Rank blood slicked the streets; more fell from the air, a drizzling rain. Monsters stamped through their comrades’ gore, over hills of bodies.

This land was on the verge of being claimed by Monsters. They rampaged along every suburban road, devouring humans with impunity, blood used as ink to announce disaster.

In the air, the insectile Monster rolled its body; the White Knight in heavy plate raised an arm and smashed its hard carapace. Then the heavy blade fell, screeching across the shell.

The Rosefire Pistol bloomed bullets, scarring the hard shell; scorched powder streaks branded it. A black shadow threaded the bug’s body; a violet-lit dagger stabbed the soft flesh between plates.

Beside a hundred-meter bug, Lujin Lushi and Dawnlight were so small—small enough to doubt who the real insect was. Their hits barely tickled it; the Monster turned to the Twelfth District Warden rushing in.

“The Warden’s here! Like we agreed—one stays, two go! I’ll stay. Lujin Lushi, head to downtown and help!”

Dawnlight raised her scepter. Golden Mana unwound in threads from the gilt staff, wrapping their bodies like warm sunlight.

“What about you? Didn’t we agree I’d stay? I can slip into shadow—these things can’t touch me. You? With that fragile holy light—can you block Chapter Three’s strike?”

Lu Shi looked at Dawnlight. They’d agreed: she stays, and Dawnlight and Lu Jin head downtown once Chapter Three arrives. Now Dawnlight had changed her tune.

“I can’t. If I can’t, I’ll try anyway. Lu Jin needs you. You don’t get to die.”

Dawnlight paused, breath a small tremor.

“You and Lu Jin together are strongest. I don’t need a match. My Holy Lance can pierce its hide. My holy light can keep me alive. Yours won’t.”

“But you also—”

Lu Shi had barely started when a slightly older girl’s voice spiraled from the ruins, like wind through broken tiles.

“Told you—she’s stubborn, bull-headed, just like her mother.”

Following that familiar voice, eyes lifted to a girl in ice-blue gothic lolita, hovering midair. Black round-toed boots kissed the rubble; her ice eyes opened, cold as a winter lake.

Who else but Zhao Qingsnow?

Zhao Qingsnow clenched two ice spears. She glanced at the rolling bug in the sky, then the kneeling White Knight, and sighed like frost fading.

“Yep. Up close, it’s still terrifying.”

“Then go! We agreed—I’m not going with you.”

Dawnlight’s brows knit like willow leaves; she shot Qingsnow a sour look.

“Ahaha… can’t do. I’m not running. I promised your mother I’d protect you. Besides, I was once an Order Keeper…”

“I’ll fulfill… what little duty I’ve got left.”

Since she could remember, Dawnlight had never seen Zhao Qingsnow—her aunt—with eyes this steady. She realized those ice eyes looked a lot like hers.

Maybe Zhao Qingsnow had once been like her—years had sanded the edges.

“Mm. Then together.”

Maybe they only started to understand each other now. Not too late, right?

Dawnlight leaned closer to Qingsnow, watching Lu Jin and Lu Shi depart. With this veteran beside her, Lu Shi breathed easier, like fog lifting.

The Monster beat clear wings and spread twin mandibles; the massive pincers clamped the White Knight’s arms and hauled it skyward.

The White Knight’s legs left the ground, force stolen; the hand holding the blade felt suddenly weightless.

Holy light hardened into a long spear. Ambient mist condensed over it. The icy Holy Lance drove at the airborne carapace and slammed home.

The impact made the bug’s body hitch. The White Knight seized the beat and punched at its compound eye, round as a moon.

But a near-transparent lattice of interlocked triangles bloomed over the eye, a shield eerily like Chen Xiaoyin’s.

The bug whipped its body and smashed a ruined Jiuqiong University tower, dropping the whole building toward Zhao Qingsnow and Dawnlight below.

Blade and masonry slammed into earth, flinging up a mountain of dust. The violent shudder forced the White Knight to clutch the creature’s forelimb, knuckles white.

Its forelimbs were carpeted with backward barbs, cruel-sharp; a casual flick could score fine lines across armor.

In its mouth, an ink-green fluid pooled, boiling, black vapor streaming up. The stuff was viciously corrosive, hissing on white armor—yet harmless to its master.

Upon reaching Chapter Three, the Magic Maiden’s sense for danger had sharpened like a knife.

The Twelfth District Warden knew the threat: that ink-green spit. Fired like a shell, it would corrode and punch through the White Knight.

If the White Knight was destroyed, re-forming it would be a nightmare. Better a clean loss than that vile, viscous acid—cut off an arm!

The Warden laid her palm on the White Knight. Obeying her will, it drew the white greatsword at its waist. The keen tip pried the plate, then took the arm in one decisive stroke.

Pain stormed the Warden’s body; severing the Knight’s limb tore her own by proxy.

She grit her teeth and steadied the Knight midair, then drove it down. Dust billowed like storm surf, swallowing both Knight and Monster.

A chill wind rose to the sky and froze into a giant mirror of ice.

The corrosive spit chased after, sheathing part of the Knight and splattering across the ice mirror.

In an instant, the White Knight seemed to boil; the armor’s outer Mana layer sizzled under the green spit.

The Abyssal Rift heaved another storm, blowing the dust to tatters and baring the bedraggled figures of the White Knight and Zhao Qingsnow—

Where spit had eaten, the white sheen was gone, replaced by countless pitted, char-black holes. Arms, thighs, back—no plate was intact, none unwarped.

Zhao Qingsnow and Dawnlight helped each other from the haze. Holy light had blunted some force; ice crystals had stopped most debris. But their Magic Armor was tattered, Mana and stamina both spent.

Qingsnow most of all—crafting that mirror that held back most of the spit had drained her Mana. Ice-blue motes lifted from her skin and drifted upward.

The bug didn’t finish them. It almost humanly appraised the White Knight kneeling in its pit, and the Warden climbing out of twisted plate. It ignored the two in the corner, compound eyes gleaming with mockery and pride.

Scarred, the White Knight rose from the pit’s heart. With its left, it drew the corroded white greatsword and leveled it at the deep violet, churning body. A girl’s hoarse voice rang over the Twelfth District.

“I am Yuan Dai, Warden of the Twelfth District… It’s not over, insect.”

Yuan Dai’s taunt enraged the aerial bug. It dove like a dark comet. The Knight sprang lightly, stepped on its head, then reached for its knife-thin wings and—

ripped it down!

Hard shell, sharp forelegs, corrosive spit, heavy pincers—none mattered. The wing joints were the weak point.

Tear the wings off, and it’s just meat and rage on dirt.

And the ground is Yuan Dai’s home field.

The immaculate White Knight collided with the bug again, thunder meeting thunder.

That earth-shaking clash woke Moon Owl, lying beneath the branch office on white sheets.

Moon Owl jolted upright. Her palms felt empty; panic spiked. Then memory settled—she was in the underground ward. A nurse, seeing her awake, threaded events for her like beads on a string.

Hearing the last few students were safe let half her heart unclench. The other half throbbed with the wall’s uneven tremors—Yuan Dai, their Warden, still fought Chapter Three. Her colleague was still missing, a star absent from the night.

She had no reason to lie here like a sheathed blade. Her body could still hold.

“You can’t go. You’re at your limit—you’ll collapse! And you’re the Warden’s chosen candidate! You can’t!”

The nurse spread her arms to block her. Moon Owl shook her head. Her body was hers to judge.

“Heir, is it? Then I’ll pass on that.”

The branch lay quiet, a sealed bunker of calm. If she waited for the war to end, her candidacy and credentials would hand her the Twelfth’s top seat without effort.

But an heir who runs—does that deserve the title?

Moon Owl tore open space. From the Mana vortex beside her heart came crisp snaps, like chains breaking with each beat.

With each step, her Mana surged, cresting higher than ever.

Wherever her gaze and will touched, her own rifts opened. One thought, and she’d arrive where she wished.

“Chapter Three, huh. Time’s short, but enough.”

Moon Owl hovered beneath the violet Abyssal Rift. Her eyes—deep, cold, and black—fixed on Monster and White Knight, locked in stalemate.

She extended jade-like fingers. The White Knight sensed it first and fell back hundreds of meters.

“Limit release! Magic Armor overlay!”

“O gods of the starsea, cast down your gaze. Let the river of stars be a road, the constellations be lanterns to an unknown hall… In this instant, I unseal myself!”

The earth became the sky’s reflection and split, rifts mirroring above yet deeper. They caught the bug at the waist—and broke it in two.