Downstairs, the street moved like a tide, phones held high, curses flung like thrown stones, hawkers barking at doorways like crows before the storm—just like the Twelfth District before Chapter Three’s Abyssal Rift yawned.

Smiles sat on the passersby like painted masks, stiff as lacquer; some noticed Night Frost and Dawnlight, and their masks stretched like wax in a mid-summer heat.

Their hearts climbed like trapped sparrows; cold seeped in like winter fog. In their eyes, these people weren’t people at all, but monsters in borrowed skin, wolves dressed as men.

They finally grasped why the Abyss of [Human] bore that name, a mirror with breath, a wound named by its shape.

“Save me…”

Footsteps halted like a drum cut short; every gaze turned toward the shadowed stairwell, where Night Frost and Dawnlight leaned like frost and sunrise in a corner. Numb eyes glinted with thirst like dry wells smelling rain.

Muttering fluttered like moth wings, meaningless at first, then gathered like storm clouds into three clear, deafening words. The sound felt magnified a hundredfold, a spear of air that pierced nerves like ice.

Night Frost and Dawnlight didn’t move, still as stones; the crowd turned as one like a slow tide, dropped their tasks like fallen leaves, and shuffled toward the corner with the patience of mud.

Clean clothes frayed like old banners; wounds bloomed like rotten flowers. Some lacked hands, some feet, some a heart, yet none lay down; their eyes brimmed with Blood like red lakes that refused to freeze.

“Save me!!”

Hundreds roared at once like a cliff of surf; hands sharpened like blades, as if the cement would split like ripe fruit. They knew they couldn’t stand against the sea, so they pooled Mana under their soles and threaded the flood like fish.

“…Let living wings rise and soar!”

White feathers woven of Mana unfurled from Dawnlight’s shoulders like swans at dawn; Mana bore her legs aloft like wind under a kite. Night Frost didn’t fly; she slipped through the crowd like smoke and lifted a few valuables like a quiet thief.

Flames burst under Night Frost’s feet like foxfire; she leapt high like a springing cat and caught Dawnlight’s conjured golden chain like a sunline, then both landed on the mall’s rooftop like two sparrows finding a beam.

They sat on the roof, breath easing like steam in cool air; everything below felt wrong, an icy sun like a blind eye, a street crying “Save me” like a broken bell—so much like the Twelfth District it hurt.

“If I’m guessing right… this is the Twelfth District’s restless dead.”

Dawnlight looked down at the crowd, a black tide swelling like ink; she closed her eyes without meaning to, because the roar stitched itself into the disaster’s last scream, the moment when even all their strength couldn’t save them.

Here they had become the restless dead, mouths still caught on their final words like a needle snagged—“Save me!!”

This was the Secret Realm of [Human], raised by hearts unwilling to die, an echo turned to space like frost that hardens into glass; their refusal gathered like iron filings and became this special Abyssal Rift, a door named [Human].

“The dead can’t return. I want to bury them here like seeds under snow. Not yet.”

Night Frost listened like a cat to rain, scrolling a phone lifted from the crowd like a pebble from a river; the news was frozen right before the disaster, a clock stopped mid-tick, confirming Dawnlight’s guess.

Knowing the shape of the place made action easier, like weighting a map with stones.

A call came in like a fly in summer; Night Frost hung up like snapping a twig. The caller kept ringing, relentless as a woodpecker on rotten bark.

“What, you gonna patch straight to me?”

The calls went quiet for a breath like a held wave, then dialed again. Before Night Frost could end it, a faint, unsettling howl pushed through like wind under a door.

Her mouth twitched like a line pulled too tight; she’d just been talking, yet the thing seemed to understand—uncanny as fog that remembers footsteps.

Then, from the call interface, a shadow probed out like a hand from a mirror, slow and hungry, as if it meant to crawl through the glass.

Night Frost tossed the phone off the roof like dropping a hot coal; it shattered below like brittle ice, and a smear of black wriggled from the broken screen like ink, swaying as it joined the “Save me” chorus like a moth drawn to flame.

“Does that count as hitting me through the wire?”

She muttered, then kicked that image from her mind like a pebble from a path.

“Buddy, spooking folks in broad daylight’s just bad manners.”

The crowd pressed together like packed reeds; they couldn’t clamber up all at once, and height felt safe, like pine tops above a flood.

They ate a little, simple as camp-fire bread; for now, they had two goals, set like stones: find the missing students and teachers, and find the missing passage.

They guessed the passage had a single entry like a burrow mouth, but it led anywhere in this dead Twelfth District like roots under soil. No one stood at the door when they arrived because the passage was “shifting,” like a dune in wind.

They didn’t know if the passage had a rhythm, a tide or a clock; they’d have to find it again and measure it like moon phases.

Staying wasn’t a long plan; some clever dead were already climbing the stairwell like ants. Even after advancing to Cantata Two, their Mana wasn’t endless, a river with banks and stones.

They chose a safer spot to weather the night like a boat seeking a cove.

The dim sun fell like a hot coal into ash; no moon rose, the air held cold like thin knives, and the Twelfth District’s dead howled like wolves, every cry aimed at the living like arrows.

“I remember those students’ faces, sharp as sketches. But searching here is a needle in the sea; by day we saw the scale—this place matches the Twelfth District like a blueprint. We’ll need luck… and the passage.”

They returned to the room they’d entered first, a haven like a lantern in fog. After rummaging for a long while like mice in grain, Night Frost found an old map, creased and yellowed like autumn leaves.

It was the old kind, the places didn’t match cleanly, likely left by an elder of the house like a pressed flower, but it still let Night Frost fix their position like pinning a star.

On the Twelfth District map, they were a speck of dust, a drop in the sea, a single grain buried in desert wind.

“Whew. I think we should find the Rift first.”

Dawnlight shed her Magic Armor like a cicada shell, changed from her spatial box into pure white pajamas like snow, and laid bedding on the floor like a small raft. She refused to use much from this space; touching anything made her feel disgust rise like bile.

Night Frost’s plan was to find the passage first, then have Dawnlight ask the rescued students if any knew where the ones who entered had gone. With a thread, they wouldn’t have to sift the whole sea.

If they got outside, they could watch the passage’s changes like the tide and guess a pattern, harvesting news like apples.

Students couldn’t outrun the wind; once they found the starting point, they’d expand outward like ripples and surely catch the lost students and teachers.

Dawnlight thought Night Frost’s take was solid; better than running blind like headless flies, they’d go out and think with others like warmth around a brazier.

They took turns resting, lanterns in each other’s dusk; with only the two of them, an accident needed a second hand like a brace on a ladder.

Dawnlight sat cross-legged and sank into meditation like a stone in a clear pond. Night Frost kept at the map like a needle on cloth, marking today’s route and planning to push the path further tomorrow like a sail catching more wind.

The night passed without incident, though the shrieks scratched their rest like thorns; by the next day’s dim light, the howls finally ebbed like a tide.

Night Frost opened the curtains like lifting a veil; the street surged like a river, the sun stayed dim as a smoked lamp, and it sank toward the west like a wounded bird.

Wait… the west!

She rubbed her eyes like wet ink, but surprise didn’t flare; time spent here dulled shock like patina, and it all felt terribly Abyss.

“Maybe there’s no daytime here at all?!”

Dawnlight leaned in, calm and seasoned like an old sailor, and offered her guess like a compass.

“Maybe this space formed at this moment, so time’s broken. Dusk to night to dusk… that means our daylight’s short, just a handful of hours.”

“So we move at night?”

Night Frost frowned like a crease in silk; night meant higher risk, shadows with teeth.

“Night’s the dead’s paradise, and they’re many as reeds. If we’re caught, it’ll be hard to pull free, like feet in mud.”

They understood; these dead were strong as wolves and many as snowflakes. At first, the two might cope like dancers, but time would wear them down like sand on stone.

They hesitated, then chose the night, a blade pulled under starlight.

Night Frost took out the map she’d marked, a lattice like spider silk; Dawnlight agreed, and they packed light, then stepped out like birds off a high branch.

They cut through yesterday’s mall, where dead clustered like driftwood. Night Frost’s eyes lit with an idea like flint; they moved fast and reached the gas station mid-route like runners at a well.

Dawnlight understood; she siphoned gasoline like water into jars. Before she spilled, she checked the mall twice like a doctor, making sure no living hid inside; Night Frost handled the fire like a priest of embers.

Under a black night, the blaze climbed high like a tree of flame; it painted the stars red like embers on velvet, as if it meant to burn through the sky’s curtain.

The fire swaddled the mall like a hungry beast; the dead screamed and thrashed like fish in a net, hands outstretched, mouths still caught on “Save me,” until they burned to ash like paper charms.

Black mist hung in the air like a bruise; that was Abyssal Aura born of burning, a taste of iron and night.

“Feels a lot better.”

With fewer dead on the street, they followed their route like beads on a string.

Bang—

In midair, Dawnlight sprang a shield like glass; too rushed, the bullet punched through the thin holy light like a needle through silk and buried in her calf like a thorn.

She wavered like a kite in a gust, then steadied. On the ground, Night Frost sprinted past a van like a shadow and saw who had fired at Dawnlight.

A group of Magic Maidens.

They gripped Arcane Firearms like gleaming bones; numb eyes paired with stiff smiles like porcelain masks, and from their throats came the same three words, squeezed like sap—“Save me.”

Night Frost saw it at a glance; they weren’t human, but puppets in rain, dolls with knives where hearts should be.