Two figures—one red-gold, one silver—sprinted under the clear moon, their footfalls ringing crisp as ice on the empty street.

They flashed like lightning, one chasing one, too fast for the naked eye, leaving hems snapping like flags in the wind.

A book engraved with a flamboyant clock gleamed with silver motes, and their speed surged like a rising tide.

In less than half an hour, they reached the hunting-course site, where a hanging crescent and sparse stars watched like cold lanterns.

The hunting point wasn’t far from the school. When the team failed to return, the school sent teachers and notified the Order Keeper, swift as a bell at dawn.

Like other ruined places in the Twelfth District, it was rubble upon rubble, broken walls upon broken walls, a wasteland bleached by moonlight.

The light poured over Night Frost and Illusory Glass like frost dusting stone.

A few wolf howls drifted from the dark, maybe Monsters from the border, maybe remnants from the Abyss that slipped the net.

Silence pressed in on all sides. Only wind combed the barren ground, and faint insect chirps drowned in the dim night like sparks in ash.

Unease pricked first. Night Frost didn’t step in. Red-gold eyes sharp as blades swept the site, cold light flowing like molten metal.

Once she confirmed it was all broken stone, two weightless figures drifted down and touched the waste like falling feathers.

“There’s no trace of anything.”

Following Qianchun for so long, Night Frost had learned a scout’s eye. No signs of a camp, no signs of a fight, not even Blood.

There should’ve been plenty of students and teachers. They couldn’t all vanish like dew at sunrise.

Night Frost frowned. She scanned the dark, picked up a stone, found nothing odd, then flicked it away like a skipped pebble.

“No Formation, no Monsters… they couldn’t have just walked off, right?”

They searched the fringe and ran into Dawnlight. Gold-white cloth curved like sunlight; surprise flickered in her golden eyes.

Her heels clicked on the ground like chimes. A cold wind lifted her skirt. She was a golden butterfly washed in moonlight.

Dawnlight lowered her scepter. She already knew Illusory Glass and Night Frost had joined the Twelfth District Order Keeper.

Old grudges were embers. Now they stood on one line. She trusted Blade’s eye and let the ash fall.

Since they were all here, they knew why. They had come to read the strangeness written in this place.

The earlier Order Keeper staff hadn’t died. They brought back scraps of data. But people don’t vanish into thin air.

“Find anything?”

Night Frost asked first. Dawnlight had likely arrived earlier. Her net should’ve dragged up more fish.

Dawnlight shook her head. Silver hair ornaments chimed like tiny bells. She hadn’t been here long either. No useful clues. Not a trace.

Night Frost could confirm no sign of a Formation. They hadn’t stumbled into a sky-veiling maze Formation that masked aura.

As far as she knew, only her nominal master here truly excelled at Formations.

Even Dawnlight of Cantata Two sensed nothing. Reports said the Abyssal Aura here was normal. The Abyssal Rift hadn’t opened.

No battle marks. Not the work of an underground ring snatching prey. The wind itself said no.

The strong carry a strong man’s pride. They disdain abducting the weak like plucking weeds.

It was a future Illusory Glass had never met. Uncertainty chilled her like night rain. If she waited, she could always Return.

But Return demanded a price. While she lived, she wouldn’t burn that coin. So she gathered loop-born lessons and traced the cause like a thread.

Crimes without traces seemed tied to a rare Abyss, one that hardly ever opened rifts, like a shut eye that still dreamed.

Even in futures she had seen, it never opened a seam.

This Abyss could kill without a Rift. Its invasion was not the usual flood of Monsters.

It was said to root in the human heart, like ivy growing inward and strangling the house.

In several Returns, the Twelfth District had been abandoned outright, left like a husk. She didn’t know who investigated then.

Would an Abyss so poorly recorded really open here, like a ghost that finally leaves a footprint?

Skepticism held her first. Still, a guess was a guess, and words cost nothing but breath.

“This place could be a Human Abyss.”

She said it plain. Night Frost nodded. The Eye Orb had said Human Abysses were veiled in fog.

The Monsters that walked out of them wore something of people, like faces in a warped mirror.

Dawnlight forwarded their guesses. Even a sliver of a chance meant Blade would pull files from the Twelfth District archive like bones from earth.

There weren’t many files on Human Abysses, four or five dozen, thin as winter leaves.

Over half the Monsters tied to slaughter. Wherever they appeared, death rose like a crimson tide.

A dozen cases came from opened Rifts. Humanoid Monsters surged out, like masks peeling from a wall.

Blood Clan, goblins, and the like, though those were rare shadows.

The Seeker held that human form sat closest to the divine. In the far past, gods bore human likeness, and gods shaped human bodies.

All things yearned upward and crawled toward human shape, like rivers aching for the sea.

Back to the ground. Most cases stamped as Human Abyss crimes had no Rift opening.

The main culprits were upright people in the real world, faces bright as day.

And that Abyss carried rules, like a game played in a locked room.

To this day, the Order Keeper and the Seeker had only guesses. No one had entered a Human Abyss and brought back a map.

Like Myth, its definition was fog. Sometimes people even merged Human and Myth into one shadow.

Reading Blade’s messages on the encrypted phone, Night Frost and Dawnlight fell silent.

The data said everything and said nothing, like water slipping through fingers.

Night Frost caught one line of current: this Abyss had rules.

If this was a Human Abyss, did they need to meet a rule to be taken in, like bait meeting a hook?

Just like those students on the hunting course, swallowed without a splash.

Conjecture, yes. But worth a try, like knocking on a sealed door.

Illusory Glass leaned close to Night Frost’s cupped phone. As a girl, she was smaller now.

A phone once palm-sized needed both hands, like hugging a book.

“You don’t have one? Isn’t it standard issue?”

Her eyes, glass-bright, glittered. She looked at Night Frost, then at herself.

Her teeth clicked. Her voice carried grievance like a bruised reed. “My sister says I’m too young.

She wouldn’t let Sister Blade give me one. She just confiscated it.”

A smile tugged at Night Frost’s mouth like a sneaky cat. She tried to hold it. Illusory Glass still saw.

She grumbled inside. Counting her Returns, she was much older than Night Frost, age piled like rings in wood.

Night Frost wanted to tease. Time froze like a sheet of ice, and Illusory Glass snatched the phone.

Her power was broken in its own way. Night Frost lunged to grab it back, but Illusory Glass slipped away like smoke.

“Let me see, let me see. Pinned—Qianchun, Chen Xiaoyin, Hao Wenqian.

Joined groups. The House of Cattle and Horses (4). Let’s see the chat…”

Dawnlight glanced over at the two knotted together. They got along, like flint and steel. Both were geniuses with their own locked boxes.

But this wasn’t playtime. A Mana hand budded from her scepter, and she lifted them both like kittens by the scruffs.

It wasn’t strictly their business, but they were here for it too. A reminder was enough.

Night Frost and Illusory Glass read the air and stopped. Illusory Glass handed the phone back, sullen as rain.

Night Frost flashed a victory V, light as a swallow. It pricked Illusory Glass like a thorn.

The hypothesis was set. Next came proof. They had three days, a wick already burning.

After three days, the Order Keeper would announce the disappearances. The Twelfth District branch might dissolve on the spot.

No favorable time, no city, no hearts. The Order Keeper would crumble without a fight, like a wall without mortar.

Perhaps that was the mastermind’s wish. After they took the District, who knew what storm would follow?

Night Frost proposed they keep watch here the next day. The hunting-course time might chain to the rules.

So she scrolled her phone with a clean conscience, like a guard warming hands at a brazier.

Illusory Glass and Dawnlight circled twice more. The night cut bone-deep. Dawnlight lit holy light like a small sunrise.

The chill thinned, yet their nets came up empty, only moon and wind.

They regrouped and shook their heads, three silhouettes under cold stars.

Dawnlight urged Night Frost and Illusory Glass to head back. People were waiting, warmth behind doors.

If they were late, trouble would bloom like mold.

Wearing her Magic Armor, Illusory Glass found a Moon Owl space fracture near the school and dove in like a fish to a slit in ice.

She returned to her private den. Night Frost felt a stab of envy at this well-connected kid, sharp as a pin.

She said nothing. At best, she could fight this little insider to a draw.

During transit, Blade prepared Qianchun’s ID card and had Night Frost deliver it, neat as a stamped seal.

Blade learned Qianchun’s Magic Stone had shattered. She was seeking a compatible one, a rare vein in hard rock.

Night Frost knew it was a verbal IOU, but it hooked her heart like a hook through silk.

Qianchun’s broken stone weighed on her like a stone in the sleeve.

Qianchun now held a nominal post under the Order Keeper. The reins stayed in Night Frost’s hands.

In a word, call it a merger of official and outlaw, river meeting river.

Not only Zhao Qingsnow. Hao Wenqian, Qiu Sheng, Xia Qingqing, Zhang Jialu, and Chen Xiaoyin also stood under Night Frost’s banner.

The Twelfth District Order Keeper held the true reins, fingers tight as iron.

Deep cooperation earned deeper returns. Blade understood. Night Frost was an investment with a bright yield.

Changed and ready, Night Frost stepped out by the rental, breath fogging like pale smoke.

Qianchun and Hao Wenqian had waited long, patience pooled like still water.

Night Frost couldn’t forget. Qianchun and Chen Xiaoyin had planned a dinner, lights and steam.

To celebrate her discharge and… going to school?