almost religious delicacy, making sure his feet touched the ground before letting go. However, she didn't move away. To Shido's horror and the mental agony of the Li Wei inhabiting that body, the Empress embraced him from behind, encircling his neck with her porcelain arms and resting her chin on the boy's shoulder.

"Damn it, let go! Let go right now!" Li Wei screamed in his subconscious. "I'm a twenty-one-year-old man hugging a high school boy in front of an entire crew! This is harassment, this is illegal, this is... extremely embarrassing!"

But her arms tightened, driven by the Jade Empress's possessive instinct.
"So this is what you were hiding in the void of the sky," Lian said, her voice echoing throughout the hangar with a mystical resonance. "A fortress of metal and crystal."

The hangar door opened, and Kotori Itsuka stepped in front of her security team, her black ribbons twitching, a lollipop clutched between her teeth to stifle a frustrated scream. Seeing her brother being used as a "pillow" by the Spirit, her eyes narrowed.

“Welcome to the Fraxinus,” Kotori said, trying to maintain her commander’s composure. “I’m Kotori Itsuka, in charge of this sector. I see you’ve taken many liberties with my ‘prime asset.’”
Lian scanned the room with a critical eye, ignoring Kotori’s hostility. She observed the holographic displays, the spiritual energy conduits, and the ship’s architecture.

“The style isn’t bad,” Lian remarked with condescending elegance. “It’s… rustic, compared to the Sky Warships back home, where jade and spirit merge without so many wires. But I appreciate the effort. At least it’s not as offensive to the eye as those toys they sent before.”

Shido, feeling Lian's warmth on his back, finally dared to speak.
"Your home? Lian... you come from another world? Weren't you born from a spacequake?"
Lian was silent for a moment, and for a second, the Empress's mask faltered, revealing a hint of Li Wei's confusion.

"My home... is very far from here, little Shido. So far, in fact, that even for a cultivator of the Supreme Realm, the journey would take an eternity."

Kotori exchanged a quick glance with Reine, who was already analyzing every word on her tablet. "Jade warships?" "Cultivators?" The enigma of "Empress" grew deeper with each passing second.

"If you're here," Kotori said, taking a step forward, "it's because you're looking for something. What does the Crimson Lotus Empress want from us?"

Lian smiled, a predatory smile that made Shido tremble.

"For now... I just want a place where this kid can keep his promise. He said he'd show me this world and give me... what did you call it? Kinako's Bread?" Lian tightened her embrace, gently pressing her ample breasts against Shido's back. "Consider me your honored guest. And I expect a welcome befitting my rank. If not... well, I can always redecorate this ship with my own flames if I feel like it."

—....- Shido swallowed; both from worry and from the wonderful softness against his body.

'Yes...enjoy, kid...' Li Wei gave up trying to control his avatar's impulses. It seems that when it comes to the most important aspects of his own role-playing, his will is completely ignored, beyond the automatic word filter.

Honestly, it was terrifying; but he was powerless. More importantly, the fact that his only discomfort with hugging a boy was that he didn't want to do it for anything other than the act itself made him quite nervous. 

He was sure that in the past, he wouldn't have even fraternized with the brothers in his dorm like this; not in a way that didn't make him feel gay...it seemed that this body was starting to affect his mind.

On the bridge, the affection counter remained stable at a dangerous 65%.