“I was trapped inside an instrument, enduring long years.”

“Like the others, I was nothing more than a manufactured failure. And yet, a failure like me was chosen.”

Jin Yunan led Blood through a laboratory filled with culture tanks. Inside them lay countless girls with nearly identical faces. They had all been made from the same template, one called [Order].

“You let a half-successful product escape. For that, you’ll create a brand-new Order.”

Blood pressed a ring into Jin Yunan’s palm. The Spirit Threads wrapped around it told Jin Yunan at once that the ring was a spiritual-type Magic Tool.

“This is a Magic Tool from our Sixth District. When did you take it?”

Jin Yunan was clearly displeased. The Sixth District was her turf, yet Blood was openly ignoring the rules she had set.

“Yours?”

Blood let out a scornful laugh. If she remembered right, they had seized this from the Blood Clan during an expedition. But those Seekers had snatched the ring away without even asking.

Still, Blood didn’t care whose ring it was. After tossing it to Jin Yunan, she turned and left. As long as Jin Yunan did her job well, ownership didn’t matter. What Blood needed was only one more layer of insurance, one weapon, and one spoken command.

It was a huge temptation... As long as she held the power of Order, she could win over countless Magic Maidens for god. As long as she held the power of Order, even if something went wrong midway, she could patch it up with a command word. And even if nothing went wrong, half of Order’s power was still far beyond what those opponents could resist.

Blood turned and walked away, leaving Jin Yunan standing alone before the culture tank. In front of her was a test subject second only to Kaneko. With a bit more cultivation, this Order might even surpass Kaneko.

“It’s you.”

Countless threads burst out from the spiritual Magic Tool. Endless Spirit Threads wrapped tightly around the pure-white girl. The girl parted her lips, as if she wanted to let out a cry of pain, but the Spirit Threads forced it back down.

Blackness. Nothing but blackness.

The Spirit Threads formed a massive cocoon, locking her mind inside and implanting a “soul” of absolute obedience.

After an unknown length of time, the Spirit Threads dispersed. Standing before her was Jin Yunan, who could be called her mother, and Night Frost, who could be called her sister.

The moment she saw Night Frost, she was deeply drawn in. It felt as if something in her heart, in her chest, wanted to rush straight toward Night Frost. She suppressed that flicker of emotion and calmed herself.

She was the one chosen by Order, the inheritor of Order, not some counterfeit that had stolen Order’s power. How could there be such a perfect coincidence in this world? That Order’s inheritance would come to save a fake Order...

But perhaps this was the reason she had been born into this world.

To entrust everything, at the right time and in the right place, to the one person chosen by Order?

Truthfully, she didn’t want to.

She had never known a mother’s warmth. She had never enjoyed the beauty of the world. She had only been bound, haunted by darkness.

The moment she arrived in the Fourth District, she saw the city called “Fog City.” The year-round mist draped the Fourth District in a thin veil. It was pollution, yes, but to someone seeing it for the first time, it was still deeply striking.

But the people here didn’t see it that way. They hated this region. They wanted to leave it. But they had no such thing as “money,” so they could only huddle in one corner of the Fourth District. They protested. They marched. Yet they were driven off by the Order Keepers. Some even died in nameless corners, unseen and unknown...

So the world outside wasn’t any better.

This world needed change. This world needed Order.

Order had been born into this world to establish... a new order for it.

But she was only a counterfeit. Her power was limited. The moment she spoke, countless sisters behind her would die. That was the price of her voice.

Night Frost, however, didn’t need that. She was a success. She only needed to spend her own strength. She possessed a gift she herself could never hope to reach in her lifetime. Perhaps only by giving this Magic Stone to her could she draw out power far beyond what she had now. Perhaps only then could she rebuild a brand-new Order.

Compared to Crimson, whom she had seen before, and Moon Owl, who wielded space... without question, Night Frost was the one most likely to reach the end.

It was just a pity.

She had not yet lived with her mother. She had not yet traveled the world. She had not yet seen what everything would look like once Order had spread across it.

At the very moment the Crimson Scythe was about to fall, she tore open her own chest and hurled the bloodstained Order Gemstone toward Night Frost.

And at that instant, the Crimson Scythe came down—

The sharp Blade slammed into the ground in an instant. A deafening roar followed. The impact split the earth into spiderweb cracks that stretched for over ten miles. Dust was blasted upward by the massive force, forming a hazy gray cloud that spread over the battlefield.

“Night Frost...”

Moon Owl’s gaze fixed on the cloud of dust. In that instant, Night Frost’s presence vanished. She could only hope Night Frost was safe.

“Break through!!”

Order and Night Frost came from the same source. Even after losing the Order Gemstone, she could still sense Night Frost’s existence.

She wasn’t dead!

The Order Gemstone sensed the will of another Order Gemstone, a will to merge as one, and dragged Night Frost toward the Order Gemstone that Order had thrown.

Now the two half Order Gemstones became one, pulling Night Frost into that sacred space of Order.

Night Frost slowly narrowed her eyes open. She didn’t know what had happened, but apparently she hadn’t died. Right now, she was standing in this pure-white space.

She had come here more than once before. But compared to the previous times, this place now felt even more sacred, filled with an indescribable sense of Order.

“That’s only natural.”

At some point, the figure of a pure-white girl had appeared behind Night Frost. She was ghostlike enough to make Night Frost jump.

Night Frost whipped around and saw the girl’s face. She looked a lot like the Order outside the door, but even more like the Order from her memories.

“First, I owe you an apology. My companion laid hands on your parents. And second... forgive my presumption. At the very end of my life, I gave that half Magic Stone to your father and dragged your whole family into danger.”

The moment the girl before her said those words, Night Frost became certain. This girl was the very Order who had flashed through her memory eleven years ago.

“It’s really not that big a deal. Honestly, I’m pretty grateful to you.”

Without Order, it was hard to say whether Night Frost could have made it this far. Because of Order, she had escaped danger again and again, and lived to see this day.

“Alright. You’re in a hurry right now, so I’ll keep it short.”

“In the past, I looked through a lot of records. I also did a lot of investigating. I found that among Magic Maidens, there are groups who worship god. So I followed that trail and uncovered some information about god.”

Night Frost nodded and listened closely.

“The god Magic Maidens worship now doesn’t seem to be the same being as the god who created Magic Maidens. If anything, the one they worship is a thief.”

“A thief?”

Night Frost was startled. She couldn’t help recalling that enormous being from her memories. Someone that powerful was just a thief?

“That’s right. It’s a thief. Think about it. If it’s that powerful, then who was the one that sealed it?”

Night Frost suddenly understood. Then there had to be another god in that story, one who had sealed it here.

“I traced the history of all twenty-four regions, from ancient times to the present. Combining that with some clues your father uncovered, I found one of the seals. Beneath that seal was a part of the thief.”

Night Frost had seen it before. Whether it was the heart or the pancreas, both were indeed parts of that thing.

“When those Magic Maidens broke the first seal, I secretly slipped into the scene and took a drop of blood. I found that the drop contained terrifyingly powerful strength, no less absurd than the power of Chapter Three.”

“So I took that drop of blood and secretly left. Using the power of Order, I spent some time stripping away the Abyssal Aura and Mana inside it. But even then, the blood still gave off a horrifying presence. That was when I realized the so-called power of god didn’t come purely from extreme Mana and Abyssal Aura. Or rather, those two were only part of it.”

“I personally fused with that drop of blood and gained the ability to control blood, on par with the Blood Clan I’d seen before... But you have to understand, that was only the power of a single drop of blood. If all the blood in my body were replaced, then in terms of controlling blood, wouldn’t that mean I could be called a ‘god’?”

“I call that kind of power Authority. It is the endpoint of every Magic Maiden’s power, something independent of both Abyssal Aura and Mana.”

Night Frost felt like she understood. Following Order’s logic, was it precisely because a god possessed Authority that it was called a god?

Then what the thief had stolen was...

“Authority!”

“But if that’s the case, how are we supposed to defeat a thief that possesses Authority?”

Night Frost couldn’t help asking. She needed a way to win more than anything. No matter how much she had done already, the road ahead still had no end in sight.

“I’m getting to that now.”

“The first method is to find the true god and have it grant you the power to defeat the thief. In other words, have it give its Authority to you.”

Night Frost felt that was hardly realistic. The true god? How could something like that be easy to find?

“Then again... this is the space of Order, a space I opened with Order. Order possesses immense power. In theory, the power Order can achieve stands beneath all Authority in this world. I believe Order itself is also one of god’s Authorities.”

Night Frost parted her lips slightly. She hadn’t expected Order’s guess to be this explosive.

“I believe space, time, Order, and even the most ordinary flame are all Authorities of god. We Magic Maidens were born into this world because we each possess a sliver of divine power.”

“But part of an Authority is still not something mortals can bear. Using it will inevitably demand a price. Time is one example. Order is another.”

Order was right. Illusory Glass had used time magic, causing her not to exist in this timeline. That was the price.

“Now! The second method I want to tell you is this: make the power of Order rise above all other Authorities. Then you will fight that thief—for Authority itself.”

Night Frost turned it over in her mind, but no matter how she thought about it, that sounded impossible.

“Then is there a third method?”

“In truth, the third method... you already... have it...”