A dragon’s heart?

Night Frost’s vision swims. Fear presses first, then she turns her gaze to the Eye Orb on her shoulder, a cold moon watching. Ever since fighting Lu Jin and Lu Shi, her body has felt… altered. Something lurks in her chest like a coiled shadow.

Now the answer lands like a hammer. Her heart is no longer hers. It’s the heart of the Calamity Dragon from the Abyss, slain by Magic Maidens more than a decade ago.

That dragon’s heart feeds her a relentless regeneration, a spring under stone. It’s the source of her Black Flame. Because of that heart, Night Frost crawled back from death again and again.

Then the Magic Stone inside her bracelet—of course it’s the dragon’s Magic Stone. Heart plus dragon’s Magic Stone. Is that the truth behind Night Frost becoming a Magic Maiden?

Her heart pounds harder, drums in a storm. She hears a dragon’s roar inside the chambers, rage boiling at the weak Monster defiling its heart.

The fox Monster is wrapped in Black Flame, a furnace blooming. It grins through pain, eyes sticky with greed, fangs bared, ready to dive into Night Frost’s chest.

Crimson meteors tear down from the night, and the earth answers with a single boom. Then a chorus of booms rolls in, unending like thunderheads.

“Twelfth District. The kennel where the 【New Faction】 dogs squat… From today on, there will be no so-called Twelfth District 【New Faction】.”

“At the Headquarters council, with no Twelfth District 【New Faction】, those self-styled 【New Faction】 won’t match us in the 【Old Faction】, right?”

An old man sits before a wall of monitors. On the central screen’s corner, a counter ticks up missiles bound for the Twelfth District. In the main feed, the District burns.

Crimson meteors crater the Twelfth District into a torn map. Magic Maidens of the 【New Faction】 scatter, rats under torchlight.

They are far too weak. A single missile swallows them whole, ash and echo.

A woman covers her lips, but her smile leaks through. Mockery glints in her eyes as one 【New Faction】 Maiden after another vanishes in the blossom of explosions.

“【New Faction】? Just a name someone pinned on. To me, they’re the 【Old Faction】, walking the antique road. Weakness is inevitable. Only those who innovate can be called new. Which is… us.”

A girl in a naval uniform sets down a ceramic teacup. She wipes her monocle, then meets the elder’s gaze through the lamp-lit room.

“I want to see whether their so-called ‘heart’ can keep them alive.”

The old man’s words carry iron. The Magic Maidens before the screens fall silent, eyes fixed on the fleeing figures turned to sparks.

Missiles fall like a rainstorm with no horizon. Monster or Magic Maiden, all die in merciless fire and the snap of shockwaves.

“What is Headquarters doing! There are citizens here! 【Chapter Three】 is already dead, so why!?”

Moon Owl locks on the streaking “meteors” in the black sky. One peels off and drops true, falling straight toward the orphanage.

Most here belong to 【First Symphony】. Inside are children with hands too small to lift a blade. How do they stop a weapon meant to erase a city?

Only she can take this one.

But the price will bite deep.

If she opens a spatial rift again, her Mana will be drained to dust. Then she couldn’t beat even a rankless Monster, let alone the rain of missiles after.

At least stop this one. Then think.

“…Unseal!”

A cloak of night settles on Moon Owl’s back. Her dagger drinks a haze of ink, obscure and old. With her remaining Mana and the force unsealed, she steps onto the air and leaps.

Her blade cuts the void with a whisper. Half her freshly recovered Mana drains away like water through sand.

A deep rift opens and swallows the entire missile. It will drift lost in the void, fuel bleeding out, a dead star among silence.

Magic Armor and the rift hold for only seconds. Fragments from her own tear in space cut lines across her arm, a map of pain.

Moon Owl steadies midair with grit, then sinks onto mossed stone at the orphanage gate. Bandaged wounds split open. In a blink, she’s a figure of blood and collapses.

Pain eats at Night Frost’s mind, a black tide. The falling missile hits both the fox Monster and Night Frost. The Eye Orb flies off into the rubble. Only the two remain, across broken ground.

The fox Monster was already mauled. After the missile, it’s a spent bow with no arrow.

Night Frost coughs up inky Blood. From the depths of her heart, black script creeps, wanting to sheath her whole body in night.

Whatever sleeps in her heart is fully enraged by the fox.

Pain, pain in flesh, pain in thought. Her skin burns. Her heart wails and slams against her mind, forcing clarity through the haze.

She has no time for the heart’s anomaly. Kill the Monster first, or die here.

Black spell-glyphs crawl over her skin. At a thought, they gather in her palm and bloom into Black Flame.

“You’ll regret this… human!”

The fox Monster staggers back, pupils pinpricked. It smells the dragon’s revival rising off her like dawn. It blames its own slowness, blames the falling missile. If not, it would have feasted on that heart, returned to 【Myth】, and attained 【Chapter Three】.

Regret wastes breath. In this state, it can’t face Night Frost. Leave the mountain, keep the firewood. It turns to flee.

It squeezes every drop of strength and springs dozens of meters. Night Frost steps once. The flame carries her forward like a dark wind. A sharp black Spear lances through the fox’s neck.

Black Flame devours the body. A single ragged wail hangs, then snuffs.

Night Frost tears the carcass open. She takes the Magic Stone, then scans the ruin. Crimson meteors keep falling. The sky won’t stop bleeding.

She sees the ragged spatial rift above, and the Moon Owl falling through it. Night Frost knows Moon Owl has hit her limit.

She taps her fogged head, then drags her torn body step by step toward the orphanage. Chen Xiaoyin, Hao Wenqian, Qianchun, and the children still need her.

Outside the orphanage, only wreckage remains. The Monster tide was eaten by the missiles’ blast. The aura of the Black Dragon rolls off Night Frost. No Monster dares approach.

She reaches out, grips the iron bars of the gate, and uses her last thread of strength to hold herself upright.

Black spell-script twitches on her skin, then sinks inward like ink into paper. Her dark-gold eyes go dull. Only the heart in her chest keeps beating hard.

The missile barrage pauses for now.

Inside, the Magic Maidens settle Moon Owl to a bed. Just when they think the storm is done, two uninvited guests step through the shattered threshold.

“Huh. So this is where the newly promoted Twelfth District 【Chapter Three】 hides. What a sorry sight…”

One girl boots Night Frost off the iron gate. The other pries the gate open and glances at Night Frost’s faint breath and thready pulse.

“Don’t bother. She’ll die on her own.”

The two girls push through the door. Gray Mana knits into a short Blade, and its edge kisses Chen Xiaoyin’s neck. The thin veil guarding her throat parts. Two drops of crimson slide down.

“Orders from upstairs. Purge all 【Cantata Two】 and 【Chapter Three】 Magic Maidens in the Twelfth District. So don’t stand in the way. You’re just 【First Symphony】…”

The girl in the pale-blue dress lets pressure roll out, heavy as deep water. One breath chews up Chen Xiaoyin’s strength.

Zhang Jialu doesn’t dare step in. Xia Qingqing and Hao Wenqian brace behind Chen Xiaoyin. Qiu Sheng raises a gun. Qianchun stands with him, ready.

Even if she’s 【Cantata Two】, five 【First Symphony】 should be able to hold the line.

“Why kill the heroes guarding the Twelfth District! You’re Magic Maidens too!”

Chen Xiaoyin snarls through clenched teeth. The girl’s boot taps the floor. A murky lake blooms under her step. Her deep-blue eyes flare. Her【Cantata Two】 Mana unleashes, and the room gasps under the crush.

“Heroes? They’re traitors… The Twelfth District’s high-ups are traitors. Yes, we’re Magic Maidens. But we aren’t the same…”

She fists Chen’s collar and flings her out the window. She strides for Moon Owl. Hao Wenqian and Xia Qingqing block her, roots in a storm.

A few vines twist around her ankles. She tears them off with a flick. Hao Wenqian throws a punch. The girl catches it, steady as stone.

“Twelfth District. Truly weak.”

“Hey, so many 【First Symphony】 died. A few more won’t matter, right?”

She asks the short-haired girl in a black suit behind her. The suit girl doesn’t speak. She closes her eyes and nods, a calm blessing.

“Then I won’t be polite.”

She waves. The room’s moisture gathers into two massive water orbs, and they swallow Hao Wenqian and Xia Qingqing whole.

The water obeys like mad hounds, ramming inward and flooding their bodies, trying to drown them from the inside.

She steps forward and drives a dagger at the blood-soaked Moon Owl. The blade doesn’t reach the heart. Chen Xiaoyin crashes back through the door and blocks it. The dagger pierces her light shield and sinks into her shoulder.

Words aren’t needed. The attacker knows Chen Xiaoyin won’t let Moon Owl die.

The rough girl cuts a glare over her shoulder, annoyed. The suit one dresses formal and never lifts a finger. If she’d stalled even a heartbeat, the strike would have landed.

“Look.”

It’s the suit girl’s first word.

Mana surges in Chen. A door hidden within her flickers into view, chains coiled around its face like iron serpents. One step more, and each chain will snap.

Chen grips the hilt. She yanks it free with everything left. Then she lifts her light shield and smashes it toward the attacker’s head, pushing through weight heavy as a mountain.

“She saved me. I won’t let you pass!”

Pressure around her thins in an instant, falling to something she can ignore. Rusted chains on the inner door break. Light expands outward, walling the two strangers outside.

In that heartbeat, Chen Xiaoyin becomes 【Cantata Two】, as in the last cycle.

“So you’re a traitor too! Then this whole place is traitors, huh?”

The suit girl still doesn’t speak. She smiles and nods.

Water vapor funnels toward the attacker, fracturing into hundreds of water bullets. They hammer Chen’s pale-blue barrier at blistering speed, each impact bursting into mist that rains down.

Chen’s hand trembles. That single volley leaves her weak as a reed.

Qianchun and Qiu Sheng crack the water orbs around Hao Wenqian and Xia Qingqing. With Mana, they squeeze the excess water out, then wade into the fight.

Lightning builds in Qiu Sheng’s palm and rides the water on the floor toward the girl outside the barrier. It can’t even reach a 【Cantata Two】, let alone slow her.

If he had ascended to 【Cantata Two】, he wouldn’t be this stifled.

Normally, several 【First Symphony】 can resist a 【Cantata Two】. But this one is absurd—she alone pins the freshly ascended Chen Xiaoyin and several more.

“That’s the gap.”

The water sphere clenched into a Spear and slammed into Chen Xiaoyin’s light shield, a comet of river-glass.

Born of soft water, the Spear was solid and razor-sharp, a hidden fang in a mountain stream.

On impact, the Spear burst like the sphere, mist blooming, then gathering into rain that fell in sheets.

Her light shield buckled under the weight, then shattered, glass-bright petals scattering across the ground.

True spirit of earth, sprites of lakes, gods of the sea.

Rule ten thousand rivers and lakes, receive my prayer, grant enemy-shrouding rain, grant keen arrows!

Μακροειδές και βροχή νερού

The falling rain froze in time, set like beadwork on the black pre-dawn sky-veil.

Under the pull of this Magic Spell, each drop hardened into a blade-bright arrow.

Inside every arrow, dense Mana thrummed like pressed thunder, and their number was beyond counting.

Fear bit cold as night water; Chen Xiaoyin knew she couldn’t stop it.

Still, she braced and raised her light shield, a lone lantern against a storm.

The girl saw Chen Xiaoyin and the others still straining to resist, and she sneered, frost on her lip.

Come taste true despair. This ends now!