The girl with a Crimson Gold Spear faced two masked maidens, unafraid of violet lightning dancing in their palms like storm lanterns. She crouched low like a hunting cat, slipping past the purple serpent of electricity. Her spear swept wide; roaring fire surged from the crimson-gold shaft.

That girl was Night Frost.

She’d taken Blade’s task and drew a small team. They aimed for District Twenty One, an arrow through dust, to find the Seeker branch of the black-robed woman.

They followed one of the two new roads the Twelfth District had raised, a river of asphalt flowing outward toward the far-off District Twenty One.

Night Frost kept her roster simple: Sun Xiao, the young man who’d signed a contract, plus Kaneko at his side; and Zhao Qingsnow, solid in strength and grit. Night Frost hadn’t planned to bring Zhao, but Blade assigned her.

Not long ago Night Frost had crossed Zhao Qingsnow from the opposite side. As a veteran Magic Maiden, Zhao’s power spoke for itself; even Night Frost with Black Flame had nearly guttered out like a candle in her storm.

After joining the Order Keeper branch, Night Frost hunted for news of Zhao Qingsnow. All she heard were sour notes: doting protector, basking in rank, pressing others yet doing nothing.

Yesterday she saw Zhao again, and the tune didn’t fit the woman. Either Blade had seeded those rumors, or Zhao had undergone a sky-shaking change.

At first Night Frost leaned toward Blade’s tactic—rumors to let Zhao move in shadow. But Blade said Zhao chose to leave the Twelfth District branch.

A quiet certainty settled in Night Frost. Those judgments had once been true. Something had struck Zhao Qingsnow, carving a vast change. Her heart lay calm as water; her spirit hardened like ice; her thoughts ran clear.

Night Frost hadn’t dug deeper. She only knew Dawnlight and Zhao shared a bond. With the talk of “doting,” that bond must’ve shifted, and the shift had turned Zhao toward better light.

The young man was Sun Xiao, a senior from District Seven. His grades fell like autumn leaves, and the Magic Maidens of District Seven expelled him.

Night Frost hadn’t planned to bring Kaneko. But Kaneko claimed ties to District Twenty One and insisted. That faint-yet-vast mana around the child tugged at Night Frost’s curiosity—why would such a small body carry such a river?

Blade had said great innate mana warps the body. Illusory Glass was born with black hair, yet mana too immense washed every strand silver, moonlight poured in and never turned back.

Kaneko was a paradox. She was plain human. Tests showed no mutations, inside or out. Her mana didn’t spring from her—like a borrowed river under a quiet bridge.

Either way, they were set to stir big waters; Night Frost didn’t mind muddying the river.

They were in the car, eating instant noodles and singing, steam fogging windows, when the road got blocked. Night Frost’s hearing wasn’t great; she only caught the word “Key.” She remembered the Key that had been “borrowed” from her, and heat rose like a flare. She went to step out and teach the road-blockers a lesson.

Night Frost got out. Two masked Magic Maidens were trying to bully an unarmed elder. She knew the Old Woman wasn’t weak, but her oil lamp was guttering. Night Frost hurled her Spear and blasted the surrounding earth and stone like a sudden landslide.

With Night Frost’s intervention, the fight screeched to a halt. The Old Woman looked at her and seemed to recognize the face—she’d borrowed the Key from this little rascal that day, a memory shining like a brass lock.

Night Frost slid past two bolts of lightning with ease, smooth as rain over slate. She seemed stronger than before. The condensed fire on her Crimson Gold Spear showed her mastery of flame matched, even beat, the two before her.

Even so, alone, she’d struggle against the pair. Their abilities mirrored like twin storms; they were bound to use multi–Magic Maiden skills: Linkage and Resonance.

These hidden talents bloom only in a few Magic Maidens. Resonance had shown before—Lu Jin and Lu Shi, black-and-white wings unfurled like yin and yang. Only when two maidens know each other, mana and hearts resonating, can a new power be born.

Linkage binds mana streams, blending into balance. Think of a film’s “multi-element saturation barrage”—that’s the product of maidens linking their mana, rivers joining into a single flood.

Or take a neighboring series’ rage-lotus, or cultivation tales’ talk of elemental balance—abstract, yet a true sketch of mana linkage drawn in smoke and ink.

The two before her shared the same mana element and near-matching builds. Like Lujin Lushi, they were likely sisters. They’d probably learned Resonance.

Even without Resonance, how could Night Frost handle two Cantata Two? Fire is fierce, but lightning bites harder, teeth flashing in the storm.

Night Frost’s entrance blazed, yet against equals she was straining, breath like steam off a blade. The Old Woman meant to move, but spikes of ice crawled out from the jeep behind her, whisked around, and streaked toward the masked lightning-users.

Zhao Qingsnow stepped out from the car door, slow and sure, like frost settling. A veteran Magic Maiden in her forties, she outclassed the masked duo in age and in the art of magic.

With her calm like a still lake, a single ice spike shattered the duo’s rhythm. Night Frost seized the beat; multiple Spears flew. The Magic Stone at her wrist wove a Magic Spell fast, threads of light crossing. Several Crimson Gold Spears spun down from the sky like burning comets.

One masked maiden took the Magic Spell head-on and was hurt badly, blood a dark flower. The other tried to bolt, but the Old Woman, mana restored, snared her with earth and stone, a clay hand closing.

Cornered prey had nowhere to run. Night Frost pressed the attack; her Spear bloomed with fire and flew. Dazzling flames hid beneath the Crimson Gold Lance, a sun sheathed in metal.

The spear punched through the masked maiden’s chest, pinning her to the ground like a nailed shadow. It burst. Shards of the lance drove into her body, sparks raining.

With two Cantata Two allies, Night Frost forced the enemy pair—also Cantata Two—into a corner. Then, hand in hand, the two maidens called down lightning from the sky like a judgment.

This was their Resonance. Vast, surging elements braided with distant mana, dropping straight from a cloudless sky onto Night Frost. The strike brushed Cantata Three; she couldn’t hold it, a wall too high.

Fear pricked first; she turned to flee. In Linkage, the masked duo flashed in an instant to Night Frost’s back, shadows stepping through light.

A sudden tingling burst scattered the mana she’d gathered. Night Frost’s legs went weak. With the bolt falling, she forced her whole body to twist and leap, slipping past the thunder like a fish through rapids.

But that move opened a door for the other two, a gap in the shield.

A soft rip sliced the air. Fabric tore at her front, baring a snow-white shoulder. A long red gash bloomed across the left of Night Frost’s chest, a scarlet petal.

Night Frost pressed her palm over the Array Pattern. She drove a heavy punch through the lightning. Fire burst, crashing onto the two in Resonance like meteors.

Lightning and fire collided, and blast and glare swept wide. Then Night Frost noticed the two near her had vanished. She looked up; the masked maidens were already streaking to strike her flanks, faster than thunder, quick as arrows.

From the car, Zhao Qingsnow finally stopped spectating. A cold wind swept. Huge blocks of ice locked into an enclosed arena, white walls rising. The thick chill slowed everyone inside by a few beats.

Night Frost had seen this skill. It builds a barrier of ice walls—first the inner cold drains stamina, then the arena’s gathered ice spikes finish the trapped, winter closing in.

She’d tasted it once and didn’t want a second bite. She wrapped herself in fire and slipped out before the ring sealed. The lightning duo weren’t so lucky.

They sensed the ice walls’ wrongness and moved to run, but Night Frost’s raised wall of fire blocked the path, shaving speed like mud on boots. Next, the Old Woman loosed a modest earth-element dragon, a brown coil.

The earth dragon tangled with the masked pair. With Resonance, they smashed it quickly, and that was exactly the trap the Old Woman and Night Frost had laid, a net tightening.

Cold blanketed the space. Heavy ice spires fell from the sky. The side walls of ice tightened, inch by inch, a snow press. Zhao Qingsnow’s control over mana was stronger than before, and head-to-head, Night Frost would still lose unless she pulled tricks.

“You bear three counts of guilt.”

“First, trespass upon the border.”

“Second, assault against the Order Keeper.”

“Third, resisting arrest.”

A sigh rose in the Old Woman, warm against the frost. This girl held the style she once had. Pity she’d missed the final step back then; otherwise, Cantata Three would’ve had a seat for her.

Age piled up; strength ebbed like winter light—not what it was.

Zhao Qingsnow’s talent looked fine. The Old Woman saw her own old style in her. In this lifetime, she might cross the threshold of Cantata Two—she only needed a few chances, doors opening.

Cold poured down. The ice ring shrank till the two had no room to retreat. The smothered lightning exploded one last time—a purple pillar of thunder speared the sky.

A streak of lightning dragged a body, slipping out through the ice wall shattered by the pillar, smoke and shards flying.

The other turned into pure lightning and dove for Zhao Qingsnow, a hawk of storm.