He remembered the stash sat not far from the elevator.

Inside the shaft he’d stored a spare body—one more blade of thunder to pull Night Frost from the ice.

But everything broke like glass.

In this Eye Orb state, he crawled like a rain-soaked snail.

By the second-floor lift, Lin was grappling "Chu Qing".

A stone pillar had punched Night Frost into midair, then wrapped her in iron-hard stone.

The Eye Orb hovered a short flight from the pillar’s crown; Lin held "Chu Qing" like a net holds a fish.

Night Frost hung within arm’s reach, yet the lab by the lower lift lay far as a desert shore.

Now was the best window to cut her free, like striking while the iron smoked.

The Eye Orb spilled everything from his pocketed space, like a drawer kicked open—Night Frost’s Spatial Box, lab tools, and bottles of biting reagents.

Some brews ate stone like acid rain; cracking the shell was easy.

The knot was carrying Night Frost out like a swan from a mire.

Rope.

A river of hemp to bridge the gap.

Not a bad call.

Drill twin holes on both sides of the pillar, pin them with metal to make a zipline like a silver vine.

Nearby lay fallen parts like shed leaves; any holed plate or bearing could be the pulley to carry her down.

There was a crack below like a black smile; if he remembered right, a warehouse for machine spares or grain crouched there like a burrow.

First to second floor still needed time like sand through fingers; the reagents would gnaw slow as moss.

He only prayed Lin could stall like a mountain.

The Eye Orb hopped off the pillar like a pebble; small and light, he feared no fall.

He knotted a rope to a nearby hook like a mooring, then sprinted for the second floor without a backward glance.

By then the brew had chewed the rock open like termites through wood.

He tied a second rope round Night Frost’s waist like a sash, and shoved, hard as a wave.

Girl and orb, they slid toward the warehouse below like a comet with a tail.

He shouted down so Lin wouldn’t miss the sign, voice ringing like a bell; Lin caught on and slipped free like smoke.

Lin nodded, eyes sharp as knives.

"Chu Qing" felt fake to the point of blasphemy—at least four powers braided together.

They hit harder than four or five Cantata Two Magic Cannons fused into one.

"What do we do next?" Lin asked, the words dropping like a stone in still water.

The Eye Orb fanned a light-screen open like a lantern; a map of the undercity bloomed before them.

He dabbed medicine on Night Frost like dew on petals, while he and Lin laid plans like chessmen.

This Abyssal Rift covers a wide swath, like fog swallowing a valley.

I’d bet it blankets the whole Rouge Rabbit.

Everything here feels tilted from reality, like a dream turned sideways.

The Eye Orb flicked a reagent onto the ground, twice, like ink-drops on rice paper; pitch-black smoke rose like a tide—no doubt, pure Abyssal Aura.

The shapes match the old layout, but the bone and breath are Abyss through and through.

It’s an Abyss we’ve never walked—maybe the Human Abyss the files whisper about.

He packed the vials away like shells, and judged the water, the food, anything meant to be swallowed, as poison reeds in a black marsh.

Stomach acid can chew what it takes in like a jackal; while it works, dense Abyssal Aura will flood the body like winter smoke.

Lin and stronger Magic Maidens can handle it, but only if the cliff’s at our heels.

His warning was clear as a drum: touch nothing here but what we carried in, like travelers guarding their canteens in a salt desert.

They bent over the map like sailors over a star chart.

Rouge Rabbit sprawls near District Two like a warren; most of its business spreads across districts.

District Five ran heavy industry like iron rivers.

District Two leans on labs and research like hives—armed, yes, but likely already swallowed by the Abyss.

Two roads lay before the Eye Orb and Lin, like forks under a storm.

One, fight "Chu Qing" to the death.

Two, punch through the Abyss and drag every Blade out—meaning we leave the Earth-Dragonized humans behind like bones in snow.

Breaking this shell is simple as cracking thin ice: hit this brittle Abyss with a Cantata Three strike, and a passage tears open.

Beating "Chu Qing" is also simple on paper: find Cantata Three.

Every thread of the knot points to Crimson like needles to north, so the target is clear: find the missing Crimson.

That still means we’ll clash with "Chu Qing".

They tallied the trapped headcount like coins.

If she turns them all into Earth Dragons, we’ll face an Earth Dragon army like a tide of scales.

Before that, can I bring my boss over? Lin asked, voice steady as iron.

From your read, they’re likely trapped in the Abyss too.

The Eye Orb saw no problem, like a healer nodding before a storm.

Night Frost needed time anyway.

She was skinned near head to toe, skin like torn parchment.

She breathed only by the Earth Dragon Heart within and some unknown well of mana.

Lin left like a shadow slipping between lamps, and the Eye Orb stayed to treat Night Frost like a monk tending a candle.

Before he went, the Doctor tossed Lin a communicator like a cold coin.

After fighting Lin, "Chu Qing" carried wounds like red threads.

With the special Earth Dragon Heart beating under her ribs, they were nothing but scratches.

The demon fog was stubborn as tar; the cut closed only to a thin blood-mark.

That taught "Chu Qing" a hard lesson, like frost on a blade.

Even without Cantata Three, if everyone here links arms, they might nick her throat.

If she hunts the hidden Cantata Three with all her heart, a knife may wait in the dark.

More than one mercenary memory whispered that warning like wolves in pine.

So "Chu Qing" loosed all Earth Dragons into the streets like hounds.

She followed remembered corridors to the underground lab.

She pulled along a few researchers who had never left—her roots under Rouge Rabbit these years.

Those roots never had time to flower; a Cantata Three stepped before Chu Qing like thunder on a clear day.

She was forced to borrow a god’s power, and her body blew away like smoke.

Her plans were clever as a loom, but she lost in the end to lack of strength, like a blade that wouldn’t bite.

"Chu Qing" tapped her finger, and the surrounding Abyss cracked like ice.

The Earth Dragon’s authority rose from the ground like roots and sealed every exit again.

The researchers bolted at the crack like startled deer.

They were herded back and begged the woman with Chu Qing’s face like rain on stone—useless.

"Chu Qing" spared them one cold glance like a knife, then stepped deeper down the corridor like a tide.

The real Chu Qing had left a backhand: clones slept in the underground lab like seeds.

If the body died, a clone would wake and pick up the unfinished weave.

The clone lacked a Magic Stone, so she wasn’t a Magic Maiden.

Before dying, Chu Qing lit a corner of the clone’s spirit like a lamp, and the clone woke.

Knowing the storm above, Chu Qing didn’t follow the old script.

She would wait for this sealed Abyss to ebb, for comms to thaw, then call Order Keeper HQ to retrieve the Key.

She never imagined such a hidden burrow would be found by a creature wearing her face like a stolen mask.

That one had Chu Qing’s features but nothing of her marrow—golden scales, hard claws, mana strong as surf.

In a few strokes she broke the door’s defenses like twigs and faced the clone just risen from the pod.

Her golden scales stood on edge like wheat; the heartbeat drummed through the mid-sized lab like thunder.

She seemed to catch a fine idea like a firefly.

She rammed a heart, spun from Spirit Threads and veins, into the researchers and into Chu Qing.

Then she tucked their hearts into herself, and blood with slivered memories melted like warm streams and filled her chest.

At the instruments, once strange metal felt familiar as an old zither.

She beckoned a researcher; he robotically opened a pod and piled materials like bricks.

Under assembly and reaction, cloning began like a kiln.

In under a dozen hours, the first blank body finished—no features, no genes, a white page.

Blood in a tube was teased into threads like silk.

On the screen, genes braided and crossed—the most perfect chimera, a miracle tough to copy, like lightning in a bottle.

They transcribed that gene and copied it; the blank body began to change like clay under rain.

Then "Chu Qing" poured some of her blood into it like wine.

Truth be told, if not for Chu Qing’s rune, "Chu Qing" would’ve set a heart in this vessel.

Like a lamp in a shrine.

But the rune bound her better to the body she wore.

The Abyss mirrors the heart like still water; fear, jealousy, greed grow here as twisted monsters.

If that newborn fear is too slight to spawn a beast, but a vessel waits, the warp will borrow it and be born.

After mirror-flowers and moon-water shattered like frost, a pair of dark-gold eyes opened.

The Black Dragon had dragged her buried negatives into daylight; this Abyss tore them loose like thorns.

They flowed into the body with matching genes like dye into cloth.

A snow-white torso rose from viscous solution like a swan from a lake.

Ash-gray hair fell to her waist, sticky and clinging to her hips like kelp.

Her red-gold eyes were clear as spring, stainless and pure.

As negatives poured in, a veil of shadow drifted across like cloud over sun.

As "Chu Qing" fed her blood, fine scales sheeted over the girl’s bare skin like rain on tiles.

A Magic Spell burned the residue away.

Black and gold fire steamed her dry and wove two-toned Magic Armor, tawny scales dotting the hems like fallen leaves.

The girl stretched slender arms like willow twigs and moved light as a crane.

She bowed to "Chu Qing" in thanks like dew to dawn.

Without her, she’d have slept longer and missed this perfect window like a shooting star.

She stepped to the mirror and stroked her cheek like petal on glass.

Night Frost’s face floated there like a moon, and she whispered:

"You’re just the fake. But I can become the real one."