As the client, the driver met every request within the rules, like a ferry sticking to its riverline.

When Lingchen Yao asked about the rumors, the driver poured out everything, like grain spilling from a torn sack.

An Abyssal Rift would open right over the Twelfth District, a sky-wound ready to split.

There was a good chance Chapter Three would take the field, and Lingchen Yao’s face set like cooling iron.

Everything drifted toward what Illusory Glass had hinted, like a compass needle settling.

Streetlamps flickered like moth-wings from a bad contact, while the stars burned hard and the moon shone clean as a blade.

The thin Abyssal Aura in the air climbed like a slow tide—crisis drawing near, the hush before a storm.

Dizziness rolled up first, like heat behind the eyes; he pressed his brow and breathed.

The driver was fast and smooth, but the world still swayed like a deck at sea.

Good thing he hadn’t eaten much, or he’d be hugging that stuttering lamp like a mast.

“What’s wrong?”

The Eye Orb tilted toward him, suspicion glinting like a bead of ink.

This wasn’t just carsickness; something had been off from the very start, a thorn under the skin.

Pressure sat on his chest like a lid of stone, and his color went slate.

A flood of words without names surged up his heart’s edge, and the Abyssal Aura inside him began to boil like a kettle.

One thought, and he could suit up in an instant, armor waiting like a shadow.

“I’ve got you.”

Something called to him from far off, faint as a single drop lost in the sea.

It had no clear source and no shore to land on, only a pull like a whisper through reeds.

Qianchun steadied him.

When his breath eased, Lingchen Yao rose and looked around.

No high-rises, only a bare expanse like a dead plain, strewn flat with building debris like bones.

The scorch of old wars still stained the ground like smoke on stone.

This place looked cut away from the Twelfth District, yet it still belonged to it, like a severed limb near the body.

He could see the district’s tall central landmark spearing the horizon—close, but not here.

If he was right, this was the piece abandoned after the disaster eleven years ago, the Black Dragon’s fall-ground.

They called it the Black Dragon’s Fall, a name like a bell tolling.

They said the place still held a heavy Abyssal Aura, thick as morning fog.

Because of it, new Abyssal Rifts opened here daily, wounds that refused to heal.

Aura from a mythic Black Dragon was a tar-pit the Order Keeper tried to skim with gold and time.

Even then, results might not come, like bailing a sinking boat with a spoon.

So the Order Keeper diverted most of the Aura beyond the border and ceded this slice of land, like pushing floodwater downstream.

That diversion raised the Aura outside by twelve percentage points, a tide that lifted danger a whole notch.

“Where’s your drop spot?”

In the cold, clear moonlight, Lingchen Yao swept the barrens, reading the ground like old bark.

This was the outer rim of the Black Dragon’s Fall, soil outside the Order Keeper’s branch reach.

No buildings stood here, and no passage led below, just empty skin over a deep scar.

The driver said nothing.

He pulled a letter from his pocket and slid it into a mailbox that twisted out of the air like heat haze.

The barren ground cracked with a dry tear, and the earth pulled apart to show smooth stairs like a cut through slate.

“I won’t go farther. Someone inside will take you down.”

Mana bled faintly from both sides of the stair, like warmth through stone.

Fine golden lines—Array Patterns—were carved along the walls, flowing with the stair’s slope into the dark.

Lingchen Yao guessed it was a kind of array, a net cast under the earth.

“Smoke and mirrors,” the Eye Orb muttered, its tone dry as dust.

“The arrays are real, though. They look fierce, but they won’t touch you.

Good enough to stall a First Symphony.

They’ll struggle with a Cantata Two.”

The well-traveled Eye Orb knew the tune.

Most rich underground crews set arrays like thorn hedges.

That letter was the trigger-key; walk in without it, and the array would swarm you like hornets.

A man in a suit stepped from the stair’s shadow, smooth as a waiter from a fancy restaurant on TV.

He motioned them to follow.

Lingchen Yao led, Qianchun on his heels.

In under five minutes they reached a flat landing.

The man placed his palm on a scanner, and a heavy gate groaned as chains dragged it open like a slow tide.

Glass cases flooded Lingchen Yao’s vision with a jeweled sheen.

Inside, guns of every shape lay posed, prices and model tags neat as labels in a museum.

He didn’t know the first thing about firearms; he’d never held a real gun, not even a toy.

So he let Qianchun pick, while he and the Eye Orb wandered like tourists beneath neon.

Qianchun had carried a sidearm during her years underground, though few in her old crew had that privilege.

When the new boss took over, he seized all sidearms and reissued them as test metrics, like leashes with scorecards.

No matter how hard Qianchun worked, he never trusted her—she’d stood too close to the old boss, like green and old bamboo in one grove.

Her gaze fell to a corner case: a t7-3-1 pistol.

It matched her old issue in shape, but surpassed that ten-year-old model in every breath.

It even carried magic sensing; feed it Mana and it hit harder, a common workhorse on the market.

The price, though, sprouted thorns.

“This one’s got an Array Pattern, miss,” the suited man said, voice smooth as oiled wood.

“Stability and uptime beat the previous generations.

If you’ve got a Magic Stone, the power jumps again.

Right now it’s only 440,000, and we’ll throw in a hundred rounds.”

Qianchun weighed the Magic Stones Lingchen Yao had given her; they were decent-grade, worth a bit over 590,000 on the market.

Spending half on one pistol was like trading a horse for a saddle—bad value.

If she carried Magic Stones, she’d think about it.

She didn’t.

Better to put that gun in Lingchen Yao’s hand than her own.

“Sorry, I don’t have Magic Stones.

This model fits me, though.

Do you have anything similar?”

Hearing that, the suited man’s interest cooled like tea left out, though he kept the smile for show.

“Here’s the rest of the t-series.

They won’t match that one’s performance.

No array assist, so the bite falls off.”

He laid the t-series out.

Qianchun went straight for the model she’d used before, and her fingers moved on reflex like remembering an old zither.

Load, strip, reassemble—months away had made her a little rusty.

This one still lacked compared to two others.

After a short wrestle with herself, she picked the higher version beside it.

“This one.

And please prepare two more, plus two boxes of matching ammo.”

Done picking, Qianchun trotted back to Lingchen Yao.

He was listening to the Eye Orb’s lecture, dawdling along like a kid in a gadget shop.

Truth be told, he was excited—the spark-in-the-blood kind—his first brush with a real firearm.

He didn’t need raw firepower or a pretty silhouette; he needed something compact with enough bite, a blade you could wear.

Most here didn’t fit, save a rare few grains of gold in the sand.

Guns engraved with Array Patterns bled money from both barrel and magazine.

That s-1-1465 semi–Array Pattern SMG before him hit hard, sure, but every burst burned cash like straw.

He wasn’t chasing Array Patterns anyway; he just wanted what fit his hand, a cover for his identity like a mask.

Qianchun shot that down with a shake, her gaze sharp as a knife’s edge.

The t-series she ordered were cheap—old versions retired to the bargain bin.

At most, one ran about 20,000.

With ammo, 60 to 70,000 would bag the lot.

The newest t-series Arcane pistol sat at 440,000, but they didn’t need to chase new.

Magic Tools and firearms had coevolved five or six years already, updates hitting like waves, fast and relentless.

Besides, pistols fit Lingchen Yao’s needs; concealment was their bones and birthright, a sparrow hidden in a sleeve.

Come on, a cute girl drawing a pistol from under her skirt? That’s cool as hell.

With both their silver tongues working like fishing lines, they’d still have coin left for daily needs, a little rain in the jar.

In the end, they clinched the Arcane Firearms and Qianchun’s plain t-series for 450,000 flat.

Lingchen Yao added fifty rounds at 1,200 each.

Total spend: 510,000.

They sold Illusory Glass’s Magic Stones for a bit over 590,000.

The suited man shaved off the small change and slipped it into his own pocket like skimming cream.

Even so, Lingchen Yao kept a small surplus, coins that chimed like pebbles in a cup.

After seeing them out, the suited man called the stall owner at once.

He told him not to bring Lingchen Yao and Qianchun here again—dealing with them left his purse dry as dust.

Under the Eye Orb and Qianchun’s guidance, Lingchen Yao slid rounds into Qianchun’s pistol, brass seeds into a steel field.

Start with the cheap ones—those Arcane pistol rounds cost 1,200 a pop.

Up the stairs.

Raise the gun.

Take aim, like catching a falling moonbeam.

“How is it? Not bad?”

Lingchen Yao froze at the threshold, striking a pose he hoped looked cool, shadow long in the doorway.

Qianchun’s green eyes laughed like spring leaves; she kept reminding him to be careful.

The Eye Orb shut its lid, as if it couldn’t bear the scene.

“Watch for a misfire.”

The topsoil cracked open slow, and moonlight poured in like milk.

Shapes stretched long under the car’s headlights, blocking that sudden silver flood.

A faint scent skimmed past Lingchen Yao, quick as a moth, and arrowed for Qianchun behind him.

Cold hands slapped down on her shoulders, and a sorrow-sharp woman’s voice rose from the dark.

A chill knife kissed Qianchun’s throat, thin as ice.

The voice tore up from a swollen throat, a ragged roar that wanted to rip her apart.

“Qin. Qian. Chun! This. Is. All. Your. Fault!”