Yun Ling sat across from Illusory Glass, a teacup cupped, steam coiling like mountain mist. Her smile-laden gaze pinned the girl's white lashes, trembling like moth wings. A sheen of fragrant sweat beaded that brow, a petal furrow of pain. Inside, the girl's will thrashed like a river in flood. Yet in the end, it would break on rock and wash to nothing.
The necklace of twelve eyes came from a Cantata Two beast, a relic with a chill like moonstone. A century ago, a mighty Seeker fed it a thread of god-blood, raised it like a thorned vine. Then he slew it, chopped its brain to pulp, gouged six pairs of eyes, and forged this Magic Tool.
Its quality brushed against Chapter Three, close as a knife at the throat. It even gnawed at its wielder. Without a mind tempered to the Cantata Three tier, you'd be caught like a moth to flame.
Yun Ling was only Cantata Two, her spirit short of Chapter Three, a lantern before dawn. But the sky-blue Array Pattern on her cheeks linked her to a lord among the Seekers, a distant star. The magic eyes' impact would crash there first, like waves on a cliff.
So she spared no thought for the magic eyes. She only had to guide Illusory Glass to step off a mental cliff, into wind and fog. Let her wander between illusion and reality, unable to tell dawn from dusk, and erode in chaos like sand.
Yet she had underestimated the young one before her, a plum bud in frost. The girl hadn't fallen. She clung to the cliff's edge, knuckles white as chalk.
She narrowed her glassy eyes; shadows smeared the world like ink. White filaments wove a giant cocoon of light around her, a silkworm's last fort. That was Illusory Glass's spirit, an emergency weave to stop the fall.
The great mind-cocoon sealed her spirit tight, a shell against Monsters' claws.
In the room, Yun Ling studied Illusory Glass's shut lids and frowned, a crease like a drawn bow. She hadn't expected the girl to shun the Abyss. Still, the goal was won: trap the mind, and she could brush the Time Temple's door like a prayer flag.
Invisible tendrils of will uncoiled from Yun Ling, like spider silk at night. They clung to the sleeping girl's skin and tugged her up like a puppet on strings.
Those dim, glass-colored eyes opened slow, a pond at dusk, and faced Yun Ling's sky-marked cheeks.
"Illusory Glass" mouthed the words, but sound snagged like thorns. Her consciousness still flickered, a candle in wind—something Yun Ling couldn't snuff.
Yet the Mana in her body was a river Yun Ling could redirect. Books and the leader had taught her: time reversal needs an anchor, a nail in the current. The anchor must not break; person or object, anything sturdy enough in the stream.
She could lace a wisp of time Mana onto Yun Ling herself, a ghost ribbon. But she couldn't enter Illusory Glass's mind, couldn't see the anchors planted before, seeds under snow.
They say time reversal sends people and things back to what they were, like spring after frost. Clear every old anchor and leave only this one—then, on the next rewind, her spirit would return to the cocoon.
A pity she hadn't pushed the spirit over; instead, the light-cocoon had thickened like winter ice. No matter. Once she hauled her to Seeker headquarters, that shell would crack like an egg.
Outside, the one hammering the light curtain was strong, a storm against glass. The old Formation master's high-grade Formation barely held, like ropes in rain. Still, it barely mattered; Illusory Glass sat in Yun Ling's palm. As a contract beast, Caris wouldn't dare leap.
By now, Blade should've sensed her vanishing, a shadow cut from the wall. He'd be talking to Moon Owl already, bidding her find Yun Ling. With Moon Owl's Cantata Three weight, she'd arrive in a blink, a hawk's dive.
Then you need a little riot, a spark in dry grass.
The twelve magic eyes at Yun Ling's throat blinked open, like night lilies. Every ordinary worker in the Twelfth District branch she'd touched—and even Magic Maidens of the First Symphony—went dim-eyed. Their minds fell off a cliff and hung between waking and dream.
As the instigator, Yun Ling's tendrils of mind could slip into their fog and guide them. In dreams, she could draw up their memories like buckets from a well—how many space tunnels, how many exits.
She could even steer their husks, turning them into a wall of flesh and bone. Hostages, a human dam. With that, Moon Owl's strike would hesitate, and Moon Owl seemed to dote on this younger sister.
"You finally came in."
Yun Ling set a cold dinner knife to Illusory Glass's neck, a line of winter on skin. Caris, fresh from breaking the Formation, froze at the door like a statue of onyx.
Those dim glassy eyes slowly tilted toward Caris, like moons tracking a tide.
"I know you could snatch this little knife. But kill me, and her spirit may never find its shore again. I promise..."
Caris felt the spirit linked to her sink into a strange self-guard, like a turtle in shell. Yun Ling's words didn't ring false; they rang like iron.
The Magic Tool at Yun Ling's throat even rasped at Caris's mind, a sandstorm. Her spirit wasn't fully set, but it stood at the peak of Cantata Two, a blade on anvil. Yet the string of eyes hinted at tearing her thought to ribbons again.
"What do you want?"
Caris tore her gaze from the necklace. Scarlet Blood filmed her eyes like frost. She watched Illusory Glass beside Yun Ling, quiet as a hunting cat.
"I just want to leave, foolish Blood Clan. And I'll be taking her."
Caris jolted like a bowstring. She couldn't let Illusory Glass be taken. But the knife at the throat and that murky psychic threat were hedgehog spines she couldn't grasp.
Blood-mist spread, a thin red fog, motes too small for daylight eyes. Caris could only buy time, let Yun Ling breathe deeper. Then she'd turn the Blood inside her like iron filings and cut her from within.
But Yun Ling sensed it—or she'd seen the Blood Clan before and knew their tricks like old tracks. In that breath, dim-eyed Illusory Glass cradled a silver book. At Yun Ling's thought, time around them slowed like honey.
Yun Ling and Illusory Glass were tagged with time acceleration, two arrows loosed. In three motions, they reached the nearest main door. A space tunnel would flag Moon Owl faster than footfall, smoke instead of shadow.
The door yawned; sunlight poured in like a festival drum. It seemed to cheer Yun Ling's win. She stepped—and space turned viscous underfoot, a bog of glass. An unseen tether hauled her back and locked her still.
A woman in a black trench tore a passage and appeared behind her without a sound, a knife through silk. A dagger of spatial Mana kissed Yun Ling's waist, cold as rain.
"Give Illusory Glass back."
Yun Ling smiled and turned. Moon Owl's eyes were deep as a midnight well, a darkness that made the bones shiver.
She didn't panic; her hand still held a fan of hidden cards, leaves of winter bamboo.
"You sure you only want Illusory Glass, Miss Moon Owl? She's not all I've got. The Twelfth District is probably a hornet's nest by now."
She was right. Moments ago, quiet staff had shattered equipment like ice and fed files to flame. They moved like puppets, hands betraying their hearts.
"They're in my hands too. I can blink and stop their breath. So, will you save Illusory Glass alone, or those lost workers? One reed or the whole raft?"
Yun Ling paused and laid the knife-edge choice out, cold as rail steel. A train problem on rushing tracks: one life for many, or many for one.
"Moon Owl, you're fierce—young and already at Cantata Three, a falcon at zenith. With a flick, you could cut me down. But mind-waves outlive flesh, especially mine."
With Moon Owl's strength, she could save Illusory Glass like plucking a fish from a net. Yet Yun Ling, backed by the magic eyes, could drown hundreds in the Twelfth District with her.
Moon Owl listened; space rippled at her hand like pond water. Then she moved—sudden as a falling star. The world split open on all sides.
She snatched Illusory Glass. Yun Ling staggered inside a storm of torn void, a paper boat in hail. She swung her arm; a silver halo wrapped Illusory Glass; clock-marks bloomed across the air.
Time froze, a lake under moon.
But the shard of Yun Ling lodged in Illusory Glass's spirit didn't freeze, a thorn in ice. She yanked Yun Ling from the spatial gale. Illusory Glass was only Cantata Two; the freeze would melt fast.
At most... two seconds, a matchhead of time.
Yun Ling steered them through broken space and stepped onto sunlit earth, heat like a drumbeat.
Moon Owl shed time's grip and swept her hand. Space clamped Yun Ling like iron bands. Illusory Glass popped free and stood blank, a sleepwalker in noon.
Yun Ling ground her teeth. Inside the Twelfth District base, people toppled like wheat before a scythe.
"Half of them first. Moon Owl, look at your choice. For one person, you let so many die with me."
Moon Owl's face didn't change, a mask of night. She refused to waste breath; kill Yun Ling fast and save more lives. Illusory Glass was her sister, her oath; and time's meaning was dearer still. Every regular in the Twelfth District had signed for life and death.
"I'll avenge them all."
She pressed space down; it fell like a mountain. Yun Ling flared all her Mana and barely lasted two breaths. Her will twitched; another forty or fifty fell like cut cords. She reached for more—and a spike of pain drilled her skull.
Pressure ground her bones near to dust, a mortar on grain. Pain flooded her head like boiling rain. Thought shredded into static.
"My lord, save me. Time is within reach!"
The blue lines on her face lit and burned upward, a fuse catching sky. They stitched into a blazing thread across the clouds.
A pillar of light chased that thread and smashed Moon Owl's space like glass. A vast, nameless mind poured into Yun Ling's flesh, a tide at new moon. In that heartbeat, Chapter Three might erupted.
