“It’s not time to give up yet…”

Fear claws at Qinyu’s chest like cold rain, but she presses it down and breathes out hope for unseen onlookers. If her Mana keeps flowing and her strength holds, she still might win.

A thunderous roar tears the sky. The giant Monster yanks open its bloody maw, sucking the air like a hungry tide, sweeping up everything before it. In a blink, it spins that breath into a towering tornado and hurls it at Qinyu.

Waves of wind surge like a storming sea. Squalls lash the street. Qinyu’s hair whips and frays like storm-tossed grass.

She grits her teeth. Her sword lifts like a lightning rod. As the gale slams in, her rapier carves down, biting into the tornado’s spine. The blast booms across the whole district. A near-invisible shockwave rolls out like a ghost tide, and buildings crumble to dust.

“ROAR—”

Another roar shakes the clouds. The Monster gapes wide, sucking the street’s breath into its lungs. The gulped wind turns into its Mana, whirling to a sky-piercing tornado that lunges for Qinyu again.

Wind rears like surf; the gusts knife sharp. Her hair flails, her coat flutters like torn flags.

Jaw set, she raises her blade high. When the storm hits, her sword hacks down. Steel meets whirling wind. A colossal detonation rattles the city. A pale shockwave spreads like ripples on glass, crushing everything nearby.

The shockwave swats her like a leaf. Qinyu is hurled through rows of buildings, stone blooming to shards. Pain spikes her chest; blood warms her tongue.

Dust thins like a fading veil. At the center, the serpentine Monster rears proud, its scales gleaming like dark river stones. Her strike hasn’t even scored its plating; those thin cuts mean nothing.

It flicks its tongue like a split ember, eyes cold with contempt for the human realm. Mana or none, all here are weak in its gaze. This place is a pantry, a larder waiting for its feast.

Qinyu pushes herself up, breath ragged. Her shoulder joint has slipped from the socket, pain grinding like gravel.

It’s a light wound, she tells herself. What Magic Maiden ever fights without scars?

The Monster stalks closer, each step heavy as a drumbeat. With every thud, her heart kicks, and each kick stabs like an iron nail.

Is this dread, or just pain? She doesn’t know. She only knows she can’t stop it.

Her face goes paper white. Sweat beads like dew. Fingers tremble like frostbitten leaves. She feels one breath from crumpling, yet she stands, rooted like a lone reed in floodwater.

The Monster glides down the street like a river snake. Trees and buildings crush beneath its bulk. Gouges carve into the pavement, long trenches like scars on earth.

It’s close now. Qinyu lifts her sword with no real strength, a tired flare in the storm. Maybe this is the last fight of her life. No one will remember; Magic Maidens walk in shadow.

“Y-you… run.”

A figure steps between her and the beast like a thin wall in rain. It’s Yin Tiancheng. His body shakes like a reed, terror rattling his bones. Yet he stands in front of her, facing the behemoth like a man before a mountain.

“You’re still here?! I told you to evacuate!”

A flicker of shock sparks in Qinyu’s eyes. She urges Yin Tiancheng to leave, but her hands lack the strength to push him away.

“I know…”

Yin Tiancheng shuts his eyes and bows his head. Tears spill like warm rain born of fear. He regrets, briefly, like a shadow crossing sun, but there’s no turning back. It’s too late to run. And if he runs, what about her?

A mortal guarding someone who can fly and vanish like a myth feels absurd. But the taste of doom and death makes him want one last reckless blaze.

“I can run, but what about you? I don’t even know your name or who you are. Still, you’re protecting this city, quietly, like a lantern in fog!”

“Then you should live!”

“My life is a mess, a gray treadmill. Every day repeats—work, squeeze, grind, overtime, home—like a hamster wheel squeaking in the dark.”

It’s his grievance against a dull world, pouring from heart and lungs like smoke after fire. He longs to watch the world burn at dawn, yet dreams of its beauty like a sunrise.

“I chased dreams once, and reality shattered them like glass. I want to travel once, fall in love once, go back to school and play ball, binge a game for a whole day…”

He looks back at Qinyu. Though strangers, he wants her life to keep burning. Her breath feels brighter, more needed.

He turns again. Words harden like steel; fear dissolves like salt in rain.

“My life’s worth nothing compared to yours! You guard the city. You’re the hero. I’m just a fool capital throws away like old straw.”

“If you live, you’ll protect more, won’t you?”

He steps forward, each footfall small but stubborn. He scoops up chunks of concrete, dull stones in a storm.

“So, Monster! I’m right here—come eat me!”

The little concrete pieces can’t crack its hard scales, but they land like sparks on oil. A bug has taunted a king. Rage coils like smoke in the Monster’s ribs.

Its tail whips out like a scythe. It sweeps the street clean like a giant wiper. The blow finds Yin Tiancheng hard, and he sails backward like a broken kite.

This must be the end.

At least she escaped. At least his life meant something for a heartbeat.

So why hasn’t he hit the ground yet…

He squints through the blur. A girl’s Magic Armor opens like a blossom, crystal wings shimmering like ice. Behind her floats another girl, clad in Crimson Magic Armor—a comrade, burning like sunset.

She lifts the serpent with ridiculous ease, hoisting it like a hog, and flings it away like trash. The arrogant Monster gets tossed like a toy. Is this real? Is this dawn after storm?

“That’s Chapter Three, District Two’s new guardian,” Qinyu breathes, cradling Yin Tiancheng as they sway down to earth. “With her here, nothing’s a problem. Any Monster is just the same old hill.”

“Good… so good.”

His voice fades like a flickering candle. He slumps into Qinyu’s arms and goes under. Qinyu presses a hand to her heart, unable to steady it—fear not yet gone, or a seed of feeling sprouting like spring grass.

“You’re awake. How’s your body?”

He opens his eyes to a field of white, the sterile calm of a hospital. Pain blooms like thorns, proving this isn’t heaven or a dream. He’s alive.

His blurred gaze gathers. A black-haired girl stands by the bed, features a touch different, yet his heart knows—the Magic Maiden named Qinyu.

“I’m alright… thank you.”

He didn’t die after all. A man like him, twice spared—not by the sky, but by this girl’s hands, twice over.

“Um…”

She fumbles for words, cheeks pink like dusk.

A cleaner nearby can’t hold back and blurts like a kettle boiling: “The young lady’s been caring for you half a month. Don’t you let her down.”

Yin Tiancheng stares at the girl, shock bright as lightning. Words stumble out of him like a deer breaking brush.

“Maybe… we could start as friends.”

She only meant to thank him, but heat runs to her head like wine. “Okay,” she says, quick, breathless.

Air settles into hush. He can hear their heartbeats, two drums storming in a quiet room.

He had planned to slip back into the track, to rethread the dull loom of work and life. But the old routine feels dead as ash. He’d said he would change before “dying.” Now he’s been given a second dawn. Why wouldn’t he change?

So he resigns. He pours the savings meant for a house into starting a business. Talent flowers like frost-defying plum. In sixteen years, he hits milestones most never touch in a lifetime.

He joins Rabbit—the predecessor to Rouge Rabbit. He starts as a small clerk, gets scouted like a hidden gem, and climbs step by step, stair by stair, up to the peak.

In a few years, he and Qinyu grow fast together; they make it official, two candles sharing one flame.

Thirteen years ago, the Magic Maiden Government forms like a new constellation. Because of Qinyu, he recognizes it and invites them into District Two. He himself moves below ground, into a relatively legal underworld.

Qinyu sheds the mantle of Magic Maiden, hoping to live as an ordinary woman at his side. Seven years ago, they welcome their first child, taking his surname. Their life shines like a warm lamp.

It should have stayed that way.

Seven years ago, a disaster rolls across District Two like black surf. That night, many fall ill with a heart disease, his daughter among them.

Mana and Abyssal Aura entwine inside the heart like thornvine. The mild leaves people writhing in pain; the severe tears skin and collapses flesh. Over time, the two forces root in the body like invasive trees. Even if surgery succeeds, an ordinary heart can’t bear the backflow of those twin currents.

Because of that pairing, heart transplants are a dead path.

So a compatible, nonhuman heart becomes necessary, a different seed for a broken garden.

He founds Rouge Rabbit’s lab, a place to untangle pathologies like knotted thread. He spends heavily to build an underground district, sheltering patients with the heart’s affliction.

Qinyu returns to the Order Keeper, hunting cures like a lantern-bearer. She learns treatments and sends help back to Rouge Rabbit.

He hears the Doctor is studying Dragon Hearts and crafting Magic Maidens, success glimmering in part like dawn on frost. He finds a way to draw him in.

Yin Tiancheng looks at the album in his hands. He brushes off the dust like ash from an old hearth.