A warm smear of soul pressed against Illusory Glass, and the weight on her chest eased like snow melting. Maybe it was pain-born mirage, maybe the lantern before death. A silver-haired figure wrapped her soul in a gentle embrace.

Two silver strands woven from thought twined together like moonlit threads. On shoulders broader than Illusory Glass’s, she felt a long-lost warmth, like winter sun on stone. The two silver figures rested flush, and soul-force poured from one body into the other like a river into a lake.

Her dimmed spirit began to mend, slow as dawn. The silver figure marshaled her mind against the black-robed woman. Her awareness cleared like fog lifting, and the scene ahead sharpened.

She couldn’t quite see her inner world, but three wills and two sides clashing beat her like drums in a storm. The newcomer was strong, but together they still weighed light on the scales.

Seizing the mental high ground, Illusory Glass sank an anchor into the hospital bed. She wiped away her messy anchors, then forged a razor of Mana and set it to her throat like cold moonlight.

She saw Caris resting in Moon Owl’s palm. Caris’s eyes burned with ferocity and bloodlust, like coals under ash. It felt like part of her self had slipped away; she was spitting curses like sparks.

Moon Owl’s gaze, rimmed red like a sunset, held her steady. Illusory Glass had never seen her so raw. Not since her sister died in the Abyss had Moon Owl worn grief this openly.

Night Frost stood like a bystander on a wind-scoured shore. Moon Owl’s quick words sketched the storm. It felt like family business, so Night Frost asked a few clipped questions and then watched in silence.

Illusory Glass was lucid for a heartbeat, and in that blink, many knots came loose like tangled silk undone.

“She’s my sister? A piece of her soul sits in Caris’s body?”

Her sister’s state mirrored her own like twin moons. No wonder the moment that fragment arrived, a crowding warmth gathered around her. But the warmth was ebbing like a receding tide. Soul against soul would end with both shattered.

Time was a sandglass bleeding out. She looked to Night Frost, then to Moon Owl, eyes set like tempered steel. Her voice landed hard.

“Next time we reset, I’ll end her…”

Then a dagger kissed her white throat. Crimson blood sprayed, red plums blooming on winter snow—lush and lovely, steeped with sorrow.

Illusory Glass’s soul, her sister’s, and the black-robed woman’s all thinned fast, like smoke pulled by wind.

A Temple hidden in the unknown rang the bell of return, low as thunder on the horizon. Illusory Glass’s soul stood again before the Time Temple. The center was still missing. The hands were still mottled with rust. She’d lost count of how many times she had come.

She touched the clock’s face and heard time’s grain, an ancient cadence like wind through pines.

“Again…”

She nudged the Temple’s hand. Nothing moved. The Time Temple had brought her here, yet this time, time itself stayed silent, like a still lake under ice.

Did I not die?

No. If I’m here, death or not, the Time Temple can still cycle. Twist the hand, jump to the anchor. That should work…

“So this is the Time Temple? Cracked, but it still cost me a few tricks to get in.”

Pain laced down Illusory Glass’s back like a seam ripping. Two great hands thrust out from within, and the black-robed woman tore free of her soul like a knife from a sheath.

A second soul crawled out, dim and misshapen as half-formed clay. That was her sister, yet not wholly her. Fused a shade with Caris, her outline had shifted, leaning toward Caris’s face.

It seemed she’d given Illusory Glass most of her mind and soul. She was fragile now, like frost on glass, a touch away from vanishing into air.

“Thank you… Sister.”

Illusory Glass grasped why the Time Temple had stalled. She used to arrive alone. Now two others rode in, sand in the gears. It had bugged the Temple—a nasty, game-breaking bug.

A piece of the Time Temple was missing. It couldn’t tell owner from intruder. With a small trick—like hiding inside Illusory Glass’s soul—anyone could slip through a broken gate.

If she rewound like this, the past would warp. A powerful enemy might meet a soul as strong as their own. Two storms would rage at once under the same sky.

To curb that abuse, the Time Temple sealed the rewind. Until a true master is named, time won’t flow back. It will stretch forward along its worn channel like a river in flood.

“Even broken, time is mesmerizing. I can taste the years here like old wine. With a nudge of this hand, I could… go back!”

She touched the hand with a fingertip like a moth to glass. No matter how she twisted, the Temple stayed mute, as it had for Illusory Glass.

“I could’ve finished you back then. Curse that reckless soul barging in. Without her, I’d have gnawed you to a husk, come here, devoured the rest, rewound, and worn your face…”

The black-robed woman looked at Nanwu’s weak soul, anger flickering like flint. She raised a blade to strike, but Illusory Glass caught it like a thunderclap in her palm.

Home-field or not, Illusory Glass’s soul now matched the black-robed woman’s. Illusory Glass hadn’t grown; the other had been shaved down, cut and cut again by grinding tides.

In the short run, no winner would emerge. So she thought as their souls slammed, wave on wave, evenly matched, neither cresting over the other.

In the hospital, Moon Owl watched Illusory Glass in the ER, worry pooling like rain in a gutter. Neither she nor Night Frost knew if time had rewound. They could only watch her body fade like a candle. The doctors rushed her to surgery and, by a thin miracle’s thread, kept her alive.

But she didn’t wake. Souls are mist and mystery. Her mind was damaged, but not past waking. Something deeper was missing, like a root torn from dark earth.

Soon they wheeled her out. The doctors placed her in the Twelfth District branch ward, the safest harbor they had against rough seas.

Blade had dug up the black-robed woman’s trail. No name, but near a century old, and a member of the Seekers, with rings on her soul like rings in an ancient tree.

Plenty of regions that disliked the Seekers now stood with the Twelfth District, enemies aligned like geese in flight. On that front, they shared ground. Elsewhere, it was still feast or famine.

Credit where due, the Seekers had money. One compensation tranche equaled a third of the Order Keepers’ aid to the Twelfth. Yet Blade and the others couldn’t be glad; the gold felt heavy as lead.

After this battle, the Twelfth District had shown most of its open strength. Some of Night Frost and Aklatia’s secrets were dragged up in the net to glare in the sun. Thankfully, Zhao Qingsnow and part of Aklatia’s fold stayed buried, though not by much.

Scarred as it was, the Twelfth was a blasted field ready to sprout. It was a fine feng shui prize. Take it, and twenty-four Magic Maiden districts become twenty-three overnight.

The Twelfth was like a stripped maiden. Wolves circled with shining teeth. Show one flaw, and they’d swarm and devour her, silk and bone alike.

The branch had quietly gone to wartime footing. Some district leaders love war like a bonfire in a drought. That was a bad omen, smoke curling before flame.

One good ember glowed. Caris wasn’t dead, which meant Illusory Glass and her sister were still struggling, soul to soul, in the dark.

Night Frost cut a deal with Blade. Moon Owl couldn’t leave the Twelfth at will. So they planned for Night Frost to take trusted hands to the Seeker branch run by that black-robed crone.

Her Seeker branch was one of their largest. Those Seekers excelled at mindwork like weavers at a loom. Inside lay relics that wake spirit and soul. They might be the Key to Illusory Glass’s return.

After this job, Aklatia would set its feet in the Twelfth, then step abroad. Once outside, growth wouldn’t be bound by Blade’s pact, a tether finally cut. Night Frost agreed with a bright, winter-cold smile.

So Night Frost readied to move and shamelessly asked the Twelfth for supplies. She didn’t take much; the larder was thin, and her pack stayed light.

After so many clear days, a few drops finally drifted down. This weather was the worst. Heat licked them dry off the pavement, turning cool rain into steaming breath that clogged the lungs.

Outside the Twelfth, two cloaked figures slipped across the border like swallows. They halted before a cave mouth, dark as a giant’s throat.

Before them yawned a deep hole. Nearby lay a bug-like Monster torn to scattered limbs, carapace cracked like broken pottery. Lu Jin and Lu Shi had hunted that one together.

They were Magic Maidens sent by a region working with a border outfit. Too late, though. The Twelfth had already pulled this weed up by the roots.

“Cooperation canceled. The target group was wiped by Twelfth District Magic Maidens.”

Their supposed partners were Magic Maidens who’d teamed with border crews to seize the Twelfth in the dark. Their true aim wasn’t the district, but a thing buried inside it.

One cloaked girl reported up the chain, flags snapping in the wind of orders. The two set off at a gallop for the far border of the Twelfth, feet whispering like rain.

“This was just a side dish. Our goal is to find the Key.”