Qianchun led Lu Jin, Lu Shi, and a string of small squads to the spot Blade had inked onto the map, the mark like a dried bruise under their fingertips.

War and Monsters had gnawed this place to rubble. Because it sat off the beaten path, the Twelfth District hadn’t patched it yet. Mud still held broken walls like bones in clay, and even the first sweep of debris had only just begun. It would take days to make it breathe again.

A few Monsters wheeled over the ruins, shadows circling like hungry crows. Lu Shi’s presence rolled out cold as night water. The flock scattered in panic. The squads moved at once and slipped intact to the sheltering stones.

Qiu Sheng took point. The girl who once wore arrogance like perfume had shed it, her steps now steady and ordered, like beads clicked into a careful line. She raised her gun and guided the team forward, eyes combing the ground and the wind. If trouble broke, she’d catch it before it touched them.

She didn’t put on a show, but she never slacked when it was time to clear Monsters. Qiu Sheng’s strength wasn’t thin. In each fight she pressed on, stone by stone. She had stacked enough scars and lessons to feel the door to Cantata Two under her palm—just one last push and it might open.

Zhang Jialu and Xia Qingqing had walked through disaster and learned where they cracked. If they wanted to stand strong—like Night Frost and Chen Xiaoyin standing ahead of others—they had to forge themselves. First, crush fear and grow a heart that won’t shake. Then demand more of themselves, gather the knowledge to answer anything that comes.

They were only at the start, but the results were real. In the Monster purge labeled First Symphony, their kill counts sat near the top. It was enough to carry them from the Order Keeper reserve into the formal squads.

Lu Jin and Lu Shi were still pillars of the Twelfth District, shoulders bearing the weather. Cuts crossed their skin under bandages wet with Blood and patchwork plasters, pale as paper blossoms.

Magic Maidens healed fast, yes, but these wounds hadn’t closed. Fresh days, fresh enemies—you didn’t need to ask where they’d been.

Lu Jin stood close to Qianchun. Qianchun was the target to protect; if she fell, the whole trip became a story with no ending. Blade had said it simply: “Only when Qianchun gets what she needs can we draw our profit.”

Lu Jin truly admired her. At this age, what Qianchun had done felt like a miracle braided from grit. In less than two months, she had pulled in nearly a thousand members and rolled up funding from zero. When Lu Jin was that age, she was still an Order Keeper reserve, eyes up at the ceiling.

Finding the underground entrance was bound to be long and fussy. If the disaster hadn’t smashed the place, Qianchun’s people would have seen the road the Order Keepers had opened up. Too bad the calamity tore it all down, door included.

“How about we blast our way in?”

It was a line they’d all been waiting to hear. Lu Shi, ahead of the two, turned back. Lu Jin thought for a breath, then nodded.

She raised her Rosefire Pistol. The silver-white frame wound with deep green rose roots, white blooms opening along the stems like frost-capped stars. Magic Stones set into the sides cast a pure white glow, a hush ready to drape over Lu Jin’s whole figure.

She swapped in a stronger round. Mana pooled in her wrists. The trigger came back clean. The bullet left wrapped in flame, then tore its shroud in a bright gasp the instant it broke the barrel.

Fire tongues licked at the steel, but a crosswind brushed them apart. Sparks tried to climb and died midair. The bullet itself burned like a falling sun, dove into the concrete, and then—boom—ripped the world open.

New ammo—homegrown by the Twelfth District. It pushed slower, but hit like a small charge. Stronger than her old custom rounds, good for sweeping clustered rabble or chewing through stubborn junk in the way.

The dust thinned. A crater gaped in the flat ground. Inside sat a smooth, hard metal plate. The blast had scorched it black, but it hadn’t so much as nicked the surface.

“This section’s blast-proof. We’ve got to find an entrance, or we don’t get in.”

Lu Shi ran her fingers over the metal, listening with her palm. The material was nearly the same as what a Twelfth District branch used for its bones. If that wall was more than twenty centimeters thick, even a dozen missiles might not punch it open.

Sure, with Lu Jin’s firepower now, a focused point might break through. But her rounds were special—few in number, low output, high price. Better to search with patience. If luck bent their way, the exit would pop up with a single step.

They searched until the sun stood hard overhead. Everyone felt the weight in their legs. They stopped under a big rock where the shade pooled a little. Lu Shi drew boxed lunches and dry rations from her Spatial Box and handed them around, palms moving like a quiet stream.

They ate in a hush. Someone cracked a topic. Two lines became three. Soon nearly all of them were in the chatter—except Lu Shi.

It wasn’t that she sneered at talk. She simply wasn’t close with this crew. Most days she did two things: keep company with her younger sister, and run missions. Sometimes those were the same thing. There was no time left for the ease of small words.

By contrast, Lu Jin—whose strength was a shade lighter—carried fewer tasks. She mixed well with these kids. From favorite types to what lay inside their lunch boxes, she could spin it and keep it warm.

Qianchun was similar to Lu Shi in this. With these squad members, she had faces to names, nothing deeper. Not yet friends, a slight distance in the air like cool glass.

Sitting beside Lu Jin only made that distance feel sharper. Months ago they stood on the other side of Qianchun’s line. So when their talk ran hot, Qianchun listened with polite calm, a smile like a folded fan.

“Did you hear? Another public meltdown in the next district. Word is he put MSG in the rice noodles!”

“Honestly, that’s nothing. The wild one is the apology guy…”

Confusion rose first, then settled thick in Qianchun’s chest. Her smile stiffened. She couldn’t parse the slang. “Meltdown”—was a house collapsing? “Border electric eel”—was that a new Monster?

You couldn’t blame her. When these little storms started, Qianchun was already living to survive. She worked under an underground banner, did the tasks laid out, days cut into work and sleep. No space for trends, no sugar for gossip.

When she reclaimed a surface identity, she volunteered for Night Frost and Aklatia. Work, rest, repeat. Even with a computer, she didn’t peer into the circle. The screen stayed a tool, not a window.

Voices crossed and parted, and the food was gone in the quiet. Zhang Jialu patted her belly, stretched like a cat, and leaned back against the rock.

The stone looked tough and proved brittle. Her light touch tipped it backward. Her weight was all on her spine, so she rolled with it. Lu Shi moved like a pin driven into the earth and caught her, or else skull would have met stone.

“I’m not that heavy…”

Fear made her crack a stray joke. Zhang Jialu stared at the sinking rock, guilt nibbling at her words.

“There’s a hollow under us.”

The rock sank halfway and stopped. Nearby rubble wedged in, teeth catching teeth. Originally the stone and the ruin sat in a subtle balance, pressure like scales. Zhang Jialu’s lean broke it. The rock crushed the rubble beneath and began to drop.

Halfway down, the debris and the stone found a new balance, tremor smoothing to still.

If the rock sinks, there’s space below. So the task becomes moving the stone. Aklatia’s lab was likely sleeping under it like a sealed pearl.

To save money, Lu Jin didn’t burn a special round. She drove a Magic Spell into the rock’s surface. It punched through stone, yes, but it didn’t help much with the heft. If she shattered it fully, her Mana might run dry before the job was done.

Lu Shi’s Magic Spells could slice ground stone clean, but the cut didn’t make the stone any lighter.

“Use that move. Faster.”

Lu Jin nodded. She stowed the Rosefire Pistol. Her pure-white Magic Armor unfurled a wing as white as snowfall. People had compared her to a swan before; now she was an elegant one-winged swan in truth.

She pressed wrist to wrist and let her lids fall. A breeze tugged her skirt like a playful stream. Her fine lashes quivered in the wind.

Lu Shi needed no locked ritual. Pitch-black wings burst from her back, draping space in shadow. Around the feathers, sunlight went dim, swallowed by the dark. The black wings folded before her like a shield.

Dust rose and wrapped them. Voices and shapes blended in the haze. Their shadows touched and slid together. Black and white wings opened in tandem, halves of a single breath.

Two extremes braided into one. When the dust peeled away, the crowd finally saw her—no, them—clear.

Their hair ran half pure white, half pure black. The upper half of their dress clashed black against white, and below that clash resolved into a seamless blend. Black and white wings shook loose feathers woven from Mana, soft as falling snow.

Layered voices rang in the ears of the team.

“Please make way (make way)!”

Feathers kissed the stone. Black met white. The earth answered in a low roar.

Soil and rock around them ground to powder under that roar. The massive stone was no exception. Jaws hung open in the squad, wonder bright as sparks.

“So this is a link…”

“Look!”

Someone shouted, and all eyes cut to the ground ahead. Where the stone had sat, a clean hole yawned wide. Every obstacle had been swept away. The metal plates at the rim showed a hint of melt, scarred by the strike of those black-and-white wings.

Through the hole, they saw the bottom chamber. Metal plates lined all four walls. Equipment lay toppled like fields after storm. Glass glittered in shards under the dim light. It had the feel of a place that had lived through a war.

Qianchun drew in a deep breath. Relief landed first. Then certainty.

They had found it.

She was sure. This was Aklatia’s old site.