Hyperion Approaches

The small vehicle wound its way along the winding mountain highway of the Knox Mountains. Hyperion gazed quietly out the window. She noticed that whenever the road seemed to reach a dead end, a traffic sign would always appear at the roadside: "Curve Ahead" or "Sharp Turn Ahead." And after rounding each bend, the view ahead would inevitably open up, bright and full of new vistas. "The mountain path winds, but around every peak, a new way appears," Hyperion murmured softly to herself, now clad in a disguise. The large words *Curve Ahead* struck her eyes again and again, much like how Lanqi had once knocked open the door to her heart. It turned out the road hadn't reached an end at all; it was just time to tap the brakes and slow down. Whenever she felt backed into a corner, Lanqi would appear like a hero and tell her that the sky hadn't fallen—an opportunity had arrived. "Hyperion, you're thinking about Lanqi again, aren't you?" Beside her, Antanas suddenly poked Hyperion. "N-No, I'm not," Hyperion stammered, snapping back to her senses and shaking her head. "..." Antanas sighed with a helpless smile and said nothing more. Everything was written plainly in Hyperion's eyes. She was simply shy by nature and reluctant to admit it. By now, they had arrived at the border of the Creti Empire. Aside from Hyperion herself, in order to make it easier for them to protect her along the journey, Florence had done her utmost to arrange identities for the four great demons. At the border, it hardly mattered—if the four of them wished to keep a low profile and conceal themselves, no one could detect them. Only when infiltrating a core city like Brierda would the great demons all need to turn into magic cards to slip past the excessively dense detection grids. Antanas followed Hyperion's dazed gaze and looked out the window once more. The Creti Empire lay south of the Hutton Kingdom. Here in the north sat a city named Glen Waverley, one of the most bustling major cities in the northernmost eastern border territory. Whenever autumn arrived, this city would show off its unique charm through its natural scenery and rich culture, drawing an endless stream of visitors. To the north, Glen Waverley was encircled by majestic mountain ranges that rolled endlessly into the clouds like a natural barrier, separating the city-state from the northern Knox Mountains. The city's upper pylon tiers were suspended across several crisscrossing peaks, its architecture predominantly built in a classical style of dark gray or pure white. Stone arch bridges spanned the chasms between peaks, linking the structures into a magnificent, imposing whole. "Hyperion, have you been here before?" Sinora seemed to read Hyperion's expression. Observing her face, she asked. "I visited when I was little. You can take a boat here straight from South Vantina," Hyperion nodded. To the east lay an endless ocean. Waves crashed against the shoreline reefs with rumbling roars. During peak season, merchant vessels crowded the docks in an endless flow, their sails snapping in the sea breeze as seagulls circled the masts with ceaseless cries. Now, however, situated near the front lines of the eastern war zone, Glen Waverley had become a heavily fortified stronghold strictly guarded by the imperial military. "I heard Lord Noe's Wilfort Chamber of Commerce was originally based right here in Glen Waverley," Antanas remarked with a sigh. Compared to Glen Waverley, the Hutton Kingdom felt rather distant. The vast Knox Mountains stretched between the two nations, hindering communication and travel. Even transporting large shipments of goods from Hutton's southern border to Creti's northern border required a detour to the east, using maritime routes and cargo ships, which undeniably drove up both the cost and difficulty of transit. Yet it was precisely this isolated geography that endowed Glen Waverley with a unique commercial advantage. Like a dazzling pearl, it was set into the northern frontier of the Creti Empire. The Wilfort family had made their fortune from this very foundation. Even in wartime, they possessed specialized freight channels—reportedly left behind more than a decade ago by a mysterious merchant who had invested in the Wilfort Chamber of Commerce and helped them establish a covert route running between the Hutton Kingdom and the Creti Empire. This secret was one that the family head, Noe Wilfort, had never even shared with Lanqi, as it was meant to protect the chamber's benefactor and was never to be revealed to anyone other than the head of the house. Apart from Noe, only Butler Hans, left behind by that mysterious merchant, knew of it. Only recently, when the Wilfort Chamber of Commerce fell on hard times, had Butler Hans mentioned those past days during a casual chat with Pranay. Sitting on the other side of Hyperion, Sinora's eyelid twitched slightly at the words. She had heard that Lanqi had started out as quite the wealthy heir. Through Lanqi's "unremitting" efforts, he had now successfully brought the Wilfort family to the brink of bankruptcy. "It's fine. There's no need to worry about money. All my money can be spent on him," Hyperion promised generously. "Once the war is over, if the Wilfort Chamber of Commerce wants to resume business, my ducal house will invest in the Wilfort company." "Rich lady, don't abandon us when you become a duchess," Antanas said, hugging Hyperion's slender arm as she looked at her with an imploring expression at Hyperion's confident posture. "Don't forget your two good friends," Sinora added, tilting her head to lean against her as well. "You can stay at the ducal manor for as long as you want!" Flustered, Hyperion embraced them on both sides. Having brought Antanas and Sinora to play at the ducal manor so often, she now felt that she might not even be used to living there alone in the future. As they chatted, the vehicle gradually approached a checkpoint guarded by the 3rd Division of the Creti Empire's 7th Border Defense Army. As the vehicle slowed to a halt for inspection, imperial soldiers immediately stepped forward to question them. The man in the driver's seat rolled down the window and presented an officer with a document bearing the bright-red seal of the "Turbulent Times Chamber of Commerce" from the northwestern Nixassend territory. "We are trade representatives from a northwestern border commerce guild. We have finished taking final inventory of our trade goods on the eastern coast and are now heading to the imperial capital to negotiate an acquisition with a firm there." He looked refined and cultured, his tone calm and courteous. The soldier scrutinized the paperwork thoroughly, then ordered the passengers out of the car for inspection. A full search of the vehicle followed. A moment later: "Is everything in order, Officer?" Pranay asked respectfully. "You will still need to remain here for twenty-four hours to refile your declaration and have your security details verified against provincial records before you may pass." Once the search concluded, the soldier led Pranay to a nearby guard post and handed him several forms to fill out again. Inside the guard post, a young officer holding the rank of captain was reviewing documents. "Understood, Captain," Pranay agreed. Meanwhile, his sharp gaze flicked toward the officer, discerning that he might be a "suitable" target, and stepped toward him. Just as the captain looked up at Pranay with a puzzled expression, Pranay produced an exquisite cigarette case from his briefcase and offered it to him. "This is a specialty from our northwestern Nixassend territory. If you have ever been to the northwest, you will surely know we hail from there," Pranay said, lowering his voice half a register. The captain hesitated for a moment before accepting the cigarette case. The moment his fingers touched it, he knew the weight was off. It was too light. With one hand, the officer flicked open a corner of the case, catching sight of several thick rolls of large-denomination banknotes nestled inside. Smoothly and naturally, he snapped it shut. "Our chamber has always been deeply grateful for the military's sacrifices. Just a small pack of smokes—please accept it," Pranay said sincerely. The officer nodded in tacit understanding and slid the documents right out of Pranay's hands. "A fine merchant serving the realm, clearly. Working for the empire must not be delayed. Have a safe journey." The officer spoke in a crisp, businesslike tone, a hint of complicity flickering in his eyes. Pranay bowed to the officer, turned around, and calmly walked out of the guard post. Moments later, the car started up once more and rolled slowly past the checkpoint, heading toward the train station of the Glen Waverley city-state. "Pranay, how are you so good at this?" Inside the car, Antanas leaned forward from the back seat, asking with great intrigue. By all rights, their paperwork had no flaws, but they would likely have been held up for a long time and suffered unnecessary delays. With Pranay around, the journey had become far smoother. "It is quite simple. If one cannot even read the minds of ordinary humans, it would be impossible to understand Lanqi's inner thoughts," Pranay replied without looking back from the steering wheel. Possessing a special demon eye, he had easily discerned that the officer was someone who could be swayed by such means. If he lacked such capability, he would never have agreed to let Hyperion travel to the Creti Empire. Instead, he would have chosen the safest course to fulfill Lanqi's entrustment: keeping Hyperion safely protected in Ikerite. Of course, Lanqi was perpetually surrounded by danger and always insisted on playing on the razor's edge. For safety's sake, Pranay had been forced to learn to understand how Lanqi thought. "You really have changed a lot, Pranay. To think you've learned to observe humans so carefully instead of regarding them with purely clinical curiosity," the Great Snow Demoness remarked from the front passenger seat. Or rather, back on the Northern Continent, the mere fact that someone had managed to break Pranay out of the Herrom underground prison was already a miracle. "Living in human society doesn't feel so bad now. Isn't our survival as great demons simply a product of natural selection? Perhaps the few of us are the demons best suited to coexisting with mankind," Pranay mused, eyes on the road ahead. Having cleared the border and completed the procedures for transferring their posting to the imperial capital of Brierda, they were now en route to the train station. Pranay drove, while the Great Snow Demoness sat in the front passenger seat examining maps and newspapers. In the back row, Hyperion remained flanked in the middle, accompanied by Antanas on one side and Sinora on the other. Hyperion listened quietly to the conversation between Pranay and the Great Snow Demoness. In her eyes, Pranay and the Great Snow Demoness felt more like elders, whereas Antanas and Sinora felt like her peers. However, among long-lived species like demons, seniority by generation was rarely observed anyway; otherwise, things would degenerate into utter confusion—a demon whose generational rank was far junior to yours could easily be older than you in actual years. Thus, the first rule of interacting with long-lived species was to discard standard human concepts of generational hierarchy and interact naturally. Logically speaking, being surrounded by four great demons should have been terrifying. A year ago, before she had experienced Purgatory Corridor Academy, she would have broken down in tears of fright. Yet now, these great demons felt more like her family cheering section. "Teacher, how is the war on the front line going?" Hyperion couldn't help but ask. She worried about it every day. She was even terrified that Lanqi might be on the southern front lines of the Kingdom of Posen. The last time Lanqi had contacted her, he had said he would be joining the military and going out of contact for a while. Of course, according to Pranay's guess, Lanqi joining the military might well mean enlisting on the opposing side. Still, Hyperion couldn't stop worrying about him. "The battle out west over a major strategic energy node was nearing a fever pitch, but then the Tenth War God, Rubellite Throne, blew it all away with a single cannon shot. That might end up writing an entire extra history textbook," the Great Snow Demoness said, shaking her head. "Still, all of that is within tolerable bounds—something both sides can begrudgingly accept." At this point, her expression grew far graver. "..." Without needing the Great Snow Demoness to elaborate, Hyperion followed her gaze down to the newspaper in her hands and spotted the massive latent threat looming over the empire. In early October, the outbreak of all-out war across the Southern Continent prompted the imperial military to quickly turn its attention toward the potential of mana fission weaponry. In Brierda, the Creti Empire's magic engineer Landry Washington had conducted mana bombardment experiments demonstrating the fission phenomenon of magic cards—objects caught between matter and mana constructs. They observed that magic cards split into lighter age-of-gods elements, sharing the same origin as natural magic cards from the Shadow World—or rather, a fundamental essence of the shadow-woven realm. This discovery revealed the viability of mana fission. He had explained the phenomenon at St. Creti Monastery, coined the term "mana fission," and calculated estimates of the immense energy released during the fission process. Spies from the United Council of Kingdoms operating within the Creti Empire quickly relayed reports back to the allied nations. Initially, the various kingdoms had not paid much heed to this research. Immediately afterward, magic engineers including Bohrao and Alex Walsen sent a joint letter to Rosemont, Speaker of the United Council of Kingdoms in the Western Hub Zone, warning that the Creti Empire might be developing an extremely dangerous weapon of mass destruction. This drastically spurred the Allied Council into taking the research seriously. In the Kingdom of Canbera, magic engineers commenced preliminary mana fission research. Magic engineers including Alex Walsen, Quentin Hayes, and others carried out crucial experimental work at Western Hub University and Sloveni University. "Fortunately, the Allied spies are exceptionally reliable, always managing to obtain the empire's core research findings in short order. According to our current intelligence, progress on the Creti Empire's side remains very sluggish. There seem to be serious internal disagreements, and the cake is so large that they cannot settle on who should lead the project," the Great Snow Demoness explained, turning the newspaper page. ...until her eyes landed on a photograph. There, outside the administrative building of the Imperial Special Operations Department, several secret service officers warmly received a young imperial professor clad in a gray trench coat. Their colluding, domineering smugness seemed written all over the ceremonial banner that read: *Loyalty and Valor Foremost, Iron and Blood Defend the Nation.* And he stood proud, his back straight as a ramrod, giving a hearty thumbs-up. "This imperial lapdog..." Hyperion's teeth ground in irritation. Anyone in that picture might have been harboring hidden motives, but this professor—his warlord aura didn't look like an act at all!