The midday sun beat down on the floating peaks of Radiant Dawn Academy, but over Solitude Spire, the heat felt like a warm, freshly laundered blanket.
Down in the terrace garden, the vegetables were thriving.
Rows of plump emerald cabbages, golden carrots, and fat purple melons drank in the radiant solar bath.
At the center of the patch, the five-star Sun-Lotus Cabbage spread its translucent leaves like polished jade plates.
Deep inside its core, a miniature ball of golden light pulsed with a slow, rhythmic beat.
Every time it pulsed, a wave of sweet, concentrated Yang aroma rolled across the grass.
It smelled like toasted hazelnuts, wild mountain honey, and sunshine baked into fresh bread.
Beside the cabbage patch, Lord Nether-Bane was working up a quiet, terrified sweat.
The ancient Ghost King was down on his skeletal knees in the damp dirt, wearing his stained hemp gardening apron with somber dignity.
In his bony right hand, he held a small, slightly rusted iron trowel.
With surgical care, he loosened the dark loam around a stray weed, teasing out the roots without disturbing a single hair of the divine cabbage.
Behind him, two spectral corsairs floated two inches off the turf.
They wore matching mini-aprons stitched from burlap sacks, carrying a woven reed basket between them to catch every scrap of pulled weed.
Whenever the iron trowel gave a tiny scrape against a buried pebble, Lord Nether-Bane froze like a hunted rabbit.
His hollow eye sockets flicked toward the covered timber porch.
His jaw rattled with quiet panic until he was certain the master had not stirred.
"Gently, you cursed deckhands," the Ghost King hissed through his teeth. "Step on the air, not the grass. If your mist blights so much as a single sun-vein on this sacred vegetable, I will personally dissolve your souls in vinegar."
"Understood, Captain," the first corsair whispered back, clutching the basket with trembling fingers. "Truly, this garden is terrifying. Even the radishes carry enough celestial Yang essence to vaporize a lesser wraith."
"Silence, fool," Lord Nether-Bane muttered, delicately patting down a clump of dark earth. "This is not merely a garden. This is the Sovereign’s private divine apothecary. We are blessed beyond measure to shovel its manure."
Up on the cedar porch, Felix Vance shifted lazily in his deep wicker recliner.
He wore his loose gray tunic, faded trousers, and a pair of worn straw slippers that hung loosely from his dangling toes.
On the small timber side table to his right, the white porcelain Infinite Cozy Teacup sent up a steady, fragrant curl of steam.
Thanks to its internal thermodynamic lock, the golden tea remained fixed at precisely sixty-eight point five degrees Celsius.
Not a fraction hotter. Not a fraction colder.
Underneath the short left front leg of the tea table, Grandmaster Vivienne’s purple Sovereign Heart Seal held the wood perfectly level against the porch planks.
On the tabletop, Felix’s scribbled drop-rate notes stayed firmly anchored beneath the fist-sized, softly glowing Soul-Pearl that the Ghost King had surrendered.
A few feet away, on the porch railing beam, Barnaby the clockwork owl stood at rigid attention.
The plump brass automaton had his metallic wings pinned tight against his polished chest.
Jammed tightly between his brass mandibles was the heavy black rubber stopper, clamped hard over the polished copper tip.
Ever since Felix had upgraded him from the old wooden wine cork, Barnaby hadn't been able to screech a single word of high-toned imperial poetry at the break of dawn.
Instead, his internal gears produced a faint, steady rhythm:
*Tick... tick... tick...*
The sound was soothing, like an antique mantle clock ticking in a quiet study.
A few yards out in the clover meadow, the Thunder Gryphon lay flat on its side in the tall grass.
The massive golden beast was snoring softly, its feathered chest rising and falling in rhythmic peace.
Every four or five breaths, a harmless little violet ring of ozone popped from its beak, dissolving into the breeze before it could float twenty feet.
Felix reached out with a sleepy hand, picked up the white teacup, and took a slow sip.
The warm, nutty flavor washed across his tongue.
"Ah," Felix sighed, resting his head back against the cushion. "Peak comfort. Nothing to farm, nothing to grind, and the bots are doing the yard work."
He set the teacup down and glanced toward the garden.
The cabbage was glowing so brightly it cast faint emerald reflections against the timber eaves.
"Look at that thing," Felix mumbled. "Devs went wild with the bloom effects on these high-tier seeds. It looks like a neon casino sign. Hope it doesn't attract bugs."
【Target: Blooming Sun-Lotus Cabbage (5-Star Divine Crop)】 【Aroma Radius: 45 Leagues (High Yang Density Concentration)】 【Attraction Index: 98% (Extreme Pheromone Pull on Deep Abyss Fauna)】 【Inspector Note: Highly fragrant vegetable producing celestial sweetness. Beautiful to behold, but strongly advises maintaining perimeter automated pest defenses.】
Lyra Ashford sat on the porch steps, polishing the silver blade of her rapier with a soft cloth.
She paused, lifting her chin to breathe in the heavy fragrance drifting from the terrace.
The concentrated Yang essence felt like warm liquid gold slipping into her spiritual meridians.
Her core spun with effortless harmony, cleansing away lingering impurities.
*Senior Brother’s cultivation realm is truly beyond mortal reckoning,* Lyra thought, her chest swelling with reverence.
*He does not merely grow food. He weaves celestial constellations into the soil. That single cabbage holds enough concentrated solar divinity to buy an entire imperial province.*
*Yet he lets the former terror of the northern abyss tend it like a common turnip.*
*This is the true Dao of detachment. What emperors fight bloody wars to possess, Senior Brother treats as casual afternoon snacks.*
Lyra glanced back at Felix, whose eyes were already half-closed beneath the brim of his straw hat.
"Senior Brother," Lyra said softly, keeping her voice low. "The scent of the solar harvest has spread across three valleys. The ambient Yang energy is so dense that even wild sparrows in the pine trees are shedding mortal feathers."
Felix didn't open his eyes.
"It's just cabbage, Lyra," Felix murmured. "Smells like soup. If the birds want to drop free feathers for crafting materials, that's fine by me."
Lyra bowed her head, smiling with profound understanding.
*Crafting materials,* she mused. *He speaks of divine transmutation as though it were simple tailoring.*
Meanwhile, three thousand feet below Solitude Spire, the tranquil atmosphere ended abruptly.
Beneath the middle cloud deck lay the Lower Strata: the Cloud Abyss.
It was a boundless, sunless sea of churned purple fog, howling winds, and forgotten ancient rifts.
In the deepest trenches, things crawled that had never seen the warmth of the sun.
Creatures born of pure negative Yin and abyssal frost nested in the fissures of floating reefs.
Among them was an ancient scourge of the eastern skies.
The Abyssal Shadow Locusts.
Individually, a shadow locust was the size of a hunting eagle.
Its carapace was forged of jagged obsidian chitin that drank in light, leaving only a shimmering silhouette.
Its six serrated scythe-legs could shear through high-grade cold iron like parchment.
Its compound eyes burned with a sickly, famished crimson hue, driven by a mindless hunger that had consumed three mortal kingdoms during the Second Epoch.
For seven hundred years, the swarm had hibernated in the deep frozen canyons of the abyss, curled around barren stone pillars.
They needed pure Yang energy to break their long slumber.
Under normal circumstances, the drifting clouds kept the lower void chilled and dead.
But today, plunging through the sea of mist like a golden pillar of warm honey, drifted the scent of the Sun-Lotus Cabbage.
The concentrated solar aroma descended into the dark rift.
It touched the frozen carapaces of the slumbering swarm.
*Scritch...*
A single obsidian leg twitched against cold basalt.
*Scritch-scritch-click.*
A crimson compound eye flickered to life in the darkness.
Then another.
Then a thousand.
Then ten thousand.
The bottom of the abyss began to boil.
The scent of the solar crops was an evolutionary trigger.
A single bite of that five-star Yang vegetable could warm their frozen marrow and let their brood queen break her ancient chains.
A low, vibrating drone rose from the depths.
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.*
It sounded like a million rusty iron saws chewing through timber.
The purple clouds at the bottom of the gorge churned into a massive, spinning whirlpool.
Ten thousand pairs of obsidian wings caught the rising thermal drafts.
From the dark depths, a black geyser erupted.
It rose like a towering tornado of living shadow, climbing straight toward the upper skybox.
Ten thousand Abyssal Shadow Locusts surged upward, riding the scent of the solar harvest.
Their razor mandibles clicked in famished fury:
*CLICK-CLICK-CLACK! CLICK-CLICK-CLACK!*
The sky below Solitude Spire vanished beneath a suffocating blanket of darkness.
Over at the outer watchtower of the Fifth Spire, two academy sentries were leaning against the stone parapet.
"Quiet day," the first sentry said, adjusting his leather armor. "Ever since the Seventh Spire blew up the Imperial dreadnoughts, nobody has dared fly near this archipelago."
Right then, the stone tower beneath their boots gave a violent, shuddering jerk.
*RUMBLE.*
The brass alarm pendulum in the ceiling swung wildly, striking the perimeter gong:
*CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!*
"What in the heavens?!" the first sentry yelped.
He rushed to the edge of the parapet and peered down through his brass spyglass into the cloud gorge.
His face turned the color of chalk.
"The abyss..." the sentry stammered. "The abyss is vomiting shadows!"
Through the lens, he saw the black cloud tearing through the lower clouds at horrifying speed.
It was a screeching wall of obsidian wings and crimson eyes, devouring the morning light as it climbed.
"Shadow Locusts!" the second sentry screamed, his voice cracking into sheer panic. "The ancient migration has awakened!"
"Sound the Great Horn!" the first sentry roared, scrambling toward the war station. "Sound the Calamity Klaxon across all spires! A swarm of ten thousand! If they breach the middle strata, the academy will be stripped to bone!"
*HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-WAAAAAAAH!*
Across the floating islands of Radiant Dawn Academy, the deep wail of the bronze calamity horn shattered the quiet morning.
Disciples poured out of dormitories in wild confusion.
Flying swords shot into the air as instructors barked desperate evacuation orders.
Protective barriers crackled to life over the Blade Spire and the Alchemical Crucible, throwing up glowing blue domes of emergency warding.
High above the chaos, Solitude Spire remained completely still.
Lyra Ashford stood abruptly from the porch steps, her silver rapier clearing its scabbard with a sharp hiss:
*SHING.*
She leaped onto the top rail of the porch balustrade, her noble robes snapping in the sudden, violent draft sweeping up from the gorge.
She looked over the edge.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Rising from the sea of clouds was a roiling black tsunami.
Ten thousand ravenous shadow beasts, their wings creating a high-pitched sonic shriek that made the heavy mithril suspension chains groan.
*SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!*
The swarm wasn't heading for the main academy islands.
It had locked onto the honeyed solar scent wafting from the Seventh Spire.
They were flying straight toward the Sun-Lotus Cabbage.
Down in the garden, Lord Nether-Bane dropped his rusty trowel into the dirt.
The Ghost King looked up at the ascending swarm, his skeletal jaw trembling until his teeth clacked.
"The Abyssal Swarm..." the Ghost King whimpered, clutching his hemp apron with both bony hands. "The ancient defilers... they smell the cabbage! They have come to rob the Sovereign's salad!"
Behind him, the two spectral corsairs dropped their weed basket and dove headfirst under a wheelbarrow, shivering in panic.
The Thunder Gryphon in the clover meadow opened one golden eye, saw the black cloud rising over the cliff, let out an annoyed huff, and tucked its head back under its wing.
Lyra felt her blood run cold.
Ten thousand shadow locusts were climbing the cliff face, their hunger focused entirely on their small mountain peak.
"Senior Brother!" Lyra cried, her silver sword blazing with astral Qi. "The abyss has broken open! Ten thousand Abyssal Shadow Locusts are ascending! They seek to devour the sacred harvest!"
On the porch recliner, Felix Vance slowly opened one eye.
He looked past his dangling straw slippers.
The sky over the canyon had turned a murky, ugly shade of dark purple, filled with an obnoxious buzzing that sounded like a broken weed whacker.
Felix frowned, picking up his warm teacup and taking another calm sip.
"Man," Felix sighed, his voice completely deadpan. "I knew that cabbage bloom effect was going to attract bugs. Why is it always bugs when you're trying to take a nap?"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the smooth obsidian slate of his AetherDeck.
"Time to see what the patch notes say about pest control."