While Yue, Lin Xiulan, and the rest of Yoshika’s more socially and politically minded agents busied themselves to prepare for the upcoming peace talks, Yoshika brought together a gathering of the greatest magical minds across the entire continent.

She had the academy prepare a specialized space for large scale formations and brought in every single expert available. No more secrecy, no more hiding—Yoshika had Do Hye’s mana amplifier replicated in full, and it was all hands on deck.

Yoshika held nothing back with her invitations. Do Hye’s shade himself was first, naturally, along with Hwang Sung, Dae, and even Misun whose house arrest was lifted so that she could join in. She was grouchy about having ‘her work’ turned into a public collaboration, but she wasn’t in any position to complain. Min was more valuable in the political corps, otherwise Yoshika would have invited her as well.

Next were the most promising researchers who weren’t already familiar with Do Hye’s formation. Iseul was trying to calm Ja Yun’s nerves as she anxiously took in the gathering of their peers. Haeun and Narae had proven themselves more than capable after their graduation ceremonies, and Heian could create and modify formations faster than even Iseul. Luo Mingyu might have seemed like an odd choice, but the alchemist used formations frequently as part of his craft, and he’d been the one to invent the foundation building pill that helped mortal students to awaken their souls at any age.

Even Long Ruiling was invited, for her unique perspective and expertise in draconic magic. Melati, too, if only because Yoshika refused to underestimate the academy’s most ubiquitous student—she was smarter than she seemed.

With how far Yoshika had reached to gather brilliant minds together, she couldn’t help but notice the gaps. Murayoshi had been the best in the world at crafting and enchanting artifacts, and he was dead. Guan Yi had inherited the tsukumogami, Forge, and taken up that mantle—but he still had a long way to go, and he was back at Purewater Peak anyway. Qin Zhao was also missing, and Yoshika hadn’t forgotten how valuable ‘Jin Hu’ had been when developing Jiaguo’s now famous reflecting pool.

The last person present—wasn’t an expert at all. Or rather, not a magical one. Hyeong Aecha swept through the crowd unobtrusively, serving drinks and snacks from delicately balanced trays. She had an uncanny way of appearing exactly where she was needed at any given moment, refilling or collecting used dishes before whisking them away and reappearing with new refreshments before anybody could notice her absence. Most didn’t even notice her presence in the first place, as she waged her own silent and invisible war against the typically disorganized geniuses.

Thankfully, it wasn’t only Yoshika who appreciated her help.

“Thank you, Aecha. It’s good to see you again—you never told me you were back from Yamato.”

She bowed politely to Dae.

“I arrived while you were still up north defending our borders, big brother. Pardon me, I cannot stop to chat. We will catch up later.”

He nodded in return, but she was already sweeping her way through the crowd. Haeun smiled gratefully as she accepted a hot cup of her favorite tea.

“Aecha! How is Master treating you?”

“Quite well, Young Mistress, thank you for asking. I hadn’t expected a more troublesome mistress than yourself, but I relish the challenge.”

Haeun and Yoshika both blushed at that, but Narae just looked askance at the expert handmaiden.

“Have you been practicing martial arts techniques to improve your serving skills?”

“Not for that explicit purpose, no—Mistress Kaede enjoys sparring to relax her mind, but has few partners willing to join her. I can’t deny that I’ve found the lessons quite useful, however.”

Aecha was still very amateur in martial arts, but she was a fast learner and unlike Ashikaga Sae, she didn’t go overboard during spars or flirt outrageously. She had also been working on creating her own foundation building pill to awaken her soul and unify her cultivation. All that between the work she did for Yoshika. Hyeong Aecha was a remarkably hard worker, and Yoshika resolved to increase her pay. Again.

She strode out into the center of the formation, which everyone else had been politely avoiding, and the room fell silent. Yoshika didn’t have to do anything as pedestrian as clear her throat to command the full attention of everyone present, and while it still made her slightly uncomfortable to act as a ruler—well, she was getting used to it.

“I appreciate all of you gathering here on short notice. Some of you already know what this is about, but for the rest of you, I’ll be brief. The crisis our world faces is more imminent than expected. We don’t have ten years—we may not even have one. The collapse could happen in mere months or even days—though it’s likely not quite that urgent.”

Her audience remained mostly silent, though she could see varying looks of consternation and worry—Ja Yun, predictably, looked like she was about to shake out of her own skin.

“W-what are we supposed to do?”

“Relax, Yun. We’ll get through this—we just need to move up our plans. I’ve called you all here to break down the problem and solve as much of it as we can.”

Iseul patted her mother on the head, but couldn’t contain her curiosity as she surveyed the formation dominating the courtyard.

“I take it this formation is part of the problem? Or part of the solution? It looks over engineered...and doesn’t work.”

Hwang Sung chuckled as Do Hye sputtered indignantly, but Iseul ignored them both.

“We need data first, Yoshika—identify the problem you need us to solve. Please.”

Yoshika smiled—even among her friends, there weren’t many who were willing to be as frank with her as Iseul. A few people gave her sidelong glances, but Yoshika took it in stride. She explained what she’d seen in the Void, and how much of a problem it was, fielding questions as she went.

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“This ‘divine ocean’ you describe—can you provide us with a sense of scale? It’s hard to fathom the sheer volume you describe.”

Hwang Sung’s question made Misun scoff, and as the only other person who’d personally witnessed it, she answered for Yoshika.

“Unfathomable is precisely what it is. If we were to take a ratio of all the essence in physical, spiritual, and elemental realms, compared to the essence in the divine ocean, it would be zero to one. If it’s a star, then our entire world isn’t so much as a grain of sand in comparison. Does that give you a sufficient ‘sense of scale,’ Magus?”

“Ahem, quite, yes.”

Do Hye stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“The scale isn’t so much the problem as the criticality of it, yes? Contained as it is by the divine seal, it’s grown so dense that it threatens to collapse into a singularity of sorts—though I suspect one much more destructive than the normal ones we’re familiar with.”

Nearly everyone in the room—including Yoshika—looked askance at Do Hye, who blinked in confusion.

“Hm? Is that not common knowledge?”

This time it was Dae who came to the rescue.

“He’s talking about black holes—rare astronomical phenomena. Natural spatial rifts caused by extreme concentrations of gravity essence. They’re dangerous, but not—well, no, they would most certainly destroy the entire planet, but there are probably already several in existence somewhere out in space.”

Do Hye nodded.

“Indeed! What Empress Yoshika describes is much greater—a devourer of entire realms. But to me it seems like the solution remains the same—the divine seal must be destroyed.”

Yoshika shook her head.

“That won’t solve anything—in fact it would make things even worse. The seal is the only thing keeping essence from the divine realm away from our world. Even if we could destroy it without triggering the divine ocean’s collapse, all we’d be doing is giving it another source of energy.”

Misun crossed her arms under her chest and grimaced.

“So everything we’ve been working on is useless, and we have to start over and solve the unsolvable problem in less than a tenth of the time we thought we had?”

“Yes.”

Ruiling stepped forward and raised a hand. She waited for Yoshika to nod her way in acknowledgement before speaking.

“Forgive me if this is out of turn, but perhaps we shouldn’t be trying to solve it by ourselves? I don’t know about Shen Yu or Emperor Qin, but the Dragon Lord—my ancestor—is originally from the divine realm—perhaps he could assist?”

“I’d welcome it, if he’s willing—Shen Yu and Qin, too, but that will have to wait until the peace summit. Do you have any way of contacting him?”

“Erm...n-no.”

Something to consider later, then. Her recent transformation had given her nearly unfettered access to the power of the Sovereign’s Tear, and with it, she could use Lightspeed Traversal to cross the ocean in a fraction of the time it had taken her before.

Haeun pursed her lips, staring down at the formation.

“Master—if the essence of the divine ocean is so intense, how come it hasn’t taken form to create new worlds? From what you described, the divine realms that collapsed were many orders of magnitude larger than our world.”

Yoshika scratched her head. As usual, Haeun found the questions that nobody else thought to ask.

“I...don’t know. The essence that comes from the Sovereign’s Tear is...dead. Being filtered through Chou’s realm—and now mine—imbued it with life, but it doesn’t have any of its own. It’s not even balanced or neutral like a divine core, just inert.”

Haeun wrinkled her nose. Innately dead essence was wholly incompatible with her divination techniques, and had disturbing implications for her theory that all essence was inherently alive.

Hwang Sung paced slowly, scratching his chin.

“Hrm. Odd, but not particularly relevant to the problem at hand. As I see it, there are three key issues—the steady influx of essence from the Tear, the critical volume of essence in the divine ocean, and the divine seal. If we can solve any one of these problems, then the crisis is averted.”

Luo Mingyu scratched the back of his neck as the room fell into a contemplative silence.

“I, er, feel a little out of place here. It seems to me, however, that each of these problems can only be resolved by first resolving the others. The divine seal can’t be destroyed while the divine ocean is in the way, the divine ocean cannot be drained while the seal is in place, and the Sovereign’s Tear will continue to add more essence unless it is destroyed or removed.”

It was indeed a bit of a paradox, though it did make Yoshika wonder—could she remove the Sovereign’s Tear? It was possible that she might be able to escape the mortal realm by using Voidbreak, as Yue theorized, but even if she survived long enough to make it to the divine realm, she’d be alone and hunted by enemies.

It wasn’t a guarantee, either. Yoshika would make that sacrifice without hesitation if she knew for a fact that it would save her world, but at best it would only buy them time, and at worst it would do nothing. There was every possibility that the collapse would still occur without her.

“Melati thinks we should put it back.”

Everyone looked up at the wasp woman who’d flown up over their heads to raise her hand. They’d almost forgotten she was even there. Melati was so ubiquitous in Jiaguo that her presence was often taken for granted. Of course she was there—she was always there. She’d spent the entire conversation pestering Aecha for more of her favorite sweet snacks, and many of the experts present hadn’t even considered that she was actually listening to the conversation.

Not Yoshika. She leaned forward and fixed her gaze on Melati.

“What do you mean?”

“Melati doesn’t think it’s as confusing as the nice owl man says. Too much power comes from Yoshi’s magic rock, so put it back.”

She crossed her arms and nodded sagely, absolutely confident that her solution was sound. Hwang Sung smiled politely, his tone gentle as if speaking to a child.

“Miss Melati, while it would be good if that were possible, it’s not nearly so simple. One cannot reverse the flow of a river.”

Do Hye scoffed.

“Eh? Who says? Dam it, dredge it, and send it wherever you like. It’s been done before.”

His old rival grimaced and shook his head.

“Well, it’s not a perfect analogy, but—”

“Why not? Has anyone tried moving essence back into the Tear? If it’s possible, then there may be hope yet, and even...”

Do Hye pointed down at the formation below their feet.

“Perhaps a way to reuse the work we’ve already done. I’ve been assuming this was meant as a way to tap into the Sovereign’s Tear, but I see no reason why it couldn’t be reversed. Your Majesty, with your permission, I’d like to begin experimentation on the Sovereign’s Tear at once!”

Yoshika scratched her cheek awkwardly. That would have been much easier to approve before it had become part of her body. Nevertheless, she saw promise in the idea, and nodded her assent.

“Very well. You’ll have my assistance, and anything else you need until the summit. I want a proof of concept by then, or we’ll start looking into other solutions.”

They had so much to do, and so little time. Yoshika could feel a premonition deep in her soul. The peace summit at Purewater Peak was going to be the turning point. She gazed wistfully up at Mount Geumji in the distance, reminded of a fateful mountain expedition to its peak.

That had been a turning point as well. Where she had met Heian, where her tumultuous relationships with Kaede and Yue had begun, where she had experienced death for the first time. She felt that she was approaching another such knot of destiny, and regardless of what Sovereign Chou thought about fate, Yoshika knew that it was up to her to untangle it.

This time, she’d be ready.