Tears flowed in silence.

From the moment she sent her daughter away, she knew her future was already decided. She was dragged before the Soul Magic Tool and implanted with false memories. Her true memories were hidden away.

And so, she became a cold machine.

From time to time, she stood before row after row of experimental vessels, displaying ambitions she had never possessed and cooperating with people she had never wanted to work with.

Her palm gently touched the cold glass.

A pure-white girl lay quietly in the nutrient fluid. She had just been through a fierce battle and was still extremely weak.

It was the Magic Maiden named Blood who had taken her away. Blood had used her power without permission.

Naturally, someone with such power would be attacked by everyone.

Why did her heart ache?

The girl before her was nothing more than a tool. An artificial human didn’t even count as a person.

Then why did she feel pain when she saw the peaceful expression on the girl’s face inside the cultivation vessel?

Her memories were becoming blurred again.

Something seemed to be suppressing the memories returning inside her mind, bit by bit. She seemed to have sent someone away before. She seemed to remember waving goodbye.

Was it her daughter?

Then why did that girl look so much like the one inside the vessel?

There was no way she would care about an artificial human.

Who was she, really?

And who was that child?

She turned around without changing her expression and walked straight to her room.

She knew she absolutely couldn’t show such an expression in public.

Once she returned to her room, she clutched her head and burst into tears.

She remembered that, for a time, the girl inside the cultivation vessel had also held her aching head while wondering who she really was.

And what difference was there between that girl and herself now?

She was certain of it now.

Her memories had been tampered with.

Just like the girl inside the vessel, Blood absolutely couldn’t be trusted. That woman’s mouth was full of lies. For all she knew, Blood had altered her memories herself.

The purpose was naturally the power of Order.

She picked up a pen and wrote a passage on the back of each piece of highly important experimental data.

As long as she connected them all, she would be able to learn everything about herself through the confusion.

Memories faded like the tide. They rose, then ebbed away.

Yet the clear writing on the paper allowed her to recall everything that had just happened. The memories sealed deep within her surged back like a rising tide.

“My name is Jin Yunan… I’m the most senior researcher underground in the Sixth District. My research concerns artificial Order…”

“My daughter died unexpectedly. So I treated my half-finished child as my own daughter and sent her out of the Sixth District.”

Yunan remembered everything.

She remembered the days she had spent living with the flaxen-haired girl.

She remembered giving that girl a name.

Kaneko.

It had been the name of her original daughter.

It was also her own name.

“I remember that something happened in District Twenty One…”

“That pillar of Order light that shot into the sky, and the experimental subjects who rioted in the Sixth District…”

“That was Kaneko’s doing, wasn’t it?”

Yunan couldn’t think of anyone besides Order itself, the silver-haired girl inside the cultivation vessel, and the half-finished Kaneko who could control the power of Order and unleash it from within their bodies.

Jin Yunan looked toward the girl on another screen.

She seemed to understand why the girl had been clutching her head and crying.

Those girls had all been carved from the same mold, like twins.

Kaneko was one of them.

Without realizing it, they could sense one another.

If another artificial human of Order had died, the silver-haired girl inside the vessel wouldn’t have suffered such a shock.

Those artificial humans had no consciousness. They couldn’t even realize that they had died.

But Kaneko had one.

Kaneko was essentially identical to the pure-white girl inside the vessel.

There was only a slight difference between them.

In other words, Kaneko could be considered the girl before her older sister.

The resolve Kaneko showed before her death seemed to reach the girl inside the vessel.

For an instant, the girl’s suppressed memories and thoughts broke through the restrictions of the Soul Magic Tool.

But she forced them back down again.

What had she been doing all this time?

She had been manipulated by Blood, using the Sixth District’s resources and wealth to satisfy Blood’s ambitions.

“This isn’t right… It can’t be.”

By now, she knew that her hands were stained with blood.

She was an accomplice.

Blood was the principal culprit.

Yunan walked before the Soul Magic Tool. She removed the restrictions on her memories and erased the false ones.

Then she walked to the cultivation vessel containing the silver-haired girl.

“Child, I’m sorry. You should never have been born into this world as a weapon. It was my fault.”

She raised the Magic Tool in her hand and gently brushed it over the girl’s soul.

She wiped away the filth covering it, leaving behind only its purest essence.

Inside the cultivation vessel, the girl slowly opened her silver eyes.

Like a newborn child, she studied the old woman standing before her.

“Are you… Mom? I heard about you from Kaneko.”

The girl tilted her head and stared blankly at the stunned old woman.

Perhaps she hadn’t expected the girl’s first words to be those two.

In her memories, her daughter had called her that.

Kaneko had called her that, too.

But in the end, both of them had returned to the heavens.

She had become another white-haired parent forced to bury her child.

She had never been a competent mother.

“I’m not worthy of that name.”

“Why not? Isn’t Mom still Mom? You’re the mother who created us.”

The girl paused.

“Unless you’re actually our father?”

Jin Yunan swallowed the words that had reached her throat.

How was this little thing so much like Kaneko?

“I think saying it like that makes me sound just like Big Sis Kaneko!”

The girl chattered on and on.

But Yunan didn’t find her annoying.

Instead, she quietly listened to her words, as if everything had returned to four months ago.

If only she had never possessed talent.

Then perhaps she would be spending her final years peacefully with her daughter instead of living through this endless hell.

“I have a plan.”

The girl stared into Jin Yunan’s eyes.

She remembered that a silver-haired girl had once said the same thing to her.

“I have a plan. A plan that can help you escape from hell.”

“You and your mother must continue obeying Blood’s orders.”

“Then, in secret, bring every tool related to Blood to the Twelfth District. We need them.”

“Then you do this, and this, and that…”

“Anyway, just wait for now.”

She had taken those words to heart at the time.

But under the Soul Magic Tool’s suppression, she could only act according to her predetermined commands.

Now, however, the Soul Magic Tool’s control had been removed.

Like Jin Yunan, she had escaped Blood’s control.

Her personality was similar to Kaneko’s.

In fact, she was even worse than Kaneko.

The suppression she had endured had already twisted into fury.

She planned to continue lurking beneath Blood’s shadow like a venomous snake, waiting to strike a fatal blow at the crucial moment.

She reached out.

The smile on her face was pure and flawless.

“Mom, come with me.”

“Let’s destroy that woman’s scheme together. We’re on the side of justice, aren’t we?”

“That woman summoned some kind of monster. It possesses terrifying power.”

“It feels like one glance from it would scatter a person’s soul.”

“And now, that enormous creature is sleeping beneath the earth. This is our final chance.”

She wanted to drag Jin Yunan into this.

She could never complete her revenge plan alone.

The Jin Yunan before her was the perfect candidate.

“Even if this isn’t justice, do it for my big sister Kaneko.”

“For my younger sisters…”

“And for yourself.”

“If the world reaches its end, running away won’t help anyway…”

Jin Yunan struggled inwardly.

If she could, she wouldn’t interfere in this matter again.

She might take the girl inside the cultivation vessel and leave together with her, finding some undiscovered corner where they could live in peace.

But now, the girl had invited her.

As the girl called her “Mom” again and again, Yunan somehow lost herself.

Almost as if possessed, she agreed to the girl’s request.

The girl narrowed her eyes and giggled.

Her laughter was like silver bells, sweet and captivating.

“Someone’s back.”

A blood-red figure stepped out of the shadows.

The girl closed her eyes and withdrew her smile.

Jin Yunan closed her eyes as well, steadying her mind.

She raised the Soul Magic Tool, then slowly lowered it.

She deliberately released an appropriate amount of soul fluctuation, pretending that she had just finished suppressing the girl’s soul.

“What, did she go berserk again?”

Blood’s ruby-like eyes fixed on Jin Yunan.

Those mesmerizing eyes seemed capable of devouring Yunan’s soul whole.

Yunan shuddered, then forced herself to remain calm.

“Ah, yes. It seems she saw something, and that caused a problem with the original program.”

“Who knows?”

Blood spread her hands, as if the matter had nothing to do with her.

“Since she’s stable now, let the past stay in the past.”

“Oh, right. I want you to help me with something.”

Jin Yunan returned the Soul Magic Tool to its original position.

Then she looked at Blood without expression.

“What is it? It definitely won’t be anything good.”

“Don’t worry. This time, it definitely is something good.”

With that, Blood took a pitch-black sphere from within her clothes.

It contained a profound, incomprehensible energy.

That energy resembled both Mana and Abyssal Aura, but it was neither of them.

“This will allow our power to advance even further.”

“This is the source of Mana and Abyssal Aura. Two opposing powers have fused together so perfectly…”

“It’s beautiful.”

Blood walked to an artificial human of Order.

She injected a strand of black thread into the girl’s Magic Stone.

The pure white and silver inside it was gradually overtaken by pitch black.

Two different powers began to merge into gray.

“This power is twice as strong as the original imitation of Order’s Mana.”

“One killing move can now be used twice.”

“If you agree, this thing will belong to you.”

Jin Yunan’s gaze fell upon the black sphere.

“I don’t trust it. I need to study it carefully.”

“Of course. But you can’t touch this thing. It’ll strangle you.”

Blood waved her hand, and the sphere floated above the apparatus.

“Remember to return it after you’re finished studying.”

“Oh, and bring me my clone as soon as possible.”

With that, Blood transformed into mist and dispersed throughout the laboratory.

Jin Yunan let out a long breath of relief.

She stared at the sphere suspended above the apparatus, then dropped heavily into a nearby chair.

That had been close…

She had almost exposed herself.

“There’s danger here. I can feel it.”

The girl inside the cultivation vessel murmured.

She had a strange feeling that something had changed after Blood left.