Rewind to the hours before Crow visited Leo.

  Leo leaned against the wall behind his bunk.

  The Privy Council’s dungeon wasn't gloomy; it was aggressively, blindingly white.

  The walls were cast from seamless high-tensile polymer. The air circulation system hissed like a dying insect every thirty seconds. The whole cell felt like a giant petri dish waiting for a culture sample.

  Leo thumbed the bio-chip implanted beneath the skin of his chest—the activation key for "The Coffin." Once triggered, the escape pod would home in on his signal. Provided, of course, he wasn't caged inside a Faraday cage of a prison.

  Two days.

  The Inquisitors were like subroutines written by ancients, looping the same question in endless variations: What is the nature of your relationship with the Fire Keeper?

  Leo smirked at the blank wall.

  Idiots.

  They want to pry into the bedroom secrets of the elite but know nothing of criminal psychology. This is just a probe. That old witch Mora will fish me out soon. Not out of trust, but necessity—a reactor melts down without its Control Rod.

  Beep. The electronic lock disengaged. The searing plasma grid vanished.

  Crow walked in. He wasn't wearing his iconic black tactical gear. Dressed in nondescript gray coveralls, he looked like a utility maintenance worker.

  He leaned against the doorframe and activated a portable electromagnetic jammer, creating a cone of silence.

  "Our Guardian Highness seems to be adapting to prison life. You're an old hand at this."

  Leo didn't look up. "Tell Mora: if she wants me back, the price just went up."

  "Back? Price?" Crow looked down at him with cold amusement. "You think you can go back to being the Fire Keeper's servant?"

  "I am her Life Support System."

  "Stop flattering yourself. Don't you know you're just a disposable fuse?"

  Leo scoffed. "A servant is a blood bag, right? I know. But that's a problem for later. As long as your Fire Keeper needs me, I don't die today."

  "I admit, you know your tech. You were even cunning enough to buy a panic room. But do you really think you're the only thing cooling that reactor?"

  "Get to the point."

  "Faith." Crow tapped his temple. "It is Vivian's absolute, unshakable faith in her identity as a 'Fire Keeper' that allows her subconscious to leash that energy."

  "Mora gave me that lecture on day one. Are you here to teach a class on Psychoneuroimmunology?"

  Crow sighed. He pulled a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and tossed one to Leo.

  "Have you ever considered... whether your recent actions have strengthened that faith, or softened it?"

  Leo’s hand froze as he caught the cigarette.

  Crow’s voice suddenly sharpened into a snarl. "You actually enjoy this Guardian role, don't you? You are forcibly turning a Fire Keeper—a being of pure theological conviction—into a woman of flesh and blood. Do you realize what you are doing?"

  Crow stepped closer, his gaze stabbing into Leo.

  "Did Mora not tell you? Once she becomes a woman, she will burn herself and everything around her to ash."

  The cigarette in Leo's hand trembled. Crow had to steady Leo's hand to light it.

  "You fell for her? Fine. I see it... but you know there is no future there. So, the question is: do you want to burn with her, or run while you can?"

  Leo didn't take a drag. He watched the luxury tobacco from Earth burn down to ash.

  His rationality screamed that Crow was right. Vivian's faith was far more critical than his presence as a cooling rod.

  Love is a weakness. Weakness is a breach in the containment vessel.

  "You want me to... leave her?"

  It took ten minutes for Leo to speak. His voice sounded like he had swallowed sand.

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  "Too late. She's already too deep. Without you, she'll break. She might even declare war on the Silver Ring for you—God knows what chaos she'll unleash."

  Crow pointed to the ash on the floor.

  "The only way out is to use this opportunity to turn yourself into trash."

  "Trash?"

  "Yes. Tell the Privy Council you are a greedy, lecherous fraud. Tell them you exploited the Fire Keeper's kindness, deceived her with forbidden drugs and silver-tongued lies. If the Silver Ring convicts you as a scumbag, she should believe it." Crow’s logic was cold, surgical. "If she believes you are a Rat, she can discard you. And she can survive."

  Leo’s head buzzed. He felt like he was standing on a cliff edge. He stared at Crow. "Why tell me this? Is this Mora's idea? No. You have your own agenda. Did you orchestrate my arrest? Who are you?"

  Crow didn't answer. He looked past Leo, his gaze fixing on a distant point in time.

  "Years ago, in the uranium mines of Ceres, the sky was choked with black radioactive dust. No one stayed a second longer than necessary. But there was a woman with black eyes who insisted on staying. She wanted to paint the Uranium Blossoms."

  Crow looked into Leo's equally black eyes.

  "She said she wanted to capture the quietest Glazed Green in the universe. Originally, your life or death meant nothing to me. But you are her son. I cannot help but show you a path. The rest is irrelevant."

  Leo froze.

  The woman who painted death in brilliant colors.

  The mother who, in his memories, was always stained with paint.

  "You... how do you know her?"

  Crow didn't answer. He pulled up his mask. The airlock slid open, and he vanished into the light, leaving a final warning: "If you don't want to kill her and yourself, be the Rat."

  The door sealed. Silence reclaimed the room.

  Leo sat motionless. The Xeno-Limb Pain struck again—not in his leg, but in his chest.

  He saw his mother's face again, resolute as she stuffed him into the escape pod.

  But she didn't follow. She turned and ran back into the fire. In the end, neither of them made it out.

  If they hadn't loved each other, they wouldn't have died so stupidly. They wouldn't have left me alone in the cold dark.

  The absurdity of this universe: To love you, I must leave you.

  And I, Leo, believe in Science and Logic. Besides... I don't love that fanatic.

  An hour later, Leo arranged his face into a mask of extreme, sleazy philistinism and slammed the call button.

  "Guard! Get your boss down here!"

  His voice echoed down the corridor, manic with the energy of self-destruction.

  "I want to turn myself in! I confess! I confess everything!"

  ...

  The Privy Council arrived faster than expected.

  In less than fifteen minutes, the door slid open.

  It was the purple-robed Envoy again. Acting like he was entering a biohazard zone, he stood two meters away, flanked by a guard with a Gauss rifle.

  "You wish to confess?" The Envoy sneered. "Leo Lee, you should know that harboring a heretic is a felony not even the stake can cleanse."

  "Harboring? No, no, no, my Lord. You're making it sound too noble."

  Leo leaned back on the bunk, looking at them with a slacker's tilt of the head.

  "You know, creatures living in sterile environments have zero resistance to 'Pheromone-based Aphrodisiacs.' Combine that with a few flowery prayers, and she treated me like a god."

  The Envoy recoiled, face twisting in disgust. "You dared use such filth to blaspheme Her Highness... I knew you Lower City scum relied on dirty tricks!"

  "It's not blasphemy; it's Survival, get it? Ancient wisdom from the gutter. You high-born folks on the Tycho peaks wouldn't understand." Leo grinned, a perfect picture of sleaze. "That little girl... oh, pardon, 'Her Highness'... she was too easy. But hey, I only swindled money. Didn't touch the merchandise."

  "Vile! Despicable! Shameless! You heretic! You deserve to burn!"

  "Burn?" Leo spread his hands. "Come on. According to the Silver Code, fraud is a secular crime, not a theological one. Worst case, I dig mines for a few years. I'll hand over the illegal gains—though, full disclosure, I blew most of it on booze."

  The Envoy glared at Leo for a full minute.

  "What about your accomplices?" He jerked his chin. "What roles did Mora and Crow play?"

  "Them?" Leo sneered and spat on the floor. "That old witch? She's senile. Can't tell a man from a ghost. She actually wanted me to be a guard. And that bodyguard? He's just a killing machine. Brainless."

  The Envoy pressed, but Leo’s lies were a seamless loop. Facts and motives are two different things, after all.

  Finally, the Envoy turned to leave. "You will receive a merciless judgment."

  The moment the door closed, the grin sloughed off Leo’s face.

  The white plasma light pinned him against the wall like a specimen. The hiss of the air cycler roared in the silence.

  The Xeno-Limb Pain slammed into him... hard enough to make him curl into a ball.

  An hour later, the lock buzzed again.

  Mora rolled in.

  Like Crow, she activated the jamming field.

  "Crow brought your message, but Vivian doesn't believe it." Mora sounded baffled. "She is convinced this is a Council conspiracy. Just before I came, she almost pushed her radiation levels to critical." Mora stared at Leo. "She threatened me. If I don't bring you back, she will ignite the Third Sanctum. And herself."

  Leo stared, dumbfounded.

  That crazy woman. Turning herself into kindling over a Rat?

  Crow was right. This is mortal love. Blind. Mad. If I don't sever the limb, the infection will kill us both.

  "...Unnecessary." Leo looked down, voice barely a whisper.

  "Leo. Why defile your own name now? You are not a coward. Why?"

  "Because I did the math."

  Leo raised his voice, adopting the tone of reading a financial report.

  "At first, I thought this was a tech job. Fix the girl, get the ticket. But this is a chaotic mess. The Holy Order, the Reactor, Cybernetics, Symbiosis... it's all dirty. Too dangerous. The ROI is negative."

  He looked up, a faint, cynical smile in place.

  "I don't want the money. I never had a reputation. Let me go. I'm just a con man."

  Mora tried to argue, but Leo was immovable.

  Finally, she fell silent. She scrutinized his cold face for a long time, looking for a crack in the mask, but found none.

  "...Very well. The deal is terminated."

  "But the money was spent on life-support gear. If you agree... let me finish the Protective Suit."

  "You still care about the suit?"

  "You should understand, Mora. As an engineer and a fixer... I can't accept having half-assed work signed with my name. Even if it's for a reactor to wear, it must meet my design standards."

  Mora looked at Leo for a long time, as if seeing the man clearly for the first time.

  "I will find a way to send you the materials."

  Mora left. The dungeon returned to the silence of the grave.

  Leo picked up a scrap of carbon fiber from the floor. He forced a smile at the empty wall.

  "Consider it a parting gift. I hope you like it."

  【Post-Chapter Update: Crow takes Command】

  Finally.

  Lunar Rite.

  WARNING to you bored readers:

  Stop.

  — Crow