Lu Jin and Lu Shi reached Yongning Road. Last night’s crash still scarred the street like claw marks. Lu Jin flashed her ID, slipped past the yellow tape like a fallen ribbon, and searched within. Only a faint Abyssal Aura lingered, thin as cold mist. Nothing else.

“I heard someone survived. Who is it? Where are they now?”

She asked the duty officer. He pointed across the street at a bald patch of lot, bare as a scraped knuckle.

“Go a bit farther. There’s a hospital past that lot. They sent the kid there. But word is he won’t wake. Doubt he’ll give you much… Take care, you two.”

Lu Shi waved him off and followed Lu Jin. Unease first, then motion—Lu Jin walked toward the hospital, her thoughts churning like eddies under ice, yet no thread held.

“Jiuqiong had an Abyssal Rift torn open by a Fallen One. Their cleanup team got killed in the street. Hard to believe those two things aren’t linked…”

She tried to braid every known fact into one rope, hoping for a grip on the truth.

“Unless Jiuqiong never killed the Monster? No… the safe was custom-made. Tight seal. Tough as bone. That kind of Monster couldn’t slip out… We’re at the hospital.”

“The van crashed, but the safe stayed intact. Even the Monster’s corpse inside lay untouched. No clean logic. So they called it a fluke—an Abyssal Rift opening on a moving van. No precedent, and it sounds absurd.”

Lu Jin smiled and shared the safe’s details with Lu Shi. She was Lu Shi’s agent—and a powerful Magic Maiden herself. Lu Shi had awakened first. Lu Jin became an agent for her elder sister, then awakened too. Accidents fall like summer thunder.

They ended up in the same department. Sisters in step, they moved like twin blades. Their success rate soared, and the Organization praised them.

“I don’t buy it. If an Abyssal Rift could open on a moving car, Abyssal monsters would’ve overrun us by now. Grab any plane, and you’ve got a mobile spawn tower. After this hospital, we hit Jiuqiong. We check every spot the Abyssal monsters passed.”

“Copy, copy~”

Lu Jin hugged Lu Shi; warmth first, then restraint. Lu Shi frowned and warned softly:

“We’re on duty. Reign it in.”

“Yes, Sister Supreme~”

They stepped into the hospital—and in the next heartbeat, they were inside an elevator. Cold prickle first, then steel—both raised their weapons and watched the corners.

“This hospital’s off. Space feels twisted, like glass warping over a flame. Which Abyss is closest lately?”

“[Beast] is closest. [Insect] second. From observation, [Insect] sits nearer to [Beast]. Within [Beast], the known space-types that can warp and seal space are exactly three: the Starry Behemoth of Cantata Three, the Spatial Great Rhino of Cantata Two, and the ancient Ruin Disk.”

“Rule out the Ruin Disk and the Starry Behemoth. One can’t leave its Ruins, and if the other showed up, the Twelfth District would already be finished. That leaves the Spatial Great Rhino… barring an unknown.”

Lu Jin laid it out. Lu Shi nodded once.

“Then we treat the Spatial Great Rhino as our strategic target and plan for it.”

“It shatters and twists space, but the twist has pattern. Unknown pattern, for now. Its coverage is small… so we can push harder. This elevator is stuck. Lights are dead. I’d say we breach.”

Lu Shi kicked the doors. Metal dented like soft clay. She flicked her dagger inlaid with Magic Stones and carved a hole big enough for two.

They linked arms and stepped through. The next breath put them in a corner of the hospital atrium. A “Safety Exit” sign glowed in the distance like a lone lantern. It looked like the only path.

Lu Shi had barely moved when a pair of crimson eyes fixed on them.

A large tiger strode out of the air itself. A swollen hump rose on its back like a tumor moon. Each step thickened the Abyssal Aura, and hairline cracks opened in the space around it, thin as spider silk.

“Lu Jin, purge the Aura and cover me. The tiger’s mine!”

The tiger was black and white. Barbs hid in its fur like hooked thorns. Rush it blindly, and you’d turn into a sieve. Lu Jin cast a stroke of darkness; her body thinned to a ghostly blur. She slipped behind the tiger, and her blade kissed the hump. Black fluid poured out like tar.

The tiger lashed its hind legs. Impact first, then pain—Lu Shi went flying a few meters. The bristling barbs tore her clothes, revealing pale skin like fresh snow. She flicked her arm; Mana knitted wound and fabric alike. The tiger’s wound closed too. Its regeneration howled like spring growth.

First clash—man and beast, even.

The tiger raised a paw. It met Lu Shi’s fist midair. The soft pads drank most of her force like damp earth swallowing rain. Lu Shi’s blade flashed. Darkness clung to the edge and drove for its throat. The tiger lifted its other paw to guard. Needles of claw slid through its fur and scored her palm.

Pain bit first; choice came after. She abandoned the throat and drove the dagger through the blocking paw. Dark Mana infested the wound and gnawed outward, chewing flesh like acid.

The tiger didn’t seem to feel it. It hurled itself at her again. Lu Shi snorted, flung the dagger into the back wound, drew her pistol, and leapt clear.

Black fluid streamed from the hump and puddled like oil. The tiger slowed, its rhythm dragged down into mud. A bullet tunneled into the oozing wound. The black fluid trembled—then gathered shape.

Lu Jin narrowed her eyes.

Inside that fluid writhed a swarm of tiny black insects. They had eaten most of the tiger’s nerves and lived by riding its body. Time must have been long, the way roots eat stone. Maybe the tiger had been First Symphony, but the swarm lifted it to Cantata Two.

“So you’re the culprit.”

Lu Jin relayed it to Lu Shi. Realization first, then verdict—dark Mana should burn most creatures with pain. This tiger felt nothing. It was likely already dead.

“Moon Owl once reported a weird Monster that clings to people. It sucks Mana and breathes out Abyssal Aura. But I think there’s more… Everyone carries a little Mana. It keeps life burning. You drain that ember to cling tighter…”

“…So how many people have you eaten?”

Lu Jin sealed an Abyssal Rift that had begun to open, stitching it like a seam. She tossed Lu Shi a bag of crystals.

“Moon Owl said it hates salt rich in Mana crystals.”

Lu Shi grabbed a handful and cast it like winter seed. She fed Mana and popped the bigger crystals. Salt drifted down like pale snow and landed on the black bugs, melting the slick that coated them. The insects stood exposed, naked to the air.

Without the fluid, they shriveled fast, turning into dry husks. The rest burrowed back into the tiger and bolted into a nearby fold of twisted, chaotic space, like minnows into a dark current.

Lu Jin and Lu Shi didn’t hesitate. Unknown or not, they couldn’t let the swarm slip.

“Move, Lu Jin!”

Lu Shi pulled her, and they dove into the chaos. When their eyes opened again, they stood in a basement. Lu Shi raised her flintlock. Fire spat and curled back around the barrel like a hungry dragon, searing the black fluid about to drip from the ceiling.

She flung more salt and spread it evenly across the ceiling with her Mana. The fluid dissolved on contact. Bugs pattered down like ash.

One stray landed on Lu Shi. It opened mouthparts and bit her Magic Layer, but couldn’t pierce it.

“Looks like one or two can’t get through our Magic Layer. Even numbers need time. Ordinary folks and First Symphony won’t be so lucky… Lu Jin, end it!”

Lu Jin lifted her flintlock. Mana gathered like stormlight. The Magic Stone’s glow pooled at the muzzle.

“Bloom, Sacred Rose!”

“After the wither… let the flower of ruin burst!”

The Magic Stone on the flintlock’s left side drained in a blink. Fire swallowed the room like a tidal blaze. When it passed, ruin lay everywhere—except for the small patch beneath their feet.

The flintlock steamed. White smoke unspooled into the air. Lu Jin patted her skirt, and together they vaulted into another space.

…

Night Frost had barely spent much Mana, yet a third of his strength felt gone, as if bled by leeches. The state gnawed at him.

Don’t tell me I’ll have to burn a Magic Stone. That’d be pure Blood loss.

He sat, dazed, like a leaf adrift.

“Eye Orb, what is that black stuff?”

The Eye Orb shook once, dim as a shuttered lamp. It didn’t know. Too little information. No conclusion.

“But those people were likely puppeted by it. Until we learn its background and ability, don’t act rashly.”

“Easy for you to say… My Mana’s draining fast. This space won’t open for a while. I feel like I’m about to—”

Boom.

A rumble rolled from far off, like thunder in a buried sky. Night Frost jolted up, heart stinging cold, almost diving out the window on instinct. The Eye Orb stopped him in time.

“Scared me to death.”

He let out a breath and pointed at the left wall.

“The sound came from here. If I’m not wrong…”

Footsteps hammered beyond the wall—two people, by the rhythm.

“Could that be Lu Jin and Lu Shi?”

His words had barely fallen when a black-and-white tiger burst from the left. Night Frost raised his arm to guard, but the impact hit like a battering ram. Man and beast crashed together into another space.