“The Chapter Three monster has been eliminated!”

The grown woman sank onto the cot, fear melting from her eyes like frost under dawn. She’d almost died under a monster’s claws. Survival tasted sharp, but it wasn’t time to relax.

A girl walked in cradling the Moon Owl like a wounded bird. The woman took the Moon Owl, laid her on the next bed, and steadied the injury with a Magic Tool, cool light humming like dew.

“I’ve already alerted the nearest camp to send a First Symphony maiden to treat her. If there are more Monsters nearby, you must tell me. This one was strange—no mark of an opening Abyssal Rift. Upload everything to HQ.”

“Understood!”

“Um… who is he?”

The girl pointed at the old man in the corner, reeking of a sharp vinegar tang, his fingers scraping the floor like sparrows drawing sigils.

“He’s the Sealing Array’s improver. A wanted criminal. He took a severe curse earlier. We extended his life, but he won’t last long.”

The woman spoke plainly, her voice steady as stone.

“Then if the war ends and he’s alive, the Twelfth District lifts the warrant. If he dies, buy him a good coffin and bury him.”

She pushed through the door, but after a few steps the sky tore like silk. A dark-violet rift unfurled from over Jiuqiong University, splitting the firmament like an axe through wood.

Above the chimera’s corpse, an Abyssal Aura pooled like a storm-hand and clawed at the whole sky.

Her pupils pinched to pinpoints, her face cooled like ash. She measured the dregs of Mana in her veins, pulled a satellite phone, and called HQ.

“Yuan Dai, what is it?”

Static rasped like sand, then cleared.

“A Chapter Three Rift opened above the Twelfth District. I already killed a Chapter Three. I’m spent and can’t fight a new one…”

She’d burned too much Mana on the chimera; ramming the fresh Chapter Three Rift would be suicide, like a moth into a furnace.

Silence hung, then the answer fell like rain—precise and cold.

“Every sector’s flooding with Monsters. Chapter Threes are swamped. The Seventh District’s pressure is light—Broken Blade’s almost done. Hold out; she’ll get to you soon. Thank you for the grit.”

“Got it…”

She clenched her teeth and rose like a gull on a gale, arrowing for the ruptured sky.

Qianchun felt the earth shiver like a drumskin. The land seethed—angry, or scared of the wound splitting the heavens. Right beneath it, Jiuqiong University widened its great barrier like a shell.

She drew Mana in a cold stream, culled weak Monsters mid-charge, then slipped into the sewers like a shadow, groping forward, praying Lingchen Yao would survive this storm.

Lu Jin and Lu Shi had felled a second Cantata Two, but their strength was spent. They hunched in a nearby house, gulping breath and feeding on Magic Stones, Mana trickling back like a thin rain.

A wolf-shaped Monster padded closer, nose twitching like a snake tasting the air.

Lu Jin and Lu Shi had one chance. If the strike failed, the death would be theirs—doom hovering like a scythe.

Mana crept back; their garments knit under its wash like torn silk mending itself.

The demon-wolf smashed the door. The barricade buckled like reeds under a boulder.

“I know you’re inside…”

Drool hung at its jaw like strings of wax. It hadn’t tasted a fresh human elite in decades—its hunger a cave echoing with teeth.

But as its paw crossed the threshold, dark-violet cracks webbed the sky, and a veteran’s pressure poured down like winter ocean. The wolf’s fur stood like grass in lightning.

It swallowed hard, bolted without looking back, its voice sputtering like a guilty child.

“I was wrong, don’t kill me, I’m just hungry…”

The demon-wolf vanished like smoke. Lu Jin and Lu Shi, coiled for a kill, blinked in confusion, then let their Mana go like kites cut free.

“Sis… don’t you feel it pressing? Like a mountain on the chest…”

Lu Jin hugged her long-barreled flintlock, gasping as if through a wet cloth. Lu Shi clenched her Blade, eyes on the cracks spilling across the sky like ink.

“I’ve never seen a rift this huge… not even when I staked my life. No doubt—it’s a Chapter Three, a strong Chapter Three. From here, it’s not our stage anymore…”

Lu Shi tossed Lu Jin a few Magic Stones. They had to recover some Mana before the Chapter Three descended, or the rampaging Monsters would turn the streets to carrion.

Over Jiuqiong University, a deep gash ripped wider. Even with the Obsidian Stone absorbing most of it, the pressure crushed the students inside the barrier like a storm pressing on lungs.

Lingchen Yao and his three friends lay limp on chairs, veins roping like vines, breath short, bodies straining against an invisible tide. Lingchen pushed his Mana to the limit; the weight eased a touch, but pain still bit like iron thorns.

“Dammit… what the hell is up there?”

They hadn’t shut the curtains. Even through Obsidian Stone’s shield, they could just make out the sky being torn like cloth.

“That’s an Abyssal Rift… if I’m right, it’s Chapter Three.”

Lingchen Yao ground the words out like gravel. The thing hadn’t even descended, yet its pressure roared like a waterfall. If it dropped… disaster.

“Bro, can the Obsidian Stone hold it?”

“I don’t know. It’ll probably only block for a while… every barrier has a limit.”

Lingchen inhaled, eyes dragged from his phone screen like a moth from flame. Even through pixels, even with the Monster barely a corner, the aura smashed against them like a wave.

He forced his legs to move. If they did nothing, everyone under the rift would die—lives scattered like leaves.

He pulled out his last Cantata Two Magic Stone from the box, weighing carving a defensive array in the dorm. With this much material, the array would be a wall not just a sheet.

“It’s an array I learned. It can withstand a First Symphony siege, and even Cantata Two for a bit. I’ll lay it here. Don’t tell anyone…”

At the word “array,” Xun Xun’s eyes lit like lanterns.

“Man, arrays are gold. Pricey as hell. Magic Maidens keep ’em all locked up. Know the street price of a defense array?”

He held up one finger, a grin like a fox.

“Ten grand?”

Xun Xun shook his head, smile widening like a crescent.

“A million?”

“No, no—”

“Don’t tell me… ten million?”

He snapped his fingers. Bull’s-eye.

“And that’s not counting materials.”

Lingchen swam in dizziness, clutching his head as numbers stabbed like ice. A Cantata Two Magic Stone ran you a hundred thousand, maybe a million tops. Add all the bits and best-tier materials—three million cost. Market sells for ten million. Without materials.

Highway robbery, profits fat as geese.

He’d never even seen that much money. Wait. He’d laid one for Ren Changxiao. One for Hao Wenqian. One for himself. More… a lot more. He’d burned—

He sucked a breath like a knife.

I had tens of millions within reach. I didn’t cherish it. Now I regret it to the bone.

“Huh? It’s that pricey? Ling bro set one up for me before…”

Ren Changxiao’s remark landed like a blade, edge clean and merciless.

“Damn, Ling bro’s the hidden tycoon!”

Xun Xun whistled, wonder like fireworks.

Lingchen Yao carved the array’s core at the dorm’s center, teeth clenched, tears like mist.

“No, I’m not. I was just… too young!”

The array finished, he drifted to his seat and yanked the curtains, words drying into silence like a riverbed. He swallowed it all, then spat two hot sparks.

“Dammit!”

With the array up, the pressure eased like a lifted weight. Lingchen even managed big movements—awkward rolls across the bed like a hooked fish.

The more he thought, the hotter he got.

“Ling bro, this array’s solid. Interested in laying a few at my dad’s company? We can talk price.”

“Seriously?”

He popped up like a spring.

“Would I lie? My rep’s decent. When break comes, I’ll take you guys to tour the company.”

“How about we look at what’s above us—the Monster?”

Wang Qipeng tugged them back to the present, voice steady as a bell.

“There’s a Chapter Three outside. Are we really this relaxed?”

“Hey… we can’t do much anyway. Better to talk about the future, or the past. Better than letting fear eat us and waiting like cattle.”

Lingchen tossed it out, calm like tea steam.

“True, true!”

Ren Changxiao and Xun Xun chimed in, their laughter soft as rain.

“Makes sense.”

Wang Qipeng nodded. They were ordinary. They couldn’t fight this tide. Better to tilt the mood sunny than become Monster fodder shaking in terror. Same end, different taste.

…

The sky’s wound spread slow, while deep-purple aurora washed across the Twelfth District like river-light. Suddenly, the aurora plunged like falling thunder, the sound cracking air like spears of lightning.

When the glow sank and the dust peeled back, the ground showed a cratered face. At its center lay a polished polyhedral stone, and from it crawled a mantis-shaped insect, newborn and slick like a knife.

It cracked the shell, and a blade of Abyssal Aura spilled out, drifting upward like smoke. The two supporting the innermost Sealing Array felt the insects inside go wrong—life guttering like candle-wax.

They rasped and died, squeezing out their last thread of Abyssal Aura, joining the field around them like mist, floating toward the huge rift’s mouth.

The sphere of Abyssal Aura fused with the aurora, and the aurora swelled like a tide. The rift pulled and stretched, widening like a tearing seam.

They were accelerating the Monsters’ descent from the sky.

The pair reported to the branch at once, words tight as drumbeats.

Under treatment, the Moon Owl’s eyes fluttered open like petals. A short-statured girl faced her, eyes rimmed red, tears recently shed like rain on clay.

Another girl stood loyally at her shoulder, soothing her in soft ripples—Chen Xiaoyin. Together they’d reached the Order Keeper HQ, a harbor in stormlight.

“Moon Owl…”

The grown woman hurried in, urgency snapping like a banner.

“You need rest, but I have bad news I must tell you.”

“What is it? The rift?”

The Moon Owl blinked, a pause like a held breath.

“Exactly. A deep Abyssal Rift opened above Jiuqiong. It’s still widening. If I’m right, the Monster inside is Chapter Three. Data says its energy level exceeds the Obsidian Stone’s ceiling… we still have time.”

“I’ve issued a notice—everyone at Jiuqiong to evacuate underground. We still have time.”

Moon Owl pushed herself up; pain bit like a wolf. She reached out and tore space open like paper. Fresh wounds split, blood soaking the gauze like red blossoms.”