“Crimson, Crimson—open your eyes. Wake up, quick!”

The voice beside her rang familiar, a sharp silver bell softened by worry. Two warm hands rocked her like a drowsy sparrow.

Blood kept pouring, a red river that wouldn’t dam. Crimson pressed the wound, tried to pack it with Mana. The flow ignored her will.

She was soaked in blood, a body adrift in a scarlet basin. Cold crept in like winter threading bone; the chill made her teeth ache.

Why am I here?

Confusion throbbed first. She squinted at the girl shaking her, memories beading and sliding on a string that finally caught light.

The girl wore a white‑and‑yellow stage outfit, dawn‑gold mist haloing her. Heavy bracers hugged her wrists, weighty yet as steady as bedrock.

“Yellow?”

Memory snapped taut. She’d just fought a Monster too strong, threw everything and lost. A single slap dropped her into the Abyss, her lamp guttering.

Then why is Yellow here? A dying lantern’s reel? Pain flared sharp as salt. It said this wasn’t false; the body never lies.

“Crimson, I’m here!”

Crimson called softly and got Yellow’s urgent reply, heat in a storm. Not a mirage—yet Yellow couldn’t be here. And this Yellow was younger.

She looked like a portrait from Crimson’s memory, colors still wet.

“Where are we now, Yellow?”

Crimson rose through pain, voice careful as stepping on thin ice. Yellow told her to focus Mana at the wound, to staunch it for now.

Crimson had tried. Mana slipped like sand through fingers; it wouldn’t hold.

Yellow glanced at the darkness and moved to call Green. Crimson shook her head slowly. She knew this place was false; Green couldn’t fix it.

Rumble…

The black around them shivered. Nearby shadows fractured, revealing collapsed towers, a torn sky like ripped silk. Black mud surged from the earth.

Crimson and Yellow stood on one island of ruin the mud hadn’t swallowed, a shard of bone in a hungry mouth.

Green and Blue fought to halt Monsters birthed by that mud. The city center lay ahead; if they entered, disaster would bloom like rot.

Those things weren’t weak. Knocked down countless times, they regrew fast from the ground’s black mud, like weeds after rain.

“Mud King…”

Crimson lifted her hand; Mana gathered into a mirror. Her face on the glass was the face from long ago, time polished smooth.

Was this not a place, but time reversed? The thought flickered. She snuffed it; the chance felt thin as paper.

“Green!”

While Crimson weighed the pieces, Yellow shouted Green down. After a quick brief, Yellow took Green’s spot. Green’s palm‑light washed over Crimson.

It did nothing. Mana slid off like rain off oiled stone.

“How could it be time?”

Relief loosened her shoulders. This was a dream‑realm, a tapestry woven from memory and now. Someone had lured her spirit down into it.

She’d found the loom and the thread. No door yet.

This dream was crafted tight, seams sealed. For a breath she almost believed she’d gone back. She’d never met a dream this strong and exact.

The dream‑weavers she’d faced before muddled minds first. Their dreams broke like glass, chaos in shards. This one was clear; her mind stayed lucid.

Whoever caged her spirit wasn’t simple.

Normally, once you knew a dream was false, you woke and slipped free. Here, knowing didn’t open the gate. She’d have to find a way inside.

This was Crimson’s past. A Monster had invaded District One, a body of sludge. It surged from below and swallowed land in a black tide.

It was so strong that even District One’s Cantata Three fell into a hard fight. The local government sent for help.

Crimson’s team, part of Cantata Two, was dispatched to District One. On arrival, they saw this wasn’t ordinary.

The creature called “Mud King” split into many bodies, strength uneven. Some pinned Cantata Three; some even regular people could handle.

Its command matched human basics, and it learned tactics mid‑fight, laying formations like chess. The human side slipped into the defensive.

Beyond the local Cantata Three, nearly every Magic Maiden was mobilized. Tasks were carved up. Crimson’s full Cantata Two team got the sludge as strong as Cantata Three.

Together, Crimson’s squad could beat a Cantata Three. But this sludge was different. It damped steel and spell alike, then regrew from the mud below.

If you didn’t end the source, it wouldn’t die.

They couldn’t touch the source. The sludge even corroded the Magic Layer. Cantata Two couldn’t dive deep for long; armor hissed like acid on rain.

Cantata Three had already gone to scout the source. No word returned.

By the old script, the four of Crimson would stall it, then wait for Cantata Three to come back. Four Cantata Three would seal District One together.

Afterward, Cantata Three reported the source lay under a seal no current Magic Maiden could break.

Now, Crimson was wounded head to heel. She couldn’t fight. Yellow, Green, and Blue alone couldn’t stop the sludge’s march.

It was heading for the central zone, still clean. Civilians hadn’t fully evacuated. If it feasted, it would swell like a storm fed by ocean.

Crimson didn’t know how to solve the sludge. Then or now, no research had nailed it. The best chance was still the source.

Two choices lay before her. Fight while injured, or stand here and watch her friends lose.

Fighting hurt was unwise. In a dream, there was no need to throw her life into a false blade. These teammates were echoes, not bodies.

Worse, drawing on Mana brought whispers like moths at the ear. Last time she unsealed was luck. This time could break her mind for good.

Unless a miracle spared her again.

Miracles had cradled them many times, a hand catching falling cups. But luck runs thin; miracles don’t pour forever.

Watching was the safer choice. It tasted like ash.

Why, then, was she so unwilling?

She looked up at her friends battling the Monster. Yellow pressed both forearms together; a golden shield inverted and wrapped the creature from within.

The shield drove into the earth like a spear, anchoring the sludge’s crawl. The mud pressed tight to the light, chewing through gold like acid.

Gifted with mass, it kept pushing Yellow’s deep‑sunk shield toward the city center, inch by inch, a glacier that refused to stop.

Blue hurled magic bullets. Her spells carried no fancy elements. A device clamped her left arm; another hugged her right leg.

She’d called them Magic Tools, trump cards for a thin margin. The sludge was pierced a hundred times, then healed a hundred more.

Blue’s Mana guttered like an oil lamp in wind. Jaw tight, she kept firing, blocking the Monster’s crawl with grit and bruised breath.

Green opened her arms and drew the four winds of Mana. Her song poured healing light, leaves’ life flowing into her palms.

She sent that life back into Yellow and Blue, two pillars in a storm. Sweat ran down her brow. Her Mana lenses had shattered long ago.

Her Magic Armor shook; it could splinter at any moment.

They couldn’t hold. That was plain as daylight.

Crimson knew its aim. It wanted her in the fight, wanted her to burn Mana and bleed until she died here.

She couldn’t watch. Even if this was false.

That damned sludge was hurting her teammates—her friends. If she let friends die before her eyes, she wasn’t Crimson.

She clamped a blood‑wet hand to her wound and rose. Air rushed cool as river spray. She spread her arms; Mana threaded into limb and bone.

Her eyes filmed with a crimson wash. Crimson Mana burst from her core like sunrise breaking cloud.

This kind of Monster didn’t require unsealing. The cost should be less. To find the source, though—she’d likely have to unseal.

“Your wounds… will you be alright?”

Crimson climbed to them. Yellow, Green, and Blue glanced over. Worry flickered like shadows; their voices held soft tremor.

“It’s fine,” Crimson said. “This is the last fight anyway. Standing with you again—one more wish paid.”

There was a small regret. They were false, vivid as breath, yet only memory braided with dream. Even so, it filled her.

“Power of the far horizon, heed me. I pour out my heart’s blood—split rivers and mountains, shatter falling stars, lift broken beams, hold up a sagging sky—”

“One!”

“Ten!”

“Hundred!”

“Thousand!”

Crimson Mana condensed into fists, weight as cliffs. A light swing could cleave the land; one solid strike could shatter a falling star.

She raised her hand. Mana flooded out like a tide. Crimson’s palm fell from the sky.

In a heartbeat, every nearby patch of sludge burst apart under her strike.