Illusory Glass lay upon the rubble of Jiuqiong University, like a pale petal on broken stone, breath frayed and heavy with ash. To halt Chapter Three’s killing stroke for a heartbeat, she spent most of her mana, burning it like oil for a single flicker of escape. It seemed the plan had half worked.

She bent time like a river dam, stalling Chapter Three’s strike mid-air. That brief hush let Moon Owl and Yuan Dai react. Yuan Dai’s shield wrapped around Moon Owl like a silver shell, and Moon Owl slipped away from the death-blast’s radius like a startled bird.

But it was Chapter Three’s full force, a hammer from the storm, and Illusory Glass couldn’t hold it forever. The explosion was inevitable, heat like noon sun, shock like thunder. Moon Owl couldn’t dodge all its teeth. In that instant, Illusory Glass tugged the mid-air Moon Owl toward Yunyang Orphanage, where Lingchen Yao was a quiet ember in the dark.

Now it hung on Moon Owl and Lingchen Yao linking up. With Lingchen’s power like a hidden spring, Moon Owl could keep breathing.

If Moon Owl still died as before, if the wheel turned back, she would once more…

Faster. Faster—

Moon Owl cut air with her dagger, slipping through the alley like a swallow under eaves. Her Magic Armor flaked away like peeling lacquer; even as she forced it to hold, it would unravel in minutes. Every step came with a gasp, a bellows dragged across ribs, as if she could fall at any moment.

Her cloak tore under the tiger-thing’s claws, cloth fluttering like wound banners. Fresh gashes striped the beast’s body, black fur matted like wet reeds. The wounds weren’t fatal, but under the dim street lamps the tiger-shape looked more monstrous, a shadow with knives.

Moon Owl gauged her mana like counting grains in an hourglass. She could open one more spatial rift, her keystone strike. Use that last spark, and if the monsters didn’t all die, she’d be lamb on a butcher’s block, torn by fangs and hooked claws.

The tiger-type monster had hit its ceiling too. It crouched low, belly brushing the grit like a panther in tall grass, eyes crimson and steady on Moon Owl near the mouth of the alley. It waited for the right beat, a threshing blow to end a life.

She faced it, one hand braced on the wall, breath thin as winter fog. She felt the stall for time like a rope in its claws. Her own hour was sand thinning; when the Magic Armor dropped, her injuries would scream at once. Without that state, she couldn’t draw full strength.

She couldn’t die here. If she died, who would watch Illusory Glass and Grandma? Who would guard the Twelfth District when lanterns went out?

Right as she gathered power to strike back, a sharp knuckle of force cracked against her back, a pebble flick to a taut drum. To steady her lurching body, she scattered the charge, pouring mana into her legs like molten lead into pillars.

She sensed no monster behind her, and she had no room to look. All sight and will pinned the tiger-shape rushing at her, claws like sickles, breath like a hot forge.

She slid, a low shovel under the beast, skating gravel like ice. Her dagger punched the beast’s lower belly, a thorn into wet bark. She yanked to pull free, but the shadow that had struck before skimmed past her arm, leaving three thin lines of blood like red threads.

Her mana-forged dagger shattered to nothing, light like glass dust on wind. Moon Owl fell behind in the tide. What remained would either form a new blade or open the final spatial rift.

Two choices at the cliff. How did she live against a wounded Cantata Two and a hidden unknown?

Moon Owl bit down, fingers closing on the void, shaping a dagger of intent. She sprinted for the alley mouth, feet slapping like drumbeats. The hidden monster refused to let her go; it surged ahead, fast as a whipcrack, aiming to sever her hamstrings and break her leg like dry bamboo.

Let the tiger-thing and Moon Owl wreck each other, and it would reap the fisherman's catch, netting the spoils from the bank.

As the shadow grazed close, Moon Owl snapped her body aside, a reed bending under wind. The pounce missed, claws slicing air. But the tiger-beast held its grudge like a buried thorn; it drove its paw into her lower belly again and again, blunt force like a ram against a gate.

“Am I just going to fall here?”

One answer remained. Unlock again. Tear open a rift. Even if… she knew the price of repeated releases, a toll taken by the river. But what was the exact coin?

“Limited release! Armor stack—”

She barely spoke before a meteor fell from the Abyssal Rift, trailing a tail of flame like a comet’s brush. Bitter regret flashed in her eyes, a shard of night. She hadn’t helped Illusory Glass find her sister. She hadn’t finished the promises she owed.

She could only watch. The meteor plunged, a brand from heaven, heat and fire wanting to burn her to ash. She shoved with both hands, ignoring the pain like knives in bone, pushing the tiger-beast away like rolling a stone uphill.

Next breath, the falling fire met the beast. The blaze stroked past Moon Owl, searing like a passing furnace, and smashed the tiger-thing into the alley walls, stone coughing dust.

She didn’t die.

The fire felt alive, a fox of flame with its own hunt. Its target wasn’t her, but the beast clawing at her, the tiger that wanted a thousand cuts. As the fire carried the monster away, Moon Owl clawed upright, shaky as a fawn, eyes locked on the crimson blaze roasting the creature.

From the flames stepped a girl’s silhouette, born from embers like a dancer from smoke. She wore a red-black dress, the pure-white lace hem layered like petals, swaying gently in the flicker. She extended a pale hand; sparks burst behind her like fireflies, as she spoke softly:

“We’ve fought a few times before, but now’s not the time to dwell, right?”

“And hey! Why are you running off like that… I spent ages just trying to find you.”

Only hearing Night Frost’s grumbling tone, Moon Owl couldn’t answer before Night Frost slung her up like a sandbag, the world tilting like a boat.

The tiger-thing’s lantern oil was gone. It couldn’t handle Night Frost’s strikes; a single wad of fire drove it back step by step, like waves forcing driftwood to shore.

Roaring in the burn, the tiger-shape tried to break the flame’s tether, thrashing like a netted catfish. The fire wouldn’t shake loose. It burrowed into blood and meat, eating life breath by breath, a kiln devouring clay.

Moon Owl watched the tiger-type die inside the flame, and a sour taste rose like smoke. She’d been saved by a former enemy, and that sat poorly as cold tea.

Coughs tore her chest. She spat blood from the lungs, iron-tang warm. Her Magic Armor broke away completely, a husk shedding, and tears of unwillingness pooled in bright eyes like dew. She shot Night Frost a sour glance, tried to wriggle free, but pain nailed her down, a weight she couldn’t lift.

Night Frost closed her eyes, then draped fabric over her like a blanket. Moon Owl blinked, surprised for a heartbeat, fingers clutching the cloth to cover what mattered, then curled into Night Frost’s arms as they headed toward the orphanage like a cautious glide.

The shadow behind didn’t give chase. It turned and pounced the tiger-thing, bit the Magic Stone from its skull, and swallowed it like a pearl. Crossing Night Frost now wasn’t wise; better to grow stronger and seek her later, like sharpening teeth before the hunt.

“Her scent is so tempting… you can smell it from afar. A dragon…”

The shadow paused, showing itself. Black fur slick as ink, eyes dark green like moss, sharp teeth clamped on the Cantata Two Magic Stone before gulping it down. It licked Moon Owl’s blood from its claws, tail swaying like a metronome, then landed on a nearby roof and fixed on Night Frost moving toward the orphanage.

Night Frost touched down at the orphanage door with steady feet, calm as snow. Inside, Chen Xiaoyin and Hao Wenqian had waited long, hands practiced, taking Moon Owl from her arms and setting her gently on a single bed, sheets cool as river cotton.

Lying there, Moon Owl felt curiosity stir like wind. Why would Night Frost save her? And why did these Magic Maidens treat Night Frost like a friend under one roof?

She knew two of them, both younger Order Keepers, faces met a few times under starlight.

What she’d seen of Abyss-touched beings with mana were brutes with storm in their bones, more claw than hand. Night Frost was… different. Not exactly “enemy,” more like “uneasy neighbor,” a strange peace under rain.

“You must be wondering why I saved you. Shouldn’t I be your enemy?”

Night Frost sat by the window, eyes like winter water tracking every monster outside, voice loose as smoke drifting toward Moon Owl on the bed.

Moon Owl nodded, breath shallow. She wondered too, why Night Frost and others from the Abyss felt different in some places, like lanterns lit in a cave.

“You never really gave me a chance to explain, Moon Owl sis~”

True enough. Most Magic Maidens went straight at Night Frost on sight, blades first, questions later. Facing a Fallen One’s sophistry, they wouldn’t bother to reply anyway.

But today, she’d listen. Moon Owl needed to understand the person in front of her. Besides, she was under another’s roof now, and choice was a thin string.

“I saved you for two reasons. Outside, two girls didn’t want their comrades dying to monsters. It’s naïve, sure, but they’re throwing everything to save what’s right in front of them. I didn’t want them walking into danger, so I gave them a hand.”

Night Frost spoke gently, weaving thought like threads. She paused, watched Qianchun finish the monsters outside, then continued, voice soft with heat:

“I didn’t want to save you at first, since I don’t like you much, to be honest~”

“The second reason, and the key one… it’s a deal. Someone commissioned me to save you, offered payment. I can’t tell you who.”

A commission?

Moon Owl couldn’t grasp it. How could this be something you commission? Wasn’t she just tossed here by accident, like a leaf?

“This is way too… bizarre.”

No, one thing fit. Someone had guided her fall to this patch of earth, like tugging a kite string.

She replayed the fight. Chapter Three’s power-laden strike stalled for a heartbeat, a hiccup in thunder.

She’d retreated a few meters in that breath. Then Chapter Three’s Magic Stone collided with her spatial rift, birthing a blast like an angry star.

The explosion tossed Moon Owl outward, mind white-noise for a moment. She hadn’t noticed another mana current circling her, a second tide under the wave.

If Chapter Three had acted, the Magic Stone likely wouldn’t have detonated that way, like wrong chemistry.

So the hand was probably only Cantata Two in strength, and not far from the field, a shadow behind the curtain.

In that battle, almost every Magic Maiden of the Twelfth District’s Order Keeper branch gathered, a flock under a storm. None had the power to stall Chapter Three’s aerial assault mid-air, not even for a blink.

Unknown, then?

It couldn’t be Illusory Glass… could it?

She recalled Illusory Glass stammering earlier, words tangled like thread, swallowing what she wanted to say. Meeting Illusory Glass felt tied to something—no, impossible. Illusory Glass grew up under her gaze. Whether she’s a Magic Maiden, Moon Owl knows, doesn’t she?

Moon Owl murmured, pain tearing through her like ripped cloth, voice squeezed down to a thread the night couldn’t carry. Night Frost didn’t hear, and kept talking, complaints tumbling like beads.

“I’m not from the Abyss, and I’m not one of those who constantly exudes Abyssal Aura. I only leak a little when I transform, a little when I fight (quietly). There’s really no need to hit me on sight. Why do you chase me everywhere I go? I mean, I just wanted… anyway, I don’t like you all much.”

Seeing more monsters gather at the door, Night Frost stepped out to support, leaving Moon Owl alone with her thoughts, Night Frost’s words rustling like leaves in her head.

The two new Magic Maidens had good aim, cleaner than Night Frost and Chen Xiaoyin, sharp as needles. The monsters outside wouldn’t rest either; kill a few, and more flowed in, corpses piling like firewood around the orphanage.

“Can’t kill them all. Not with this count.”

Night Frost fired into the monster tide, muzzle flashes like lightning, while the Eye Orb on her shoulder scanned the streets, unease skimming its surface like cold wind. Something felt off, a puzzle he couldn’t name.

The Chapter Three overhead had been killed by the Order Keeper’s Chapter Three, a storm answered by a storm. Even so, countless monsters kept pouring out of the city center, and border monsters went restless, pushing for the outskirts with purpose. It felt like strings pulled on a puppet crowd.

Zhang Jialu and Xia Qingqing cut down many, blades singing like rain. Qiu Sheng, who’d just awakened when Night Frost stepped out, felled plenty too; Night Frost’s view of her shifted a touch, but not much, a thawed edge on ice.

Qiu Sheng gripped bright golden lightning, one hand on a trigger, the other throwing thunder. Lightning bridled the rowdy monsters like a golden snare. Bullets pierced their thinnest eye-orb tissue, drilling into brain and ending life in one whisper.

With the unranked monsters cleared in front of her, Qiu Sheng looked at Night Frost measuring her from the side. Night Frost felt the gaze like a beam and quickly turned her eyes away.

“Last time and this time… thank you. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve saved me twice. I was trying to find you, and fate got ahead of me. Funny, it’s me getting saved again.”

Night Frost had braced for Qiu Sheng to strike back, like a blade flashing in moonlight. After all, she’s that kind of Magic Maiden.

Yet her stance flipped from last time; her voice softened like snow melting on the eaves. She was suddenly easy to talk to.

Since they parted last time, Qiu Sheng had taken a hard look inward. A weight of shame sat in her chest like wet clay.

She found she’d been too “arrogant.” She’d grown up in an air of “arrogance,” like smog. Power and money can blind eyes like a dust storm.

Raised in that weather, she caught the same chill of “arrogance.” Without noticing, her “arrogance” stacked enemies around her like thorns on a hedge.

She was grateful to her teacher. They pulled her out of that “arrogant” fog like leading someone from a maze, and taught her how to think.

That lesson snapped her awake from “arrogance,” like cold water at midnight. Because of it, she almost lost her life, a candle guttering in the wind.

We live only once; die, and everything slips away like sand in a river—even the capital to be arrogant.