The black cat jumped anxiously in its seat. "Why don’t you help her fight?!"
Lightchaser’s curved lips flattened at the question. Her tone beca calm but solemn. "Because GodDraw77 has to win it on her own."
"But didn’t she let you help her intercept Maple Syrup and the others before?"
"That was different." Lightchaser’s gaze softened as she looked at her apprentice sprinting down the corridor with a dagger in her mouth. Her voice grew quiet. "Back then, she wasn’t helpless—she was just racing against ti. But the path to the final victory is one she must walk herself.
"This is respect. For herself, and for . She doesn’t need that kind of help, and I don’t need that kind of pity. Whether she wins GodDraw77 or not, this—right now—is already perfect."
"But it feels like this match really matters to her," Blood Elf said suddenly. "If you never draw the Red Dragon she needs... won’t that affect your relationship?"
"It won’t," Lightchaser replied lightly, her tone almost cheerful, without a trace of doubt. "She handed the part she couldn’t control. Whether I draw the right tile or not depends entirely on whether she wins her battles.
"How far she goes—has always been in her own hands."
...
Rita, dagger still between her teeth, rushed back into the corridor. She didn’t bother opening the new weapon chest; her dagger was enough.
She was about to use the second skill unlock she’d earned after the double kill in the snowy corridor when she suddenly felt heat on the back of her right hand. Wrathful Moon was calling her.
She stopped in her tracks, eyes fixed on the armored Level 28 guardian slowly advancing toward her.
She waited one... two seconds—but no more prompts ca.
So that was all Wrathful Moon could do?
Was it trying to tell her to unlock one of its skills to break the current stalemate?
Temporal Stroll, Dark Side of the Moon, No Sleep Tonight—those could be ruled out imdiately.
Nebula Bubble? That one could work. No cooldown, no cost, absorbs damage. It had always been her backup plan.
But if that were the answer, Wrathful Moon wouldn’t have reached out to her like this.
She started running again and unlocked her fifth skill—Wrathful Moon.
The mont the skill activated, the antique lantern materialized beside her, floating by her head as she ran. The lamp swung gently, and the glowing moon inside rolled with the motion.
"I want to hear a fairy tale," it said—the first words it spoke in her mind after being unsealed.
Rita clenched the dagger tighter between her teeth and muttered through her muffled mouth, "You’ve got to be kidding —do I look free enough to tell you a fairy tale right now?"
"I want to hear a fairy tale," it repeated.
[Alert: Nuclear Flash NightFury tile has been played.]
Two ters away, the ironclad guardian lood closer. Rita lowered her head and let the dagger fall from her mouth.
Wrathful Moon wasn’t just a relic—it was her divine companion, the artifact that had followed her through every battle of the BlueStar War.
When she refused, again and again, to choose between becoming BlueStar’s ruler or its savior, she’d realized just how well she resonated with Wrathful Moon—perhaps just as deeply as with Cat’s Ideal.
And Wrathful Moon never joked at a ti like this.
What kind of skill could truly help her now? Fighting? Healing? Ti reversal? None of those.
The only thing that could help her now was sothing connected to the next tile draw. Ti was running out, and so were her chances.
When Wrathful Moon asked for a fairy tale again, Rita finally understood what it ant—and what it could do.
Could a fairy tale alter reality?
A fairy tale, the most extraordinary form of storytelling, didn’t require logic. It needed exaggeration, wonder, magic, and a winding path.
Rita’s heartbeat quickened.
What kind of fairy tale could match this mont?
Lightchaser’s story? That one was legendary—radiant, tragic, unforgettable. She could tell of Lightchaser’s youth, her triumphs and regrets, how a fairy by a lakeside bridge found a holess child, and how now her apprentice was trying to complete what her teacher once couldn’t. It could end with a winning hand—the perfect fairy-tale ending.
But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
She knew countless eyes were watching her right now. Even though her double activation of GodDraw77 had already drawn the world’s attention, and even though people would inevitably dig into everything about her and Lightchaser—including that mont known as the Lightchaser Ti—she still refused to expose her teacher’s scars to the world.
Lightchaser didn’t need pity. She deserved to be admired.
So she’d tell another story instead.
Rita leaped forward and kicked at her enemy.
"Once upon a ti, so bored gods decided to play a ga.
"They found a group of unlucky souls, shuffled their fates like a deck of cards, sealed them in envelopes, stamped them, and dropped them into a mailbox called Arisentna.
"Over the following years, each envelope would be collected by its assigned postman, traveling the path written by destiny until it reached its final address.
"One of those letters fell beneath the bridge at Caladom Lake, where it was picked up by a fairy postwoman nad Lightchaser."
The Lightchaser sprite sat with her arms crossed, leaning back against the wall of tiles, watching the corridor intently.
The audience fell utterly silent. For the first ti since the match began, no one spoke.
Even Arisentna itself, whose systems were near collapse from the GodDraw77 match, seed to hold its breath.
The entire world went quiet, listening to the fairy tale.
The clever ones recognized the hidden aning in her words. The slower ones at least understood that the apprentice was telling a story about herself and Lightchaser. Even the rowdy little ones in the audience stopped talking, drawn in by the tale.
That was the power of fairy tales—children listened for the story, adults listened for the truth beneath the beauty.
Maple Syrup, Pine Bloom, and Mistblade all burst into action, speeding up their kills. They knew BS-Rita would never indulge in sothing sentintal at such a crucial mont. It had to be a skill—so secret effect she was triggering.
The best counterplay was to finish their kills fast, leave the corridor, and spam lds and calls at the mahjong table to trigger another random event.
[Alert: Verdant Windrush Joker tile has awakened.]
The story continued.
"The fairy postwoman didn’t have a great temper, but her life was full of color. That letter fate forced upon her was a nuisance. She carried it carelessly through wind and rain, never even bothering to keep it safe.
"Year after year, she traveled from the lakeside bridge to Asaein, across the Moonlight Marsh and Grayvale, until she reached the Golden Hills—where she lost the letter."
Rita rolled across the ground to dodge the massive blade that ca crashing down.
The antique lantern swung beside her, the moon inside glowing playfully, as if asking, "And then what happened?"
"Then," Rita said breathlessly, "for the first ti, the postwoman who never stopped for anyone or anything put everything else aside to search for that lost letter.
"She traded her Moonlight Crown for a small boat, gathered her friends, and sailed far, far away. She hated boredom more than anything, but after enduring endless, colorless days, she finally found that letter again.
"The stamp was gone. The envelope too. All she found was a torn, battered piece of paper—that was what the letter had always been.
"She sighed. She’d been tricked. The letter wasn’t precious at all, not like she’d imagined.
"But still... she carried it ho, carefully, as if it were the most important thing in the world."
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