Night Frost dragged the worker aside. His chest pounded like a war drum; the crush made him black out for a breath. Lucky—his heart still beat, not burst. But the rhythm felt wrong, like a river out of tune. She scraped a rough Formation outside the door with flame, a smoldering seal to muffle that pounding.

She hated waste, and her wounds knit fast like lichen on stone.

Night Frost pressed charred fingertips to the floor. Blood, carrying flame like molten lacquer, streamed from her tips to the cold slab. Her Blood burned on contact with air again, a torch that fed itself. The Abyssal Aura here hung thick as pitch; this fire could keep drinking.

If it could spread and burn through the Abyss, that’d be best—a wildfire eating a swamp. For now, it was only a lone ember, a firefly in fog. It needed more fuel.

She kept the flame small, cupping it like a candle in wind. A blaze would summon wolves she didn’t need. Those enemies wouldn’t be weak; charging now was courting death. The bracelet on her wrist was only a third decoded, knots half-tied. To unlock any power, she needed at least half.

It was already faster than she’d guessed. Who’d imagine Chu Qing would pry the Abyss open beneath the city? As Night Frost’s strength crawled back like a tide, the decoding would speed up. Give her a day or two, and she might return to Cantata Two.

Time doesn’t wait. A roar rolled from the elevator mouth like thunder. From Lin’s fall, shards bit into the nearby wall like teeth.

Lin had meant to find that heart, but unknown Monsters sprang from shadow and ambushed him. He circled for the lab that stored the Earth Dragon Heart, only to find it gutted like a carcass. The swollen Abyssal Aura had chewed everything apart. Only stubborn metal beams, ribs of steel, still held it up.

Something had smashed the wall open, a gaping wound. Lin slipped through into the underground district. His eye caught a thin, crimson line of Blood threading far away like a silk strand.

The Blood-line ran to the wall’s end. There was nothing there—only a dented metal face standing like a cliff.

For a breath, Lin felt lost, fog in his chest. His target had vanished; the heart had flown off. The Chapter Three sent to seal the rift seemed wounded, yet left no tracks, as if rain had washed footprints away.

His bulging muscle deflated like a punctured bellows. His frame settled back to normal, skin a healthy wheat-brown, the color of late harvest.

Trouble creased his face like wrinkled paper. Before he could complain, a staffer staggered toward him, wobbling like a drunk crane. The man’s eyes were dull ponds, deaf to Lin’s call; he walked up like a wind-up doll.

“You... are you alive?”

Lin saw his face; familiarity flickered like an old photograph. A veteran of Rouge Rabbit, he’d lit more than a few lanterns in the dark with meaningful research.

The elder’s eyes bulged, moons ready to pop from his sockets. With all the oddness, danger prickled like thorns under Lin’s skin. He hopped back two steps, a swallow’s retreat, opening space.

After asking, the man went still, a bow string pulled tight. Lin didn’t dare approach. But as the stillness dragged on, curiosity crept like a cat, nudging him one step forward.

That step did it. As Lin lifted his foot, the drooping figure sprang like a trap. Smooth skin sprouted dusty gray scales, plates of shale. His face stretched long, like a pangolin.

Lin almost missed the beat. His strong hands clamped the thing’s brow, iron tongs biting. In that instant, his palms shifted into Monster form, a tide turning.

The pangolin-like Monster was tossed aside with ease, flung like a sack. It had strength and could take a beating, an ox with a thick hide. But it wasn’t much; with a bit more effort, Lin could crush it like closing a gate.

Lin had no thought of killing him. They’d shared time before, warm tea on a cold night. The man had cared for him.

He was half human, half Monster, true. When he first came to Rouge Rabbit, winter-frost fear clung to many. The man before him was one of the few without prejudice; spring rain in hard soil. Because of people like him, fear around Lin slowly thawed. He grew up in that big family, a hearth’s child, no different from them.

Though not born human, Lin knew gratitude better than most, a knot tied tight in his heart.

So he found a sturdy chain and bound him to a nearby pillar, a leash on a storm and a pine to hold it. After he solved the heart problem, he’d try every way to restore him—a vow carved in stone to repay grace.

With that done, Lin meant to find Night Frost. But the streets, veins under a city skin, had filled with more staff twisted the same way, a flock of crows. It made him hold back, hands like knotted rope.

“Did that heart do all this?” His anger sparked, dry tinder catching.

He was getting angry for real. Whatever that heart had done, it turned his acquaintances into neither man nor ghost, mist caught between worlds. If he found it, whether or not it was the young lady’s elixir, he’d pound it like a drum first. As long as he didn’t kill it, it should still be usable.

Night Frost shifted the worker’s position. Outside, she’d heard footsteps—heavy, clumsy stones dropped in rhythm. Footfalls at a time like this tasted sour, like a wrong wind.

In her eyes, this had to tie to undead Chu Qing, threads of fate knotted. Maybe the one who passed was Chu Qing herself, a cold moon gliding by.

After moving rooms, Night Frost heard more steps nearby—light and heavy, yet marching to the same drum.

This room had gaps. Through the door seam, an eyelid of shadow, she saw the face behind the steps—a resident in white, bone-pale clothes.

She almost opened the door to wave, but the chill of instinct raised gooseflesh. She drew a wooden shard from her chest and tossed it like a thorn at the figure.

Her throw was decent; it struck his temple, a pebble plinking on a lake. He didn’t feel a thing. He hiccuped for a few seconds, then kept moving, puppet strings tight.

Not right—like a drumbeat out of tune. Nine parts wrong out of ten.

Night Frost slammed the door, thunder in a corridor. But in the room’s ink-dark, a golden figure stood—a dawn in shadow. Familiar—very familiar. The black-haired woman from before.

Why was she still alive? Hadn’t she died to Chapter Three? Death should’ve closed her curtain; the question cut cold.

“Chu Qing” let her mouth curl, a hook catching prey. Chu Qing’s memories told her Night Frost carried a heart nobler than the Earth Dragon Heart—the heart of a Calamity Dragon, a jewel in a serpent’s chest.

An Earth Dragon wasn’t a creature of Myth. It was a common Monster in the Abyss, bearing a thread of draconic Blood, a silk strand of power. Even that thread could lift the best of its kind into Chapter Three.

The Calamity Dragon before her was true dragonkind—a storm given flesh—born a Chapter Three powerhouse. With age, without doubt, she’d step into the “Ultimate” realm Chu Qing longed for, a peak above the clouds, beyond mortal life.

If she swallowed that Bloodline and owned that heart, she’d likely step straight into Chapter Three, a gate crossed in one stride. Then no one in this Abyss could stop her, a sea without oars.

Not only that. This heart would pave a golden road ahead. With the Master’s power, she could stand atop this world—under one, over ten thousand, a lone summit over ants.

So she didn’t rush to find Crimson of Chapter Three. She went for Night Frost first. Compared to the hard-to-handle Crimson, the near-powerless Night Frost was fruit hanging low.

A heart woven from Spirit Threads sank into the worker Night Frost had carried, spider silk stitching flesh. Pain on his face turned to bliss like warm wine, then into a wildfire frenzy for “Chu Qing.” At her pointing finger, he lunged for Night Frost.

Night Frost snatched a carved wooden insect from her belt, a talisman in the hand. She hadn’t prepared many. If not now, when?

Under the Array Pattern’s aid, the carving swelled fast, blooming like a seed, blocking the worker’s path like a fallen tree. Night Frost threw herself toward the door, a cat leaping for light.

But the white-clad resident at the door had been waiting, a heron at a pond, under “Chu Qing’s” order. Night Frost had seen him; she wouldn’t dive into that spider’s snare.

Scarlet-gold flame markings spread from Night Frost’s toes upward like climbing vines, coating her calves. She vaulted three feet with ease, a hare over brush.

The white-clad resident wasn’t weaker. Under “Chu Qing,” his scales bristled like pine needles. Strong legs coiled like bows. Fingers twisted into sharp claws, a sickle stabbing at Night Frost midair.

The insect burst from the room, a swarm in single skin, and under Night Frost’s control, barred her front. But wood was wood, and First Symphony was First Symphony. With no other Array Patterns or enough Mana, it couldn’t stop that claw, a river run dry before a blade.

It still bought time, sand in the hourglass. Night Frost landed clean, feather to stone. She tossed two low-grade shrapnel grenades into room and hall; splinters flew like hail, peppering everywhere.

Inside and out, their skin was wrapped in earth-yellow scales, clay tiles over flesh. Splinters that maim regular folk buzzed like bees and were stopped cold by that shell.

Night Frost brushed most splinters aside with her sleeve, a wing sweeping. Scarlet-gold flames inked her forearms. Blood and night fused into a wicked pattern, blossoms of shadow coiling over gold.

She charged the white-clad man with all she had, a gust through a gate. While he blinked, she hoisted his leg and slammed it down, a falling stone cracking earth. Night Frost vaulted past him, ready to slip away like a shadow.

“Chu Qing” frowned, a crease in silk. Night Frost seemed stronger than in her memory. And her arms...

Blood fell from Night Frost’s arms, drops like rubies. Crimson carried streaks of black. The true drop formed midair; Black Flame burst within like a hungry wolf, devouring the crimson clean.

A strand of Abyssal Aura and Mana from the burn slipped into “Chu Qing’s” nose, smoke with spice. Her golden eyes flashed with barely bridled greed, coins catching sun.

She caught the half-burnt flame with scaled hands and stuffed it into her mouth. Black Flame’s burn, hot iron on tongue, and Night Frost’s Blood-sweetness, ripe fruit, flooded her mouth.

“So this is a Calamity Dragon...” Her words were a prayer, awe like far thunder.

“Chu Qing” could barely hold herself back, a starving wolf at a lamb. She longed to skin and carve Night Frost, to gouge out that fresh heart like a warm peach, and swallow it into her chest, a furnace hungry for fire. Nothing would taste sweeter.