I was parked before the Worldgate, staring up into a sky of blank void, boredom gnawing like rust. How long do I have to rot in this cursed place? It was suffocating.

“Sis, I’m about to burn out—come swap with me!” FrostyLily Dream’s voice drifted over like a tired breeze, thin with fatigue.

“You’re winded already? That’s weak. Treat this like training. It’s grueling, yeah, but if you keep at it, your grasp of the Primordial Source will inch forward.”

At first, I planned to keep stalling with Xiyue—fix the Worldgate the instant it hiccuped, like patching leaks on a storm-tossed hull. But tedium wore me down like sand in gears. I handed FrostyLily Dream the repair method and let her haul the grind.

She wasn’t as efficient as me, but it was passable. I was done with this mind-numbing chore. I wanted air, a horizon, anything—but dumping FrostyLily here alone felt cold. I wouldn’t make her miserable.

“I can feel a bit of growth in my strength,” she panted, like a candle fighting the wind. “But this can’t go on. When does it end?”

No wonder she complained. She and Xiyue had been grinding at this for a year. For the Origin Realm, a year is a blink, but doing the same scorching task day after day erodes the heart like dripping salt. Repairing the Worldgate burns through Primordial Source, and even the Origin Realm tires under that tide.

Fixing the Worldgate drains heaps of Primordial Source. Without a high-tier Origin Realm foundation, you can’t last. If I weren’t anchoring the gate’s overall state, FrostyLily Dream couldn’t hold this post at all.

“I’m fed up too,” I muttered, irritation prickling like nettles. “All that sweet time for living gets wasted in this dead corner. Why is Xiyue such a menace?”

Just thinking how long until Xiyue quieted made my temples throb like struck gongs.

“Is there no way to harden the Worldgate so it never gets broken?” FrostyLily Dream asked between breaths, each inhale a scraped note. She was truly exhausted.

“Not realistic. Only the Pinnacle of Origin Realm can break the Worldgate. In theory, no Pinnacle should be bored enough to smash it. Outside of me and Xiyue, no one else seems to have reached that peak. I didn’t expect Xiyue to be this stubborn.”

I stood, smoothing the wrinkles from my skirt like rippleless water, then finished repairing the little bit of damage left on the Worldgate. Poor FrostyLily looked wrung out.

“The world’s gotten restless again,” I said, a chill crossing like shadow-clouds. “The Soulless Sanctuary rose from the Endless Sea—some blind fool must’ve meddled with that seal. Seriously, can we get one good piece of news?”

I gathered Origin Sword Qi until it sang like a drawn blade, then stacked dozens of layers onto the Worldgate’s seal. That should hold for a while.

“The Soulless Sanctuary… isn’t that where Wanxin, that stinking brat, is sealed? Is he about to break free?” Her relief snapped tight again, like a bowstring.

“Almost.” Wanxin’s an Origin Realm existence, technically Xiyue’s guard. Back then he stood with her against me. His sins weren’t as heavy as Xiyue’s, not enough to banish him from the Prime Realm, so after I cast Xiyue into the Inner World, I sealed Wanxin forever in the Soulless Sanctuary.

I don’t need to guess: this is Xiyue pulling strings, sending pieces to stir trouble. Aside from me, only she knows the Sanctuary’s exact location.

“That’s serious, isn’t it? If Wanxin actually breaks out, won’t he kick up chaos again?”

She worries too much—but fine. Wanxin’s Origin Realm, a notch stronger than FrostyLily Dream. Still, sealed for so many years, he couldn’t have grown. He should be about equal to her now.

“My seal doesn’t break that easy. Unless a Pinnacle of Origin Realm helps him. And even if he crawls out, he can’t do much.”

“Why?”

“Because when I sealed him, I slipped a hand around his Primordial Source. If he dares to draw on it, he’ll slide into uselessness.”

“That kind of complete Source-lock… Sis, are you a demon?!” Her wide eyes were theatrical, fear like painted tears.

Rude. I pinched her soft cheek, warm as fresh mochi. The feel was… decent.

“It’s called prevention. My biggest regret is not sealing Xiyue’s Primordial Source when I banished her to the Inner World. Now trouble rolls in wave after wave.”

I only muse about it. Back then, I wasn’t much stronger than Xiyue. Sealing her Source was hard. After a full-force battle, I was spent, breath like embers—I could only drive her out.

“So there was no help for it,” FrostyLily Dream said, voice small as rain. “No one foresaw Xiyue reaching the Pinnacle of Origin Realm—beyond dust and comparison. What’s your plan now? Keep wasting time like this?”

“We can’t keep this up. Talk won’t work. Fists won’t either. We have to try other paths.”

Other paths might be steeper, but we have no choice in this thorny thicket.

“Are there any workable options?!”

“There are, but the difficulty’s still high. One: cut the ties between the Inner World and the Prime Realm completely. Make the Inner World fully independent. Then the Worldgate won’t be needed, and Xiyue entering the Prime Realm will be a daydream.”

“I remember the Inner World split from the Prime Realm at the dawn of world-formation,” she said, memory rising like mist. “It still keeps countless threads tied to the Prime Realm, so the Worldgate exists as a bridge. You want to cut those threads… can it be done?”

Even FrostyLily Dream, who worships and trusts me, couldn’t help doubting now, the question like a quivering leaf.

“It’s extremely hard. The simpler route is to merge—the Inner World returns to the Prime Realm.”

“You mean fold the Inner World back into the Prime Realm, making one complete world? That’ll stir a storm. Getting residents on both sides to adapt is brutal.”

“More or less. We wouldn’t throw both populations together overnight. After the merge, the Inner World becomes a region, a continent, something bounded. We set limits on passage. But the problem is Xiyue—if she won’t settle down, all of this is fantasy.”

“Right… we need to tread carefully, Sis.”

“Mm.”

I’ll head into the Inner World soon and talk to Xiyue again. I don’t expect her to accept quietly, like a wave obeying the shore.

For the record, people in the Prime Realm live comfortably—compared to the Inner World—because the land is wide and the folk are few, like stars scattered across a vast sky. Resources aren’t tight. If the worlds truly merge, with the Inner World’s enormous number of living beings, we’ll stir problems like silt in a river.

…