Following the main rescue wave into the city’s heart, Chen Xiaoyin moved with a girl whose eyes shone faint red—Xia Qingqing—two shadows leaning on each other like reeds in wind.

Fear first, then breath steady; the street cracked like dry clay as fissures sped outward, and the swarm scattered the teams like leaves in a gale.

Luck skimmed them like a swallow’s wing; those brainless bugs couldn’t punch through the steel-and-concrete walls, so the wall became a cliff, and they slipped free through the churning tide.

“It’s okay. We promised—we’d live together.” Her voice was a small lantern in fog.

Memory led like a thread on a loom; three or four stops down this street, then cross a river like a black ribbon, and they’d reach the nearest safe house.

The distance stretched like winter, too far; Xia Qingqing was hurt, her steps paper-thin, and dragging her meant feeding the swarm, but Chen didn’t let go—promise held like a knot in her chest.

She unfurled a translucent mana shield like glass; bugs slammed into the shimmering shell, went cross-eyed, and dropped like pebbles.

Compared to the center, fewer First Symphony insects lurked here; most were land beasts gone feral, like cattle stampeded by thunder.

Maybe the fissure hadn’t reached this patch of stone; the air felt like a held breath.

“Let’s rest here. These bugs won’t get in soon.” Her words laid a thin blanket over panic.

They huddled inside a mid-rise apartment, stairs creaking like old ribs; they climbed a few floors, slipped into an open door, and locked it with a click like frost snapping.

For now, the swarm’s teeth were on the other side of the wall; the silence sat like a cat.

In the living room, they gathered medicine and food, bandaged the wound with hands that shook like willow leaves; the fridge’s offerings were ice-cold, but hunger was a blunt knife.

“You okay?” Worry tightened like wire around her heart; regret pricked as she wished she’d learned basic healing magic.

“I’m fine. I can hold on.” Xia took a sip of mineral water, breathed out like steam, and let her shoulders drop; after today’s monsters, calm was a thin shore.

Chen pushed up to scout more, mind drifting like ash, when a crisp impact rang in their ears.

Thud, thud, thud—something dropped like hail, the sound coming from the apartment’s deepest pocket of shadow.

Someone else was here? The thought fluttered like a moth.

Please, let him not blame us for taking his things; guilt trailed her like smoke.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Her voice knocked like a knuckle on wood.

Silence answered with a blank face; Chen swallowed like a stone, eased the door open a finger-width, and peered in with a fox’s caution.

Chaos lived here like a messy storm; quilts and clothes lay scattered like molted leaves, shoes wandered left and right, the table bloomed with colorful magazines and paper balls, and the computer streamed the latest anime like a glowing fish tank.

No doubt—the owner was an otaku; the room smelled like hiatus.

No one showed; only the window stood wide like open arms, and Chen’s gut tightened like a drum. She rushed to shut the door, but at the click, a black shadow skittered past her cheek.

The pitch-black thing flew like a bullet and slammed into Xia Qingqing’s neck, a wasp needle straight to the soft bark.

Xia’s eyelids hadn’t even lifted; the black bullet drilled in, and Blood surged in a pillar like a broken fountain.

Crunch, crunch—teeth tore like gears in an empty factory; a few minutes ago they’d been laughing and promising to live, and now Xia died to an unknown monster’s bite-song.

“Go… run.” Her voice scraped like a torn reed; her windpipe was bit through, and the words staggered out like wounded birds.

Chen was a half-newcomer, but knowledge gnawed like cold—Xia would die, and staying meant laying flowers on her own chest.

Xia collapsed beside the door, Blood unstoppable and staining a corner like a red stamp; her body held a little warmth like fading embers, blocking Chen’s path, and a Crimson Magic Stone clinked onto the floor not far away.

That black bullet pried open pale skin like wet paper and burrowed toward the tender heart like a mole through loam.

The air thickened with the sweet-metal scent of Blood, choking like syrup; Chen pinned her breath and kicked the door like a deer bolting from brush.

Behind her, Xia’s breath ended; her cooling body twitched like a dying moth, and the bug feasting inside her ignored the racket like a glutted beast.

Chen slammed the door; tears slipped like hot rain, fear clawed at her eyes like thorns, and in her palm lay Xia’s Crimson Magic Stone.

Its tassel hung like a scarlet thread, dyed by Blood; she’d snatched it without thinking, like saving a spark.

“Is this… the Abyss? Is this what people face?” The question tasted like iron.

One heartbeat they leaned on each other; the next, she was a cold stone in the world’s river, gone for good.

Chen clenched the Crimson Magic Stone and sprinted; the street lay silent as a lake, yet wing-beats rose from every shadow, a ragged buzz that trailed her like ghost umbrellas.

She was a rookie of the Mutual Aid Society, first time on a human battlefield, first time watching a comrade die to Abyss Monsters, like seeing a star go dark.

Fear chewed at her ribs, but she couldn’t stop; stopping was a cliff, and the fall meant death. She couldn’t die; she had to live; she hadn’t met Lingchen Yao, hadn’t guarded the family who raised her like warm roofs.

The Crimson stone hummed like a heart; her own Magic Stones answered, threads crossing like rivers, and Xia Qingqing’s Mana braided with Chen’s like red silk.

The unseen pull guided her to the door of Cantata Two; fate felt like a hand on her back.

A heavy black door loomed like a tomb gate; chains breathed cold like winter snakes and barred her path like iron branches.

She had looked into death’s eye, and fear rose like a step; it veiled her vision like smoke; her feet stuttered and she fell hard like a cut kite.

The swarm dropped on her like rain; mandibles bit through her energy shield, skin tore like linen, and Blood splashed bright as poppies.

“No… I’m dying.” The thought was a stone sinking.

“I’m only First Symphony, a rookie of the Mutual Aid Society,” she gasped, each word like gravel. “I can’t fight. I run. I watch death.”

Chen knelt before the door, fingers snagging an iron chain like a snagged fishhook; strength fled her like heat, and she slumped on the cold door, arms hanging like wilted branches, still clutching the Crimson stone like a lifeline.

“It’s not over. Stand up!” The voice cut clean like a bell in frost.

A clear girl’s shout rang in the cavern-black space; the swarm scattered like startled crows.

“Who?” The word was a thin thread.

A girl in a black-red dress stood before her like a midnight rose; Chen knew, like knowing rain, she had never met her.

Who was she? The familiarity brushed her skin like a breeze.

Lingchen Yao? The name flickered like a candle.

Impossible. Lingchen Yao was at Jiuqiong University, under an Obsidian Stone barrier like a glass dome, and he wouldn’t wear a girl’s face. This had to be a mirage near death’s shore.

“Stand up!” The command cracked like a whip.

Stand… why stand? Drowsiness pooled like warm sand; sleep tugged like a soft tide.

“Chen Xiaoyin! Didn’t you say you’d live?” the girl cried, tears shining like hot pearls. “Didn’t you say you’d become an excellent Magic Maiden and protect everyone at the welfare home? Did you forget?”

Her voice shook like a wire; her body carried wounds like stitched seams, the kind you earn while shielding someone else from storm.

Behind them, wings thrummed like drums; a wall of searing fire rose like a sunrise, and held the swarm back like a dam.

But enemies weren’t just common bugs; First Symphony predators prowled like wolves, and the girl’s Mana thinned like ink in water. She clutched Magic Stones pried from bug skulls and fed the Crimson wall like wood to flame.

“She’s protecting me… she wants me to live.” The realization landed like snow.

Suddenly, life’s edge blurred her sight; the girl’s shape overlapped a memory like tracing paper. Back then, a Magic Maiden had stood before her too.

Little Chen knelt in ruins like a broken nest; wind keened like arrows, and unknown beasts roared like furnaces; a woman in a white ceremonial dress stepped between her and a killing beam like moonlight over steel.

“I’ll become a Magic Maiden!” her child-voice had rung like a bell. “I’ll protect everyone at the welfare home… protect everyone!”

Yes. The word rose like dawn.

Joining the Mutual Aid Society was that wish turned into a road; purpose burned like a lantern.

Ten years ago, someone shielded her like a tree; ten years later, someone still stood like a wall.

Chen pulled her spirit together like a net; she gathered every drop of Mana like rain in a bowl, gripped the chain, and yanked.

Her body snapped upright like a drawn bow.

“I want to protect them! That’s why I became a Magic Maiden!” Her voice was a blade in the dark. “This time, I won’t stand behind others—I’ll stand in front!”

Her will levered the dusty door like a crowbar; rusted locks cracked inch by inch like ice breaking.

She set her Blood-smeared palm on the door like a seal; the Crimson Magic Stone circled her like a small sun, and inside it, a pure-white figure glowed—Xia Qingqing’s soul lingering like a moth of light.

Xia’s soul layered her hand over Chen’s like blessing; their strength interlaced like fingers, and together they pushed open the door of Cantata Two.

Chen dragged herself forward, steps stumbling like a foal, toward the light spilling beyond the door like river gold.

Behind her, Xia’s soul dissolved into white motes like snow; with the last string of breath she spoke:

“You must live.” The words floated like feathers.

The voice circled Chen’s heart like a swallow; she nodded, small but firm.

“I will.” The promise sat like a stone.

The swarm’s sound sharpened like knives; Chen’s power climbed to its peak like a cresting wave; she snapped her eyes open, and the girl who urged her was gone, leaving scorched earth like burnt paper.

Far off, a sky-wide carpet of insects rolled toward her like a storm front, with First Symphony elites glittering like thorns in the tide.

But fear no longer sat in her bones; it lifted like mist.

She would guard everything behind her like a wall of dawn.