Moon Owl pushed herself up, trembling like a reed after rain. Lu Jin stood beside her like a pale birch, worry fluttering in her eyes, asking in a timid whisper if Moon Owl was hurt. The sight was a thorn under Lu Shi’s skin, a bitter gust over an old bruise; she’d taken so many of Moon Owl’s blows. She wasn’t wounded, true, but she still wanted her little sister’s warmth.
Lu Jin caught Lu Shi’s sulk like a cat catching a twitch. She stuck out a perfumed tongue, playful as a flicked petal. Lu Shi’s fist tightened like a drawn bow—this imp did it on purpose. Lu Jin couldn’t outrun home; night would bring the bill like winter frost.
Still, Lu Jin was a bright blade, tough as winter bamboo. Her endurance held like a mountain; her will moved people like a rising moon. She’d barely sparred in simulations, yet with sharp study and hawk-eyed watching, she seized that one breath of a sure kill.
If Lu Jin hadn’t traced Moon Owl’s attack path like ink on rice paper, and if Lu Shi hadn’t struck with lightning reflex, they wouldn’t have taken Moon Owl at all.
Moon Owl alone was a cliff hard to climb—genius, diligent, dangerous. Yet with Lu Jin on the field, no one could crush the sisters to dust; anyone seeking victory had to pay in blood and breath.
“Lu Jin, you know what I’m thinking, right?” The words rang like a bell in fog.
They arrived at the same shore, thoughts like twin ripples. The one with a kindred gift was Moon Owl; after so many bouts, simple spatial tricks sat under their skin like old scars.
Back to back, they narrowed dead angles like closing fans. That left the Void Wanderer fewer cracks in the air. Now they only had to wait; while they watched the foe, the foe watched them, like hunters mirroring on dark water.
Measured against Moon Owl’s full cup of patience and talent, the Void Wanderer was duller than a blunted hook. Its patience would fray first; all they needed was a little waiting, like fishing under a winter sky.
Sure enough, after a long stillness like held breath, the Void Wanderer lost taste for circling. It chose to step out of the void and take Lu Jin and Lu Shi head-on.
Its tendrils latched onto the unseen void like leeches on glass, hauling that bulky body out inch by inch. Lu Jin saw it and let the Rosefire Pistol bloom; Lu Shi’s dagger flashed right after like a falling star.
Bullet and blade struck the scales together, two hammers on one gong. They punched through. The ebon edge slid inward like a cold river, slicing fat layer by layer and baring the crimson organs.
Lu Jin swapped rounds with clockwork calm, and while the Void Wanderer thrashed like a netted whale, she put two shots into its eye. The fragile globe burst to the gun’s thunder like a ripe berry.
In pain, the Void Wanderer bucked and tried to dive back into the void, tearing the air with its tendrils like claws through silk. Its scales flared outward like bristling pinecones. An invisible edge of space sliced Lu Shi’s palm open like wind carving ice.
Lu Shi yanked her hand back, Mana pulling at the lodged spatial force like tweezers tugging a thorn. The thing was stubborn, knotty as old root. No trick stopped the blood streaming from her wrist like a red thread.
Worry cooled first, like shade under eaves; then Lu Jin dropped beside her sister as graceful as a white swan. “The wound okay?”
Annoyance flickered, then steadied like a lantern in wind. Lu Shi shut her eyes and shook her head. If she could still clench a dagger, she could still fight.
They pressed back to back again, two stones in one wall. The Void Wanderer kept to silence, likely hiding deep in space to heal. But the darkness riding Lu Shi’s dagger had already pierced its guts; her Mana wasn’t space, yet it was a thorn that festered.
“Hey, sis, did I improve?” The question rose like steam from warm tea.
More than improve—she’d leapt like spring grass after rain. Back in First Symphony, Lu Jin could steal a few wins off Moon Owl. By Cantata Two, the two of them could press Moon Owl hard, wins outnumbering losses. One-on-one, Lu Jin was a touch weaker; only Lu Shi could trade more than two moves with Moon Owl.
Against the Void Wanderer, Lu Jin’s slower reactions had caught up like dawn overtaking fog. She stayed on Lu Shi’s heels, a shadow half a step behind.
Space rippled, a pond skimmed by wind. The Void Wanderer surfaced again. Its fat had staunched the bleeding, but shattered scales wouldn’t knit fast. Lu Shi could mark the gap she and Lu Jin had carved like a notch in bark.
This time, they wouldn’t let it slip away like an eel.
They met each other’s eyes, black and white light weaving around them like ink and snow in a storm.
“We’re too weak, aren’t we? That Chapter Three... flattened our home like a falling mountain.”
Lu Jin lay bandaged on a pure white ice bed, pale as frost. Her gaze drifted to the white ceiling like a cloud losing rain. She looked at Lu Shi, wrapped like a zongzi, and a helpless glint slipped through her eyes like a waning moon.
They’d spent everything, yet they couldn’t bring down the sky-serpent overhead. Its carapace was iron, its mouthparts were knives; nothing in their Cantata Two could pierce any of it.
No tweak to the Rosefire Pistol could punch through Chapter Three’s scales. The shadow from Lu Shi’s dagger couldn’t seep into Chapter Three’s skin. It only twitched its body once, and the Twelfth District’s Cantata Two nearly collapsed.
That was the gap. Between Cantata Two and Cantata Three stood a gulf like heaven’s ravine, as wide as the trench between First Symphony and Cantata Two.
If they’d had the power then to crack Chapter Three’s shell and ruin its hide, the later fight wouldn’t have been so bitter. Yuan Dai wouldn’t be missing, life or death unknown, like a lantern lost at sea.
“But to get that power, we have to advance to Chapter Three. Only a breakthrough unlocks strength to face that thing. And you know, little sister... rising to Chapter Three is like climbing the sky. Materials, mindset, will—each must step beyond what we are.”
A sigh moved through Lu Shi like wind over cold water as she stared at the ceiling too. She wanted it as much as anyone. She’d only been Cantata Two for three years; Lu Jin hadn’t even hit two. So young, so far already, and still they were pressed to admit thin strength and a gate that wouldn’t open.
“Yeah... how do we get stronger?” The words fell like dull rain.
Lu Jin wrung her thoughts like a towel, then a spark leapt. Blade had told them once about Link Skills and Combo Skills. The two of them seemed perfect for a Link. Maybe they could learn it.
She brought it to Lu Shi. The first answer was a no, a stone dropped in a well. But Lu Jin’s gentle nagging wore at it like water, and Lu Shi agreed. Even so, Links don’t come easy. They’re rare in the record, with no one to teach them; mastering one might be no easier than breaching Cantata Three.
So the two hunted books on linking. The shelves were thin, but they found a line that showed up in both Combo and Link texts: “Heart to heart, hearts cut iron. Share hearts to link; resonate to strike as one.”
Everything pointed to “heart-sharing” and “resonance.” Chasing “heart-sharing,” they first learned Combo. Resonance came easy to twins; it was a bridge already built.
Thus it became this— A bullet wrapped in fire left the chamber like a comet. A shadow followed, drank the fire dry, then wrapped the round. The metal shell shed itself, replaced by formless dusk.
On the hard scales, the bullet unraveled into shadow and clung like oil. It flowed along the scales into the Void Wanderer’s fat. Then it bloomed inside. Scales burst outward from within, one plate after another, like stone flowers breaking.
And that wasn’t the end; the tide kept coming.
“When hearts resonate, when minds interlace, when spirits understand, the souls rise in sync,” they breathed like a prayer. “No need to think. The steps align. Each answers the other’s lack.”
They had been training the Link all along—every mock bout with Moon Owl, every patrol, every shared stand against the Twelfth District’s disasters. Their trust and reading of each other had been hammered like steel, and when they resolved to face Cantata Three, their souls had already risen together to that rung.
When cooperation and Link fused on their bodies, a door labeled miracle swung open. Magic Armor and soul became one. An angel of black and white unfurled world-descending wings.
The angel beat its wings. Black and white feathers rained from the sky. Black plumes fell onto the Void Wanderer and turned into pitch-dark cords that bound it. White plumes flew like rounds from the Rosefire Pistol, spearing its head as it peeked out of the void. Where black and white met, the buried feathers flared into festival fire.
Hard to kill, the Void Wanderer still clung to life. It tore at the void to flee, but the black-and-white-winged angel wouldn’t grant an opening.
They reached out one hand, caught its long tail like seizing a ribbon in wind, and dragged it from the torn space with casual strength.
Then the wide wings shaped into blades. Following the grain of the scales like cutting along wood, they split the Void Wanderer cleanly in two.
“Done,” they said, like a seal pressed into wax.
Elsewhere, Qianchun and the others were ringed by a swarm of Void Wanderers, a black tide closing a harbor. Their bullets were almost gone; their Mana ran dry like a cracked well. The horde kept coming like locusts. Despair lay over the scene like winter ash.
They had no tricks left and could only wait to be served up like meat on a platter.
A Void Wanderer’s sharp teeth lunged for Qianchun, when the ragged breach above flickered with lightning like storm snakes. Qiu Sheng didn’t hesitate; she dove through the opening like a thunderbolt.
“Rescue’s here... already?” Qianchun’s doubt rose like mist.
“Sorry... I couldn’t leave you. I came straight back,” Qiu Sheng said, voice steady as a spear. “It’s fine. I’ll hold.”
Lightning pooled in Qiu Sheng’s palm like captive stars as she charged the swarm. She dropped every guard and punched through them, and they tore at her flesh like wolves at raw silk. The lightning threaded the pack like quicksilver, then the Void Wanderers smothered it like mud over a spark.
“We didn’t ask you to save us... you could’ve escaped,” Qianchun breathed, the words like knives turned inward.
She drew a long breath, steady as an anchor. She glanced at Xia Qingqing and Zhang Jialu, both near faint. Then she looked at Qiu Sheng, lost inside the ring of beasts, and made her choice.
The last breeze rippled around her like a farewell. With steps light as falling petals, she charged into the Void Wanderers.
