“Unforgivable. You dare use shapeshifts to mess with me?!” Birand’s voice cracked like ice under a boot.

The masked man covered his eyes, peeking through the lattice of his fingers, like watching through bamboo slats in rain.

“Who knows. If that’s what you think, then call it that.” His smile was a thorn glinting in mist.

“Die already!” Birand lifted his left hand and thrust, a spear of wind splitting the air.

The masked man jumped back in a blur, dodging the stab. He slid sideways, catching the masked girl’s hand signals like fireflies flicking in the dark.

He exhaled, bit down, and burned the last law of the Abyss he had stored, like feeding a coal to a dying flame.

“Hero! Fooled you, didn’t I!” A tidal aura crashed over him, like thunder rolling off a cliff.

His long hair whipped like banners in a storm; his grin was reckless as a wildfire seeing fresh trees.

Birand’s gut went cold. This bastard was faking him out.

A trick? A hook hidden in silk?

He slammed to a halt, boots cutting grooves in the dust, the stall a stone thrown into a flood.

It bought the masked man one breath, a reed above swirling water.

He called a vast abyssal black hole, a night sun blooming, and folded it into his body like ink into paper.

In that heartbeat, the stored laws of the Abyss re-sheathed him, a second skin of shadow.

Birand’s face darkened to steel. His lip twitched; his mouth opened, then hung there, words freezing to rime.

“Hahaha, don’t look so shocked, old friend.” The masked man’s wounds vanished like dew. He dusted his sleeve as if brushing ash from a robe.

He pulled the severed mask from the air, and a strange force flowed, mending it like gold lacquer fixing a cracked bowl.

He set it back on, tilted his head, voice lightly mocking. “How’s that?”

Birand’s laugh was a knife. “So you got your power back. It isn’t yours. You can’t hold it. Soon you’ll be an ant under a boot.”

“Heh. Depends who’s counting.” The shrug was a willow bending without breaking.

“Killing you will shut you up.” Birand charged, a red river foaming to break a dam.

The masked man fled toward Yulia, feet skimming like a swallow over a lake.

The masked girl slapped the Celestial God’s shoulder. “Hey! Hurry! Now!”

Yulia’s eyes opened. A holy breeze unfurled; her sanctity fell like dawn over frost.

She lifted a palm and sent a wave. Birand raised his hand on instinct, scattering it like dandelion fluff. His feet hitched and paused, a drumbeat cut short.

Yulia climbed back toward her peak, slow as a moon waxing, bright line by bright line.

Not her true body, but still a mountain under clouds.

Birand felt it. His lip pulled tight, a crack in stone.

“Fine, fine, all this stalling. So what? A Celestial God’s avatar and a man borrowing power—no way you last.” His energy surged, a volcano heaving toward its rim.

The masked man’s eyes widened. “Damn. Not good. They can’t hold him.”

He bit down. This was the knife-edge.

If the Celestial God clipped Birand’s link to the laws, they won.

If they missed that blink, they’d die like candles in a gale.

“Tch. Such a headache.” He rubbed his temple, a stormcloud knotting behind his eyes.

“Bloodstained Aurora!” Birand raised both hands, a crimson sunrise condensing into a blade dozens of meters long.

Energy flooded him, a river in spring breaking banks.

His killing intent wrapped him, a hedge of thorns keeping all hands at bay.

One cut, and Yulia’s avatar would be severed; trickery would die like smoke in rain.

The blade’s hunger fixed on Yulia, the way hawks fix on a hare.

She seemed to feel nothing, tracing runes like sewing constellations onto silk.

The masked man lobbed a few energy bolts, sparks tossed at a storm.

The barrier of killing will drank them down, a black sea swallowing foam.

He frowned. “Ah… if this drags on, we’re sunk.” His brow pinched like parched earth.

His gaze flicked; an idea lit like a match.

He moved, sprinting at Birand like a shadow crossing snow.

Birand smirked. “Not afraid of death, are you.”

His killing aura howled, tens of thousands of wolves stampeding out of a winter forest.

The masked man pressed his palms together, a prayer clasped between thunderheads.

Since this man rejected anything tied to him, baiting that aversion might tug his sight like a hook.

Birand finished coiling his strike and brought the blade down, heat singing off it, sword intent sizzling like brand on flesh.

Energy crashed with the killing will, a double tide rushing the masked man.

A vast gray magic circle opened behind him, a wheel of ash turning in midair.

Chains thicker than a man leapt forth, iron serpents whipping out to bind the world’s limbs.

They spread and spread, a net thrown over the sky.

The masked man’s mouth curled. He shouted like a gong. “Myriad Spirit Lock—Domain!”

Birand’s eyes blew wide. That—his domain skill. Impossible.

The masked man thrust his hands, syllables falling like stones. “Seal—Spirits!”

The great chains coiled around Birand’s giant sword, snakes knotting around a dragon’s spine.

Birand snarled, tore free of the half-fastened links, and barreled in. “Who the hell are you!”

“Heh. It worked.” The masked man lifted twin blades, trying to catch the stroke like crossing reeds.

He’d misread Birand’s strength—or overrated his own flickering state.

Before the blade touched him, the aura slammed him flat, a mountain pressing a sparrow to dust.

“Damn it!” Terror flashed; he felt dirt, cool and final.

Was he going to die here, like a lamp blown out?

At last, Yulia finished. She slipped past the long blade, then blinked to Birand’s face, a white petal drifting to a cliffside.

His furious visage filled her view, a storm filling a window.

She sighed, a reed bending to wind. Perhaps she truly had erred.

She laid her hand on Birand’s brow, a snowflake settling on iron.

The masked man seized the gap, snapped nearby chains, and threw them, netting Birand like a trawler pinning a whale.

Where Yulia’s palm met skin, a zero appeared, stark as frost etched on glass.

Six Angels closed their eyes, their breaths threading like lanterns in a line.

The Celestial God’s power wrapped them, mending flesh and mind like rain softening cracked clay.

They channeled their origin power into the spatial wormhole Yulia had left, a whirlpool of light humming in air.

Then all of it poured back into Yulia, a river returning to its source.

She followed the energy lines in the rune, rearranged flows like weaving, then injected them into Birand’s marked forehead.

Birand roared, voice raw, a beast caught in a trap. He bellowed and raged, the sound a tempest battering shutters.

He felt his strength sluicing away, like sand leaking through clenched fingers.

He shouted, furious and unyielding. “What is this thing! Damn it!”

The power of the Myriad Spirit Lock seeped into him, water in roots, iron in blood.

He thrashed and fought, but the chains held, biting shut like a jaw.

Birand fell, staring at the endless stars, teeth grinding like stones.

Edlyn sighed, a willow shedding a leaf. So this was it; the Hero couldn’t resist. The Angels would end him, and then it would be Eli of the second life.

She turned to leave, steps light as a cat.

Akenachel touched her shoulder, a tremor passing like a chill. She shook her head.

Edlyn tilted her head, reading the fear in Akenachel’s eyes—true fear, carved into the soul, a brand only a Celestial God could suppress, the kind that stains a lifetime.

Curiosity flickered. So the earlier cruelty wasn’t her root terror after all.

Edlyn stopped. “Then… how long?”

Akenachel hugged herself, shaking, words chattering like teeth. “Soon… very soon. It’s about to descend.”

Edlyn looked back at Birand, hog-tied on the ground, a boar trussed for the cart.

She frowned. Like this, how could he resist.

Birand lay there, eyes lost to the sky, a man adrift on black water.

The masked man stood hands on hips, leaning on a wall like a tired pilgrim. “Damn. So typical of me. I’m never taking point again.”

The masked girl slipped in, hooking his arm, a wry smile a blade of grass. “Tch. If you won’t lead, I will.”

“No. I can’t bear that.” He blurted it, heart tugged like silk snagged on a thorn.

Yulia watched them, curious, a bell’s note ringing in her bones—familiar, but nameless.

The six Angels supported one another, walking forward, steps like lanterns bobbing.

“My lord… is it over?” Akenachel asked, voice soft as ash.

Yulia nodded. “It’s over.”

The masked man stretched, vertebrae clicking like beads. “Celestial God, what’s the plan? What about Birand?”

Yulia shook her head. “Later. I have questions for him.”

“All right.” He shrugged, a bird shaking off rain.

“This… human? Sir. You helped me with all this. What reward do you want?” Yulia asked, her gaze calm as still water.

Her holy aura thickened, white smoke rising; everyone knew her power had returned, and duty’s ledger was opening.

“Nothing much. Let me see how he ends.” The masked man smiled, a crescent moon over a field.

“Good.” Yulia turned aside, like a leaf following wind.

Her energy was whole, her emotions drowned by vast law, a sea smoothing its face.

She lifted a hand. A rainbow drifted across the Celestial Realm, a bridge of colors humming.

Where it passed, broken houses rebuilt like bamboo after rain; dead Celestial Gods reassembled, bodies knitting, then cocooning into great shells—once done, true revival.

Ravens scattered before the arc, a black flock pushed from the divine sky.

The masked pair watched, awe spilling like wine. “No wonder she’s the Founder of All Things. Combat’s so-so, but these methods? Mind-blowing.”

The masked girl poked his side. “Hey. Watch your tongue.”

He shrugged, a stone sliding in a stream. This Celestial God didn’t have emotions—would she even get mad?

Birand watched Yulia’s work, dazed, like a fisherman staring at lightning.

“You’re the continuation of the Creator God. Why? Why did you go after her?” He lay crooked, head tilted toward her like a fallen banner.

Yulia’s voice cooled, a blade wrapped in silk. “All for the sake of order. She must disappear. I have no choice.”

Birand’s smile was cruel as a wolf’s. “Figures. You chant the lines everyone’s sick of.”

The masked man’s face tightened. “Not good. This guy—”

Birand’s power surged again for no reason, a geyser punching sky.

Force blasted everyone away, leaves torn by a sudden squall. He raised his hand, ripped off the chains like weeds, and stared at them, wild as lightning.

“Sure enough, a world like this is better off destroyed!”