O verdant stone, lend me your strength. Open the door to my brightest ideal. 【First Symphony】.

Chen Xiaoyin pressed the bow to her chest and shut her eyes. Deep-green motes gathered like fireflies in a forest, streaming from every direction into the dark-green Magic Stone at her heart.

Under the dim lamp, her short hair spilled down to her waist like a midnight waterfall. Her eyes dyed a deep green. She patted the stone, tapped the ground with white sneakers, and sprang high. She landed on a low terrace like a white egret, blinked for a few seconds, then raced toward the blast, a comet pulled by shockwaves.

Near three a.m., the sky was ash-gray. A few dim stars were pinned to the black drape, circling a pale moon like cold lilies around a lantern.

Chen stood beside two girls. One wore a white dress to the knee, chin lifted like a swan. The other wore black, a shadow to the swan’s light.

They looked like angels dispatched by distant gods, flawless as carved jade. The girl in the white gauze was Lu Jin. The girl in the black gauze was Lu Shi. Both were powerful Order Keepers at 【Cantata Two】.

【First Symphony】 is a Magic Maiden’s first stage, the starting line. In it, a Magic Maiden draws only a fraction of a Magic Stone’s power. She changes part of her body, her face, her outfit. In this stage, transformation needs the inscription on the stone, recited like a key. Even basic spells ask for words.

【Cantata Two】 is the second stage. There, a Magic Maiden wields the stone like a seasoned blade. She chants fast, compressing long incantations to a few cut-glass words. The stone’s power floods her whole body. Clothing, features, and figure change like silk in a sudden rain.

The transformation line still can’t be skipped, as steady as a ritual bell.

【Cantata Three】 is the third stage, the limit of a Magic Maiden. Those who reach it become thunder on every tongue. In the Twelfth District’s heart, six stone statues tower like mountains. The six girls who saved the district were all at 【Cantata Three】.

Details of 【Cantata Three】 never go public. On the streets they whisper that a girl at that height gains a wondrous gift, and even her costume transforms like a phoenix molt.

Lu Shi stood on the roof’s highest lip, left hand to her headset like a raven feather, black hem swaying in the night wind. Her right hand gripped a dagger set with a black Magic Stone, a cold gleam pooled along its edge.

“Copy. At 349, 931, residual Aklatia members. Four. Standard gear. No Magic Tools. Lujin Lushi squad and Mutual Aid Society reserve, Chen Xiaoyin, will clean up. Estimated time, ten minutes.”

Rules pressed on Chen like a stone lid, and her breath hitched. As the thought scraped by, Lu Shi lifted her fishnet-wrapped left leg. Her shawl, thin as a cicada’s wing, unfurled. She glided from one rooftop to the next, a black swan cutting the wind.

Lu Jin patted Chen’s shoulder. Her lips tipped up, a kind smile like warm tea under frost. From nowhere she drew a flintlock that flashed silver under the moon, gold roses carved along the barrel. A hexagonal pure-white Magic Stone sat on each side of the stock.

“You just watch from here. Keep me safe, that’s all.”

She gathered Mana and pulled the trigger. Sparks burst from the muzzle like fireworks. A bullet woven of Mana crossed a hundred meters and bored a hole through an Aklatia man’s head. Blood arced in the air, a red ribbon under the moon. The remaining three scattered like startled crows.

Under the rooftop’s amber light, her faint smile held a note of delight, delicate as frost on glass, and it chilled Chen’s back. The girl in white lace looked like a devil wearing a lily.

She produced a handkerchief as if from the air and wiped the hot flintlock. Smoke curled from the muzzle like blue incense. Her gentle smile returned, and Chen’s heart tightened like a trapped bird.

“What’s wrong?”

The girl’s voice was soft. Chen rushed to say, “No,” the word tumbling dry as dust. She feared the girl might fire by accident. Then Lu Jin’s gaze flicked to a nearby patch of shadow, sharp as a needle.

“Ah—so this is a 【Cantata Two】 girl’s output? Not quite matching the lab results… It should be sharper, stronger… more variation. Where did it go wrong?”

A silken male voice rose behind Chen like a snake from grass.

Her heart slammed. Fear pried open the door in her chest. The rooftop breeze turned into icy Blades, stabbing from all sides, raising shivers and bristling hairs.

In front of her, Lu Jin lifted the still-warm flintlock and aimed at the man who slid from the terrace shadow, a cold Blade pressed to Chen’s neck like a sliver of winter.

Her white neck opened to a thin red line. Blood welled and ran. The Magic Stone poured out strength, knitting the wound like threads of light.

She tried to speak, but her voice snagged like cloth on thorns.

“Will you pull the trigger?”

“H-help…” Chen struggled. As a 【First Symphony】 Magic Maiden, she needed hands or chant to cast support. The rough palm on her back pinned her like a trapped moth. She couldn’t break free.

Bang!

Flame burst from the barrel and shoved the Mana bullet forward. Brilliant fire filled Chen’s eyes like sunrise on steel. She squeezed her eyes shut, braced for pain. The bullet didn’t hit her. The hand at her neck went suddenly light.

She tore free and ducked behind Lu Jin, fear fluttering like sparrows.

The man lay on the ground, a hole drilled through his brow, eyes dull as dead glass. He trembled and crawled up. Dark-blue Blood dripped from the wound. The dead eyes found focus again, a candle relit.

“An augmented one? No wonder there was no feedback.”

Lu Jin murmured, voice cool as snow.

“The other one’s coming. The stones on the shield and the flintlock won’t be enough to finish it…”

Moonlight slashed the night like a silver blade. It carved a long, deep furrow across the terrace, dividing the two girls from the man. The black-skirted girl, Lu Shi, landed with elegant poise, winter in her eyes and a flicker of anger like flint.

“Aklatia. Codename Doctor. You ran secret research till now. Before you fled, you torched every file and every witness. If nothing’s off, that item’s on you, isn’t it?”

She spoke, and the silver flintlock spat another round like a star. Lu Shi braced one hand on the wall, dagger tight in the other, and thrust for the Doctor’s heart.

Augmented come in two kinds: complete and incomplete. The scraps left in Aklatia’s database had no complete models. Lujin Lushi judged him incomplete.

Incomplete share a flaw—the heart isn’t fully replaced. They must feed it magic crystals or high-purity energy on schedule to keep it fresh, to keep the body alive, like a furnace that needs coal.

The Doctor saw his danger like a cliff edge and dropped into free fall.

His modified body held only two tricks: Regeneration and Self-Immolation. They kept him from dying to a single mortal hit, and let him burn himself when cornered, leaving special Magic Maidens no chance to read him for data. But cut off his Mana or his Abyssal Aura, slow his recovery below the body’s dying pace, and he would end like a guttered candle.

The black-clad pursuer, Lu Shi, could sheath her Blade in Mana. By the Law of Mana Counteraction, Mana clashes with Abyssal Aura and cancels it, wave against wave. In the end, a plain Blade could kill him. She was his nemesis, storm to his fire.

The Doctor gritted his teeth, spread his arms, and opened himself to the drop like a broken-winged crow.

“What a f—ing rotten day! Some idiot used the wrong card and got grabbed. Lucky he wasn’t core… Now I’m chased by a pack of girls. Why the hell are you all on rooftops! I was just squatting here…”

A crisp crack answered him. He kissed the ground hard. Flesh burst like thrown paint. The death was gruesome, a flower of ruin. Then flames bloomed inside him. They burned flesh and blood to clean ash.

Lu Shi’s dagger bit into the ground. Skewered on the blade lay a shriveled heart, flung free like a dead fruit.

“Order Keeper. Lujin Lushi squad. Lu Shi. Target ‘Doctor’ eliminated. Heart confirmed destroyed. Target self-immolated. No useful item recovered. Copy. Lu Jin and I will report back.”

Chen Xiaoyin patted her chest and let herself drop to the floor. Lu Shi vaulted up from the street like a black kite and startled her again. Only when the mission-complete chime crackled in her headset did she let out a long breath, tug the bow from her chest, and return to her ordinary skin.

“Ugh—those Aklatia bastards! They wrecked my shift, you hear me? Midnight—midnight pays best! My life matters too, though!”

The driver took a hard drag. He cracked the window and flicked the butt out, an ember falling like a firefly.

An Eye Orb traced a long parabola and slammed into the car roof, denting the metal like soft clay. He shoved the door, climbed up the window to look. Nothing but a dent under the moon. He kicked the tire, eyes full of pent-up heat and anger.

He cursed Aklatia a few more times, the words bitter as old tea, then slammed the door and drew on the smoke again.

An Eye Orb, slick with fresh blood, hopped from a shadowed corner and slipped into Lingchen Yao’s trouser pocket like a mouse.

Soon, Chen came back. Her face was pale, fear still clinging like mist. It was likely her first time—maybe her last—facing those lunatics.

The driver crushed the butt, shut the door, and ferried the three to the rental. Chen hauled Lingchen Yao upstairs and left. The Eye Orb rolled from his pocket and took in the room like a wary cat.

It spotted a wooden carving on the table, breathing a faint thread of Mana. The blood-specked pupil tightened to a needle. Then it eased, and went still, as calm as a stone in a stream.