The darkness around her blew away as the chains snapped, swept clean like dust in a storm. What remained drew tight into a thudding heart, a coal-black core. From its center, a thousand blood-threads unspooled and wove a massive, pitch-dark body.

At last a Black Dragon the size of a hill crouched before Night Frost, obsidian scales drinking the light, dark-gold eyes watching the tiny creature that had inherited Its heart.

Those dark-gold pupils held her blood-smeared reflection. With each syllable of dragon-tongue that fell like hammers, cracks spread across the bracelet on Night Frost’s wrist, until it shattered clean in two.

Curse and calamity burst from her heart. Black Flame wrapped her body like night-tide.

From the split in the back of her red-and-black dress, a pair of vast, ink-dark wings pushed free. The two triangular ornaments on her head lengthened into black horns. From her tailbone, a scaled, pointed tail unfurled like a whip.

Four sharp fangs clenched. Blood beaded between lip and tooth. The pain in her chest was a rain of arrows, a rending that wanted to tear her open.

“Aaaah!”

Her smothered agony ripped out as a howl. She opened dark-gold eyes still veined with blood-light, and the pressure of a Chapter Three surged from her like a storm front.

Lesser Monsters crumpled under that weight, ground into bloody dust. The stronger scattered in panic. In a breath, only the black fox closest to Night Frost remained.

It didn’t stay by choice. Most of her pressure pinned it to the earth like iron stakes. It had ranked well enough among Monsters, but before a Chapter Three, it was no different from the small fry that fled.

A moment ago, it had held the winning hand, dragon power within reach. But the girl before it burst with draconic presence, like the Myth of a Chapter Three had descended again and lodged itself inside her.

“Is it that heart’s power—or another damn miracle?”

The black fox shuffled back, inch by inch. Night Frost was there in the space of a breath, Black Flame sheathing her fist. She brought it down, unhurried, on the fox’s skull.

A heartbeat of stillness. Then a rush of heat roared out. Everything on the surface burned away. A deep crater yawned, a Magic Stone inside reduced to ash, the bedrock beneath left strangely intact.

Face set, Night Frost looked up at the tumbling, segmented bulk in the air. The gaze of that Chapter Three landed on her, dread buried deep in its eyes.

“Wow, that’s a big bug~”

The gloom on her face broke like a cloudbank, a smile blooming in its place. The black wings folded behind her unfurled, slow as night. She bent her legs and kicked off. Those ink-dark wings lifted her small body as if it weighed nothing.

Wreathed in flame, she shot like a cannon shell for the monster’s mouth. Its heavy, iron-strong mandibles melted like rotten wood under the fire. Her black projectile cut through the purple glow of the Abyssal Rift, met the monster’s green saliva, and punched through its body.

The insect Monster slammed to the ground, then lurched up and ran straight for the outskirts of the Twelfth District.

If it weren’t wounded, if it hadn’t traded blows with two human Cantata Twos, it could have fought Night Frost, who had fused with a Myth-kind, to a coin toss. But now its strength was a tenth of what it had been. Against a peer, it could only run.

“Useless~ I made a promise. I can’t let you escape.”

Her smile iced over. She raised an arm. The curse at her heart turned into chains, crossing the dark and latching onto the broken carapace. She gave a sharp yank, and the massive body toppled backward. Black Flame raced along the curse like fire on oil, climbed, and spread.

Minutes later, the arrogant Chapter Three lay draped over ruins, barely breathing, its earlier might gone like smoke.

Night Frost reached in and took out a massive Magic Stone. That insect Monster was officially dead. She baked the stone in flame until it shrank to fist-size, then nodded, satisfied. She lifted it to her lips and nibbled, bite by tiny bite.

Blood smeared her face and hands. She ate with relish, like she hadn’t had a meal in ages.

“We can’t touch that place. We can’t touch the school. So that means I can play everywhere else, right?”

She stretched lazily and was about to leave when red meteors scored the sky. They slammed down like iron nails, pinning her to the earth, and exploded with a boom.

Missiles from the Sixth District’s military rained down, a merciless wash across the Twelfth District. Their blaze scoured the weak Monsters. First Symphony scattered and ran.

Night Frost climbed out of the shell crater. A rain of fire leveled the Twelfth District, the whole of it, the orphanage standing on the outskirts included. Everything was flattened.

The Twelfth District was abandoned.

After the insect Monster and Night Frost appeared in quick succession, the unshackled higher-ups learned two things: every Magic Maiden in the Twelfth District was dead, and the land crawled with Monsters, two of them Chapter Threes.

Headquarters chose to cleanse the Twelfth District first. Then they’d dispatch a Chapter Three Magic Maiden to seal the spatial rift, and hunt down any Chapter Threes that slipped away.

“Good. You’re… real impressive.”

Night Frost tossed a bent alloy plate aside and spread her black wings, fury banked in her dark-gold eyes. Her contract snapped the moment the school and the orphanage were destroyed. It meant she couldn’t take another step forward. She was stuck half-dragon, not-dragon, at the lowest rung of Myth.

Black Flame wrapped her whole body. She opened her palm toward the red meteors’ arc. Darkness gathered into a sphere a hundred meters tall. Flame boiled. Curses keened. Hatred burned.

“Grant flame to the dragon, grant fire to my hand. Tear life’s fetters. Burn all things. Strike to kill! Inferno, burn here! …Καύση στη φυλακή!”

Her red-black high-waisted dress flared outward, blood-red bleeding from within and trailing behind her. Black heels replaced her brown boots. Loose black fabric flowed from her arms and swallowed the white cuffs.

At her heart, a crimson rose seemed to bloom. A gold necklace lay against the side of her chest, its center hollow, as if missing a piece.

Black-and-white hair tips took on a wash of deep red. Blood etched itself into her dark-gold pupils. They gleamed like amber baptized in blood, wicked and beautiful in the dark.

“Unsealed? Strange. Whatever. It’ll do.”

Black Flame became countless burning Spears. They fell toward the Sixth District as fast as missiles. In that instant, invisible laws gathered above the Sixth into a pale curtain, cutting the whole district off from the world.

The Black Flame Spears struck the veil and only punched a few small holes. Weak flowers of black fire clung to the edges and burned, quiet as candlewicks.

Night Frost shook her head, disappointed. Looked like there’d be no vengeance today. She turned to go—when a white figure slowly opened empty eyes, and a voice cold as the moon rippled around her.

“You can’t leave…”

A Holy Lance gathered to a point. The moment she saw that pure-white spear, Night Frost’s memory slid back to the past, only eleven years ago to her.

She’d seen this Lance. Back then, red and white Mana linked to forge it, and it barely held the power to threaten her. Now, a single person’s single Holy Lance could threaten her.

Her strength wasn’t what it had been, but she was still a Chapter Three on Myth’s lowest rung. If this lance could threaten her, then its wielder had grown a lot.

But keeping her here? Not good enough.

Night Frost lifted her arm—couldn’t move a finger. She could only watch the Holy Lance fall.

It pressed down wrapped in crushing pressure. It swelled in her dark-gold eyes, wide with fear and confusion. Her body shattered along with the Abyssal Rift in the air. Where the Twelfth District had been, only a bald, empty crater remained.

Transparent filaments drifted in the wind. The sun rose. The white figure plucked a bracelet from the pit, then vanished between heartbeats.

“Twelfth District confirmed destroyed. Monsters cleansed. Predicted escape variance under five percent. Twenty-three non-ranked Monsters. Two First Symphony Monsters. One Cantata Two. No Chapter Three survivors.”

Underground in the Sixth District, everyone in white coats cheered. It was the first experiment—and the last. With Aklatia’s data, they had successfully reproduced a Chapter Three.

“Growth tank stable. Test subject nominal. Three thousand three hundred twelve sub-systems dead. Citywide energy consumption eighty-three percent. This will be the strongest weapon of science. Chief, we did it!”

The lead researcher, pale-haired, wore a calm face, but joy and fervor burned in her eyes. Before her stood a growth tank as tall as several people, filled with emerald fluid.

A white-haired girl hung weightless in the liquid, naked and still. Data lines ran like veins from her pale body, with more devices nursing each vital sign.

The old man set his wrinkled palm on the glass. Pride rose in his eyes like dawn.

“Order. We made you. With human hands… From now on, we’ll be in your care, Miss Order—our ultimate weapon, the bearer of rules. We’ll make the Monsters learn the greatness of humankind…”

The experiment that spanned eleven years finally dropped its curtain. It was done with human hands. It was a victory for the Magic Maidens.

Missile smoke drifted apart, driven away by the spatial rift above the Twelfth District.

Trade one Twelfth District for long peace. No more underground cells. No more border incursions by Monsters. It looked like a bargain.

But will this peace, this pure white, really last?

In the near future, will pure white stay white?

This so-called Order—will it be humankind’s future, or a shackle we clasp on ourselves?

O black Abyss, this may be only the beginning. In the long river of human history, Order is just one mote.

In the future’s borderlands, there’s still no seat for humankind.

For now, the Twelfth District is gone.

Oh, oh, oh…

Pardon the interruption. Breaking news: The Twelfth District is peaceful today, as always.

So—let’s start from the beginning…