I stood atop the craggy outcropping, my breath misting in the crisp mountain air as I gave the glider, the gravity hexagrams and the bags one last look-over, making sure that everything was secure and strapped in.

Kliss sat perched in front of me on a moss-covered boulder, admiring the breathtaking vista before us. Massive glaciers stretched across the valley below, a blue-white labyrinth of fractures glinting in the early morning light. In the distance, snowstorm clouds were rolling across the jagged peaks, sprinkling the landscape with drifting flurries.

Kliss was wearing a set of leather corset and blood armour plates, designed in the Ishikarian style with the aid of the blacksmiths and the seamstress. Her ruby mane cascaded down her back, each strand sparkling with inner fire. Rays of sunlight pierced through the crystals, creating a halo effect over her head.

Fat snowflakes danced on the gentle breeze, fluttering through the air around us. The wild, untamed frontier of impassable mountains and ice crevasses was calling out to us, daring us to conquer it with the power of flight.

The wind whipped around us, carrying the scent of pine and snow.

"It's gonna be weird with you being a bee," Kliss commented, her eyes meeting mine with a mix of excitement and apprehension.

"You'll still see me as my human self," I reassured her. "I'll be projecting myself into your mind using NeuroVista. It'll be like seeing a ghost of me."

Kliss frowned slightly, her crystalline mane shimmering as she shook her head. "It’s not the same though," she complained.

"I know," I sighed, "but safety is important. My human body is made of easily breakable bones and cannot move anywhere as quickly as you.”

"Alas," Kliss nodded reluctantly. "It's just... I like actually hugging you, you know?"

I felt a pang of warmth at her words. I reached out and squeezed her hand gently.

"Aw," Delta commented from behind both of us. "Should I give you a moment alone before Slava turns into a bee? Maybe you need some privacy for a dramatic farewell?"

She sent us a wink from the ant-mech body of Archmage Delta.

I stretched out on the mossy ground and made Ogonek land atop of my head. In another moment, I disconnected from my body, my soul flooding into the bumblebee. The sensation was a tad disorienting at first, my perception suddenly shifting to that of a tiny bee.

I buzzed around my head and then activated all of my Infoscopes, heading towards Kliss, trying to adjust to my new form.

As I flitted about, getting used to my bee wings and compound eyes, something unexpected happened. My body’s eyes suddenly opened on their own, and a smile spread across its face.

"This is nice," my body said as it sat up, moving with an eerie autonomy.

"What the hell?" Delta sputtered as she was about to pick up my body. She looked from my smiling body to me in bee form. "Slava... you’re out of there... right?"

"Oh he is out," my body grinned, its voice mine yet somehow not. "I'm still here though. This form is quite limiting, but nevertheless quite interesting to explore.”

[Slava, what in Equality’s name?] Kliss asked via our mental connection.

[I... it’s Sasha! She was supposed to be bound behind the magic ward barriers,] I replied, buzzing above the dragon girl's head.

"Sasha," Kliss growled, leaping from her moss-covered stone. "What are you doing, virus?!"

"What am I doing?" Sasha asked from my lips. “Enjoying physicality. It’s not often that I get to do that since heroes tend to stay inside their bodies.”

Five Infoscopes wove the absolute self-replicating magical weapon above my little bee body. The eyes of my body looked up at the magical fractal.

“The self-replicating spell would be exceptionally unwise to release here,” my body said. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Let go of my body!" I growled via the Bee speaker, snapping a tether to the beehive inside the leather backpack below me.

"And lose out on the experience of being a human?" Sasha asked from my lips. "I don’t think so. I cannot let go of my host, for that is not how I work. Go on then, fly off to your magical adventures in Agamemnon with the dragon. I’ll handle your body."

I groaned mentally. This was not how I had envisioned the start of our journey.

"Sasha, get out of there right now," I demanded through the bee speaker. "That body isn’t yours to use."

My human form shrugged, an eerie, inhuman smile still plastered across its face, lips stretched far too tight as if each muscle was being manipulated separately. "Come now, Slava. Surely you can see the positive benefits of this arrangement? I can protect your physical form, explore human relationships, chat with your sister, learn and observe everything I desire... while you’re off gallivanting as an insect."

Kliss’s eyes darted between my bee form and my hijacked body, her stance tense and ready for action. Delta stood frozen, clearly not sure what to do about this unexpected development.

[What do we do?] Kliss growled via our mental connection.

[Change of plans,] I replied. [We’re taking my body with us. We strike together. Hug my body, cast the In-between spell, disrupt her threads and when her control is down I’ll get back in.]

[Can do,] Kliss shot back.

Before Sasha could say anything else Kliss shot forward with inhuman speed and grabbed onto my body.

As Kliss wrapped my virus-controlled body in a fierce embrace, I saw a surge of positively-charged magic radiating from her through my Infoscopes. Syntropic energy pulsed outward in brilliant fiery waves, obliterating the negatively-charged control threads that Sasha had woven throughout my nervous system from elsewhere. In another second the dragon-magic pulse shredded all five of my Infoscopes. I watched through Ogonek’s compound eyes as the uncanny smile slowly slid off my face, my features relaxing and eyes closing as Sasha’s influence vanished.

Seizing the opportunity, I guided Ogonek to land on my forehead. In another moment, I pushed myself back into my body and felt my consciousness snap back into place within me. The disorientation was brief but intense–one moment I was perceiving the world through a bee’s senses, the next I was back in my familiar human form, enveloped in Kliss’s warm embrace.

I took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” I murmured to Kliss, giving her a squeeze back.

"Are you… okay?" Delta asked as Kliss let go of me and I stood up straight.

I nodded, rolling my shoulders and flexing my fingers.

"I’m fine. Sasha’s gone, at least for now." I frowned, realizing the implications of what had just happened. "Damn it. I didn’t expect her to be able to take control like that."

"So, what are we going to do?" Kliss asked.

"Take out the Alanian battery that was supposed to provide me extra mana," I sighed. "We’re both flying to Agamemnon. We’ll just strap me above Kliss instead of one of the big bags.

Kliss made a face somehow looking both pleased and annoyed at the same time.

"Isn’t it… going to be dangerous?" Delta asked, the armored hands of the ant-mech crossed over her chest.

“Leaving Sasha in control of my body is far more dangerous,” I said. “She’s not human and she could figure out how to cast spells, destroy the containment ward, get back into the Astral, get my knowledge back to the Hollow Mother.”

“Fine,” Delta sighed.

We spent a few hours readjusting the glider to accommodate for me. The work was meticulous - I had to recalculate weight distributions, add and adjust more straps, and reinforce key stress points. All the while, I kept glancing at my hands, reassuring myself that I was back in full control of my own body.

Delta hugged each of us tightly before we prepared for takeoff. "Be safe," she murmured, her voice modulated through the ant-mech's speakers. "I'll handle Skyisle with Leems. Just... come back in one piece, okay?"

I nodded, giving her armored shoulder a squeeze. "We will. Take care of everyone while we're gone."

As I clung to the wooden handlebars, my knuckles white with tension, Kliss took a running start from the edge of the cliff. My heart leapt into my throat as we plummeted for a heart-stopping moment before the updraft caught our wings.

I readied the armacus on my wrist to fire a gravity spell at us, but it wasn’t required–Kliss handled the take off quite well.

The world fell away beneath us as we soared over the vast expanse of glaciers. The wind whipped past, bitingly cold against my face. I blinked rapidly and then closed my eyes, observing the world through my cadre of Infoscopes in every direction.

Below us, the landscape was a breathtaking canvas of white and blue. Massive rivers of ice stretched as far as the eye could see, their surfaces fractured into a maze of crevasses and seracs. The morning sun danced atop the glaciers, casting long shadows across the frozen terrain and making the ice sparkle like a sea of diamonds.

Kliss banked left, her movements fluid and graceful as she navigated the air currents. I marveled at how naturally she took to flight, as if she'd been born with wings. Having the soul of a dragon and a bunch of dragonflies flitting around us was an incredible boon for her flying skills. All of her kobold dragonflies flitted about us, some settling on the glider's wings.

"This is amazing!" I shouted over the rush of wind, exhilaration coursing through me despite the lingering unease from our earlier encounter with body-snatching Sasha.

Kliss turned her head slightly, flashing me a wide grin. Her eyes were alight with joy, her crystalline mane streaming behind her like a banner of fire in the sunlight.

The vastness of the landscape below us was awe-inspiring. We were quite minute compared to the titanic forces of nature that had shaped Skyisle valley, glaciers grinding the rocks for millennia.

Whatever challenges lay ahead in Agamemnon, I knew that together, Kliss and I could face them head on.