Her makeshift mentor’s words sting true: Cantata Two is far from enough—she hasn’t even touched the threshold to guard a gate, let alone that snow-pure maiden absurdly strong.

After lingering a moment, Night Frost bids her mentor farewell. The fog around her parents’ trail finally parts today, a single thread glinting through the dusk.

When Aklatia hardens, when the Twelfth District’s rebuild sets like stone, when Night Frost’s edge is honed again, she’ll leave for the Sixth or District Twenty One.

She slips down the passage, and within a few steps a familiar outline rises—Yun Ling, a Seeker, her hood casting deep shade over blue sigils etched like river veins.

A smile hangs there like a mask; half-seen eyes fix on Night Frost, and a little cold crawls under her skin.

She says nothing, just stands in the stream and becomes a stone.

“Please make way.”

Night Frost speaks, and Yun Ling finally stirs. She yields a narrow path, her fox-bright smile saying it was no accident.

Yun Ling watches Night Frost leave the corridor, her grin deepening. Mana trickles from her fingers like leaking starlight, a small sigil settling into her palm.

“So special. My ability can barely touch her. Her will isn’t entirely hers.”

She turns and slips down Night Frost’s route, her cloak swallowed by the dark. Before the Obsidian Stone gate, a finger taps; the black stone parts a thin seam.

From that seam, her giggle ripples out. She’s learned something again, something from the shade.

Tired hangs on Blade’s face like a permanent bruise; as long as she breathes, the work piles like snowdrifts. Maybe that’s why she lets things slide.

She sets a stack of papers on the table and fans one forward. It’s a consolidation report on Twelfth District border personnel, sent fresh from the front by Chen Xiaoyin.

Recently, a youth-led group has formed along the border, their arms neat and their drills sharp—trained hands. Chen Xiaoyin’s team got pinned by them, letting many border members settle inside Twelfth.

“Unifying the border organizations—I want you on that. You carry Aklatia’s banner. People will listen. If we go as the Twelfth District, doors will slam.”

Night Frost scans the report. Most are survivors pulled from the disaster’s ash. The roster even hints at children tucked among them.

They accuse the Twelfth District of deceiving the public and bullying civilians. So they’ve linked with outside border groups, aiming to teach our Magic Maidens a lesson.

Night Frost keeps her doubt close. Slogans are smoke; the voices may be planted faces, shields raised by the outside groups.

Chen Xiaoyin’s team is stalled, and she’s a Cantata Two. If she’s held, the enemy’s strength isn’t soft.

Maybe they’re Cantata Two as well. Or maybe they shove a child forward, thinning their line, because Chen would try to save the kid first.

After a disaster-battered Twelfth and monster swarms at the border, Cantata Twos don’t sprout like weeds. Night Frost bets on the second scenario.

This is thorny. Blade wants her to try pulling them in—best, draw them into Aklatia and swell the Twelfth District’s arm. Aklatia counts as the Twelfth now.

Night Frost asks for a leave slip with practiced ease. Blade already had it printing. A sigh fogs her chest; she’s barely back and work calls again.

She’d rather sit in class, quiet as rain. But only this way can she tap the Order Keepers and pry out more truth.

Her mentor said the Twelfth once cooperated with her father. Blade’s archive might hold those papers. Someone in the branch might remember.

She doesn’t hide it. Sharing pieces with Blade oils the gears between Aklatia and the Twelfth District.

“I want to look into the Twelfth’s experiments—eleven years ago.”

Blade pauses, then nods toward the old scars. According to Night Frost, a disaster eleven years back took her parents. Chen Xiaoyin says Night Frost has been hunting the truth.

She wouldn’t chase a project for nothing; she must’ve found a thread. Blade will help her tug it.

Orders go out. Eleven-year files are dusty, not lost. Two people digging for several days should shovel up something.

“Good. You’ll be on mission these days. When you’re back, the file should be warm.”

Night Frost nods and takes the stamped sheet. She twists her mouth; on this white paper, the seal’s the only thing with weight.

“Wait for my word.”

She flicks the paper like a white fish and steps out of the warped space without looking back. She reaches the classroom and sets the slip before the teacher.

Surprise twitches the teacher’s face, a glint in the eye—this Magic Maiden student is a Cantata Two?

She should be in the Magic Maiden class, right?

Night Frost thinks so, too. But Blade assigned her to the agent class, maybe to keep the waters still.

The teacher reads the weather and nods. In a corner, the leave slip curls into ash, and the request stands approved.

With the formalities done, Night Frost drops a word to Illusory Glass about the mission, then heads for the border without a breath of delay.

Recently, Illusory Glass has been kept on a short leash by Moon Owl. She slipped into a spatial rift last time and bumped straight into Moon Owl on exit.

Moon Owl now demands she arrive and leave school on the dot. For a month, her wings are clipped.

Illusory Glass takes it, but swears that if Night Frost crashes, she’ll roll time back in a blink.

Night Frost can’t help the thought—rewind is a bug, too good to be true. With Illusory Glass in play, things flow almost too smooth.

And yet, no doubt, that bug only bites dead ends.

She sets off at dusk, when the sky pours ink. She moves toward the border like a blade drawn through shade.

The border looks different now. For trade, the Twelfth District extended a concrete road, a gray ribbon for trucks ferrying goods to other districts.

Until airports rise again, this ribbon is a strategic artery, a heartbeat the rebuild depends on.

All along it, First Symphony patrols, volunteer militias, and army units drift like lanterns, keeping order on the vein.

Outside the border, Monsters breed thick. Since the Twelfth’s defense line collapsed, they roam unbridled, looting trucks, shattering order, slowing the rebuild.

That’s why this road bristles with people.

A patrolling Magic Maiden spots Night Frost and steps in, but her papers flash like a seal in firelight. The two First Symphony guards wave her through.

Night Frost smiles at the taste of authority. Before, they’d have chased her down the road like dogs after a fox.

With patrols here and the real border still ahead, Monsters are scarce. She doesn’t bother to clear them; the road lies quiet.

Night falls, and Monsters wake. Distant booms tumble like stones; fights crack the dark somewhere beyond the lights.

She lets the noise sleep. First, she has to find Chen Xiaoyin.

Chen seems deeper in. Night Frost opens the locator; the dot is a long stretch away.

She’s about to push on when the thunder turns to gunfire. Along the concrete ribbon, fire blooms, licking out from an outpost.

The outpost is in trouble.

Blade had given her the Twelfth District Magic Maidens’ comm frequencies. She dials to the outpost, and pleas for help hiss through the speaker like steam.

Night Frost steadies her voice, telling them to breathe—the support is coming like rain over parched fields.

Then Blade calls on the satellite line. Her voice is iron. No matter what, no one in that outpost can die.

Night Frost says she’s moving; the call is a gust behind her sails. Save if she can. If she can’t, she’ll leave nothing untried.

Luck dances weird. Night Frost finds trouble like a magnet. The outpost’s luck is double-edged—disaster, but also her.

She follows the fire, feet clicking the concrete, and reaches the so-called outpost. Truth is, it’s closer to a toll booth in a burn.

Not the moment to dwell.

Crimson fire fills her eyes. An orange heart licks within, wrapped in Crimson, the breeze fanning it into a harsher beast.

A figure in the flames thrashes and calls. Night Frost strides in, pushing back the licking tongues.

Crimson Gold Flame gathers under her feet like a ring. She plunges through the fire and hauls the person out in one smooth pull.

The worker’s uniform is singed, and his soul sits brittle with fear. His eyes fix on a shadow moving in the blaze.

Night Frost looks, her breath thin as ice.

From what had seemed empty flame, a towering outline steps. Hollow, dreadful eyes follow the trail of her Mana, then lock on her body in motion.

It opens its mouth wide, and fire pours out like a dragon’s breath.