Just as the Key was about to turn, Night Frost’s voice cut in like winter wind. Then Mana surged after, a storm breaking its banks.

The silver cube in her arms bloomed with alien light, a whirlpool pull that made the Key falter. Her spliced Mana lunged and swallowed it whole.

The Key hung in midair, eaten away bit by bit like iron in acid rain. “Night Frost”’s Mana washed off it, rust growing back like moss.

Corroded grain by grain, the Key seized again in the lock, its surface scabbing with rust. The door held, a frozen mouth refusing to open.

“Made it.”

Relief flickered in Night Frost’s eyes, thin as ice over deep water. A mere Key had felt like a blade at her throat.

Thanks to Crimson, the door’s heart stayed caged. If that heart had slipped free, the fallout would’ve been a wildfire across the world.

The silver cube drifted back into Night Frost’s palm, a tame moon returning to its orbit. She hadn’t expected it to restrain a Key—what a treasure.

The Key was handled, but Night Frost’s work wasn’t done. She flew to the rift’s ragged lip, like a swallow to a cliff.

She canceled the forced unlock on her Magic Armor, shedding it like frost from bark. Then, with Crimson’s last strength, she stitched the Abyssal Rift shut.

She moved to the burning cage she’d cast. “Night Frost” sat inside, hugging her knees, eyes sour with refusal and hate, like brine on stone.

“You win. For a breath, your spirit matched Chapter Three. I can’t beat that. Kill me or carve me—do as you please.”

Night Frost had planned to end her, to cut future roots. But debts run like chains; father and self, knots you can’t cut clean.

“You’re not me, and I’m not you. On the road up we split. Your wish is to touch this world, right? Look—hasn’t it come true?”

“You want this body mostly to avenge yourself, don’t you? Against the one who stole eighteen years, like a thief in winter?”

Night Frost knew her own shadow. This “Night Frost” was the extreme edge, all the negatives sharpened, a thorn grown from the same branch.

“Unwilling, sure. But that’s the truth.”

She admitted it, the way ash admits fire. Arrogance had been shattered; for her, the real beating the false no longer applied.

“I won’t kill you. Strike back whenever you want. Go see this world. Isn’t that your hunger, like a bird at the window?”

Night Frost offered a hand, a bridge over dark water. “Night Frost” refused. She was born of the Abyss; the vessel outside was broken.

Without the Abyss, her soul would fade like smoke in wind. Soon she would die, leave this world like a star falling.

“I’m not meant to see it.”

She rolled up a sleeve and showed the hollow arm, a cave chewed clean by the Black Dragon’s Blood. A speaking shell, somehow still walking.

“I’ll never forgive you, not ever. But I hope you’ll walk farther for me. Isn’t that a knot of contradictions?”

She smiled bitterly, a cracked mirror. Her body unraveled inch by inch, like cloth in flame. Night Frost reached, a bridge too short.

Their fingertips never touched. The “Night Frost” before her shattered and dispersed, leaving black ash and, within it, a dying earth-yellow heart.

That was the heart’s true shape, mud-colored and tired. Decades of sorrow began when an Earth Dragon swallowed the Key that symbolized a heart.

“Rest easy. I’ll see it all for you.”

Night Frost cupped the heart, peeling off lingering resonance like old paint. Soon it stopped beating and became one more material in her hand.

It should’ve ended there.

A pitch-black shadow drilled out from Night Frost’s soul, the way ink bleeds through paper, and latched onto the heart in her hand.

A vast Earth Dragon phantom snapped into shape and rammed her, a mountain sliding. Night Frost, spent, couldn’t brace; she went flying.

Far off, Crimson surged forward, crushing a Magic Stone into glitter. Mana flooded back as she blasted at the Earth Dragon’s phantom like lightning.

But it was only a phantom. The heart was the root under the tree. Crimson’s strike slipped past as the phantom refused to tangle.

Its target was Night Frost, a hawk stooping for the kill. From the earth, a sharp stone pillar erupted and punched her skyward.

Crimson sprinted up the pillar, feet drumming like rain. Ms Feng handed the wounded to Lin, then entered the fight, tendrils unfurling like vines.

Her tendrils latched onto Night Frost’s back, a harness of living rope. Night Frost steadied herself, tore the Crimson Gold Spear from the flames.

She smashed the stone pillar piece by piece, shards flying like sparks. The Earth Dragon Heart’s glow dimmed, its last embers almost gone.

But this was the Black Dragon’s last chance, a gambler’s final coin. Night Frost’s spirit had reached Chapter Three; after that, chances were thin.

Its mind was almost free, a wolf slipping the snare. Night Frost’s Mana was spent. It was now or never.

Seeing Ms Feng carry Night Frost away, the Earth Dragon lunged for Ms Feng, raising a forest of stone pillars to pen her in layers.

Crimson didn’t call a Wand. Close quarters hit harder, like hammer to nail, and worked better now. Even battered, she aimed to win.

The Earth Dragon didn’t get far before Crimson wrapped it up, a burr on fur. Ms Feng hid Night Frost behind pillars, buying breaths to recover Mana.

Crimson clung like damn taffy. Even with spirit and Mana unstable, she fought like wildfire. No wonder she led the kill on the Calamity Dragon.

Old saying: enemies meet, eyes turn red. The Calamity Dragon chose the gentleman’s revenge—ten years late—because right now, he couldn’t beat these wolves.

There was a path, though. Seize Night Frost here, the best choice. Or the crooked one: tear an Abyssal Rift, a wound reopening.

This place had been torn too many times. Abyssal Aura still hung like fog. Ripping it now would be easy. It only needed a spark.

Found it.

The Black Dragon peeled off the heart. The now-still heart rolled twice like a pebble and stopped before Ms Feng and Night Frost.

From afar, a Chapter Three rushed in, eyes cold and distant like winter stars. Even seeing Crimson—another Chapter Three—she showed no respect.

She waved once. An invisible barrier separated everyone like glass panes dropped from air. “Explain what happened. And Crimson, I heard you can’t unlock.”

“How do you explain this?”

She scanned the field, gaze touching Night Frost’s group like a knife’s flat. She felt more than one Chapter Three’s Mana.

There were also traces of a power beyond that, footprints of a giant. No doubt, these people were dangerous, lightning bottled.

“And you over there, explain too. Also, this is Rouge Rabbit turf, right? Where’s Rouge Rabbit’s leader?”

By District Two law, everyone here would be detained, like fish in a net.

Crimson let her Mana fall away, mist thinning. The Chapter Three in the air eased her face. Night Frost asked Ms Feng in a low voice.

Ms Feng told her the woman was District Two’s Warden, seated in the district’s center. News travels like fire; she’d have rushed over.

“Do we go with her?”

“Given who we are, we might have to run. Without a way out, we watch the tide first…”

Ms Feng whispered in Night Frost’s ear, a moth’s wingbeat. Rouge Rabbit might be fine, but the two of them weren’t Rouge Rabbit.

“Respected Warden.”

Lin helped Yin Tiancheng out from the rubble, steps careful as reeds in wind. He was badly hurt, but Ms Feng’s care had steadied him.

“Please tell me what happened.”

The Warden’s face stayed stern, but her tone softened for Rouge Rabbit’s boss, like thaw over stone. She owed him for the Magic Maidens’ entry.

“I saw it. A heart. It beat strong, like drums under earth. It ripped a rift and threw a fearsome giant dragon into Rouge Rabbit.”

“The dragon held a Key and flew for that heart. After that, I don’t know. Ask those friends over there, my respected friends.”

Yin Tiancheng spoke half-truths like mist over water. He knew who they were. Without them, Yin Chen Yue and he would’ve died in the Abyss.

So he stressed Night Frost and Ms Feng were his friends, a bridge of words. The Warden would press them less; their questioning would ease.

“Heart…”

The Warden’s brow lifted, a leaf stirred by wind. She seemed to know it. A thin greed flashed in her eyes and vanished like a spark.

“Where did that dragon go?”

She looked to Crimson and Night Frost, asking the Key’s end, her gaze a steady blade. Crimson followed Yin Tiancheng’s thread.

“That Key… the dragon flew into it. The Abyss was open, and I feared trouble. I sealed it first. I’m not in great shape and need rest…”

The Warden hadn’t met Crimson often, but knew her nature. In crisis, she stepped in, even if it cost her life, like a candle in gale.

“And you two…”

Night Frost and Ms Feng met the Warden’s eyes, a quiet river. The Warden said nothing more; on the surface, Yin Tiancheng’s face had weight.

Boom.

The quiet heart before them suddenly erupted, a volcano waking. The Earth Dragon surged up from the ground, a mountain of scales.

It slammed Night Frost and Ms Feng away, bodies tossed like leaves in storm.