The rift sealed with satin ribbon tore open again. After Night Frost and Ms Feng were thrust in by an Earth Dragon shade, the wound began to knit itself.

That had never happened, not once.

The Warden of District Two and Crimson moved in like storm fronts. One braced the rift’s edges; the other readied to dive—then a gunshot cracked like cold lightning.

“Take everyone here away!”

Fully armed members of Cantata Two sprinted from afar, armor clattering like iron rain. In a blink, they clamped shackles on everyone but the Warden and Crimson.

“I dare you.”

The Warden’s aura pressed down like a mountain. She had never seen these girls; they weren’t Magic Maidens of District Two. They were running wild on her soil.

“Didn’t expect news to fly this fast. Your hound noses sniffed it across half the city. That’s our District Two’s haul.”

She hadn’t expected it either. News had raced like wildfire; spies from other districts had to be nesting inside District Two.

Whoever they were, coming now meant ill intent, especially at a place like this.

The Warden nodded to Crimson, a silent pact like a bridge thrown over a chasm. Unknowns gathered; Crimson was at least a name she could trust. Save the two below first, then fight on the same line.

Crimson dropped toward the rift, but drifting threads floated in like pale moths. They wrapped her tight; surging mana stabbed through along those needles. She had to flare her own mana and flick the threads off.

“You’d better not move.”

An elegant woman hovered in midair like a lacquered idol. Rings on all ten fingers hid threads spun of mana; her pinky carried a slender claw. She idly lifted her voluminous hair.

Wind tugged her skirt; a strange fragrance pooled in the sky like heavy incense.

Cantata Two marched their fresh captives to the woman in finery, a small procession like offerings to a shrine.

“Report. A Monster slipped away with a little girl. We only caught these.”

“Don’t push it. Don’t forget the treaty. This is District Two. You’re breaking the rules.”

Mana gathered around the Warden, thick as stormclouds. This was her last warning. She knew that woman—the neighboring district’s self-styled Empress Warden. HQ couldn’t leash her; she belonged to Cantata Three.

When that madwoman charged, suppressing her cost blood and time. Sometimes stroking her ego worked better than steel.

“A treaty is a leash for the weak. To the strong, it’s useless parchment.”

The woman in finery didn’t listen. The Warden glanced at Crimson, intent like a drawn bow. Two against one, and end it fast.

“Oh, oh, oh. Two bullies against one frail lady? If I hadn’t brought help, I’d have died.”

She stepped with a dancer’s click; mechanical braces on her legs rang against Magic Stones. She raised a mechanized Wand; stone struck stone, and mana boomed out like surf. The surge teased up azure strands of hair.

She was ancient, and looked bone-tired. She leveled her Wand at Crimson, yet her voice was icy and young, echoing over the barren air.

“Long time no see, Crimson. You’re still the same. I’m relieved.”

Crimson’s eyes widened. The face was different, but the soul was familiar. She lifted a hand, voice slow as a dawning flame.

“Azure—”

An azure mana round spiraled toward Crimson, cutting the air like a drill.

Night Frost tried to wrench free of the Earth Dragon’s phantom fangs, anger pounding from the distant heart like war drums. Fresh mana she gathered shattered like glass.

Ms Feng’s tentacles unfurled upward from beneath her, suctioning onto the rim of the Abyssal Rift. For a breath, she halted their fall, a net in the dark.

Her Azureblood Octopus limbs could bear a hundred pounds, but the Earth Dragon’s force was heavier. It tore the tentacles as if snapping kelp.

The Earth Dragon’s shade thinned as they fell, vapor blown by the void. The Calamity Dragon spent its last strength; the ochre heart returned to a dull stone, and went dark.

Night Frost summoned wings again, feathers blazing like embers, and tried to haul Ms Feng toward the lip. They had been falling for a while; she could only climb in jagged spurts.

The heartbeat from deep in the Abyss gripped her like a hook. Fine—so you can’t break your seal. You’ve been trapped for ages. What’s a little longer?

Irritation flared first, then thought. With every second of fall, the heart loomed closer. The gap barely shrank, yet the pressure slammed her like standing before the seal.

Fresh wings tore apart under that unseen force, like paper under rain. When Night Frost asked Ms Feng, Ms Feng felt nothing at all.

That’s when Night Frost understood. The thing had fixed its gaze on her.

Petty heart. It keeps grudges.

Grudge-bearers, Night Frost usually dealt with early, before they festered into calamity. This heart she couldn’t touch. So she endured, wobbling upward like a moth in wind.

Slow, but the exit was near. Ms Feng only needed to throw a tentacle and they’d be back on solid ground—

That’s how it should have been.

Coiled inside Night Frost, the Black Dragon considered her stubborn climb, then tasted something wrong. If she returned, where else could it drink such rich Abyssal Aura? Chances like this were rare.

It tugged its true body, and walked out of the mountain-chasm of the rift like a shadowed emperor. For one second, it savored mental freedom. Then it lifted a claw and raked Night Frost’s spirit.

Night Frost clutched her spinning head. That tearing pain—of course it was the Black Dragon. Ms Feng was still clawing upward, and Night Frost could wrestle the battle inside.

Flames drew her spirit inward like a lantern’s pull. She alighted on a flat stretch and faced the giant at the fissure. The Black Dragon was free.

Its spirit pressed like stormweight. The Black Dragon’s mind was still stronger, but since Night Frost set half a foot into Cantata Three, the gap had thinned.

“You finally came.”

The Black Dragon’s eyes widened; its spirit body shrank until it matched Night Frost’s height, a dragon brought down to eye level.

“Time to end it, isn’t it?”

It knew Night Frost’s pace. Yes, she was small, but she grew too fast, especially in spirit. It couldn’t stall anymore. If her spirit rose again, it would be caged in her skull forever.

Whatever fierce draught she’d swallowed, it had shaved a sky-wide gap into this narrow span.

“Looks like you don’t want me walking out of here.”

Night Frost saw it—the Black Dragon had sunk part of its spirit in Abyssal Aura, drawing it in to maintain and harden itself. Fight here, and Night Frost, with no supply, would lose.

Yet the fight was sealed. The Black Dragon spilled out spirit like iron bars, a cage wrapping them both. The bars weren’t hard; the hard thing was the foe before her.

The dragon at Night Frost’s height matched her spirit one for one. It planned to pin her here.

Night Frost’s inner sea surged, releasing countless Spirit Threads like silver rain. The Black Dragon sliced them clean. She called the Crimson Gold Flame, but it couldn’t scorch the dragon’s armored hide.

Outside the cage, a portion of the Black Dragon’s awareness slid back into Night Frost’s body. Night Frost’s tightly shut eyes cracked open—half a dark-golden glare like a predator’s lamp.

She looked up at the rift drawing near, then pulled a Crimson Gold Spear from the flames behind her. One stroke, and she chopped through all the tentacles Ms Feng had cast to anchor them.

“You’re do—”

Ms Feng swallowed the pain and stared. Night Frost’s dark-gold eye held savagery and the authority of an apex. In a flash, Ms Feng understood.

“You’re… a dragon?”

Night Frost had said a dragon’s soul lived in her, and Ms Feng had seen her dragon form. She hadn’t expected the long-silent dragon to surge up now.

Maybe it feared Night Frost’s fresh strength. Maybe it judged the time ripe. Either way, the being in front of her wasn’t Night Frost, but the dragon veiled inside.

Ms Feng was a scientist, but her combat sense was sharp. Azureblood Octopus tentacles stored a trove of potions. Many had odd effects; the only ones that might work on Night Frost were special anesthetics.

She didn’t understand the path of spirit. Books offered no firm map. She couldn’t know Night Frost’s state. So first, restrain her—

That plan frayed. The dragon had cut the linking tentacles. They were dropping fast. If Night Frost went under, they would never reach the rift’s edge.

Weightlessness hauled them down like a river. The Crimson Gold Spear drove into Ms Feng’s chest like a brand. She locked Night Frost in a crushing embrace, pinning every motion. Pupal tendrils wrapped them in a cocoon. All she could do was hope for hands from above.

Savage void sliced at Ms Feng’s tendrils like invisible blades. She bit down hard and drank the potions stored inside her limbs. With Azureblood Octopus regeneration, the void couldn’t shear her hold.

Ms Feng bore the pain, body trembling, and sheltered Night Frost in her arms like a hearth.

They kept falling, falling into the ink-black Abyss.