On the endless, mirror-flat sea, Birand felt rebirth unfurl like dawnlight and let out a slow, sea-salt sigh.

The air around him trembled like taut glass and twisted like heated metal, then Birand clenched both fists, thunder quiet in his knuckles.

From those fists, a breath of annihilation bloomed like an ink spill in clear water, cold and hungry.

Centered on him, it spread like frost across a window, devouring every living thing beneath the waves that dared draw near.

The force had its own will, slipping past reefs like a wary fish and skimming stones like a wind over riverbed.

It left shells like pale moons resting in sand, and swallowed only the flesh hidden within, merciless as winter.

In less than five heartbeats, within a circle wider than five hundred meters, life fell silent as a buried bell.

Only pure stillness remained, a hush like snow after midnight.

Birand opened his eyes, winter-blue like Eli’s lakes, but the true owner of this body slept like a sunken wreck.

Ascaraun stepped from the warped air, heart thudding like a trapped bird, staring at the man who was fear made flesh.

He knew any thought of resisting had guttered like embers smothered by ash.

Birand lowered his head, voice cool as rain. “Ascaraun, the life here’s thin as mist. It didn’t refill one percent of me. Are you joking?”

Ascaraun gritted his teeth, then knelt on one knee like a blade to earth. “Hero, this really is the liveliest stretch of sea nearby.”

“Forget it. Let’s go change the wind.” Birand sighed, strolling through the sky light as drifting cloud.

Ascaraun nodded and hurried after him, a shadow chasing its mountain.

Birand walked ahead, thoughts wandering like a kite cut loose after too long without speech.

After a long drift, he sighed again, voice soft as dusk. “Want to know what happened before and after I unleashed Annihilation Dawn?”

Dread pricked Ascaraun’s mouth into a crooked line, cold as a nail.

Could he say no to the storm? Refusal felt like risking his head becoming a bathroom ornament, grinning like a cursed mask.

Sure enough, before he answered, Birand spoke on, his words a river that didn’t ask permission.

That earlier question had only been a courtesy leaf on the current.

“Uh… please, go ahead.” Ascaraun breathed out, respectful as a bowed reed.

“Before I opened the Celestial Realm’s gate, I showed myself once to every high-tier in the living worlds—when I called you lot over,” Birand said, a thin smile like a knife’s reflection.

He was pleased with that history, pride humming like iron.

Ascaraun fell into a brief silence, heavy as wet cloth.

Yes—ruined us, didn’t you? The curse you seeded in me—yours, wasn’t it? Thoughts flashed like lightning behind stormglass.

He had been at home gaming, neon lights flickering like fish scales, when a blue magic circle bloomed above like a cold halo.

A pull strange and irresistible hooked him like a deep-sea current, and he stared helplessly until the circle swallowed him whole.

He woke in another world, adrift like driftwood, not knowing what he was anymore.

The thought flickered and passed like a moth by flame.

He nodded quickly; freshly resurrected, Birand felt unstable, a volcano with smoke at the mouth—better not poke it.

Follow the flow, and there might be a shore.

“I went to the rift I left crossing here,” Birand continued, voice steady as a metronome. “Found other worlds linked nearby, summoned you, then paid dear iron to chain that rift to the Celestial Gate, so the Celestial God and her soldiers couldn’t slip out.”

Birand’s light laugh was a bell behind fog.

“Huh? But you said…” Ascaraun’s doubt wavered like reeds.

“Yeah. The time-space lock was laid then, but it wasn’t finished then. Finishing came after Annihilation Dawn,” Birand said, rubbing his chin like weighing a blade.

“Alright. Please continue.” Ascaraun’s voice was a quiet ladle to the stream.

Birand’s mind drifted a moment, a boat losing oar.

In his inner sea, Eli had awakened, a pale flame catching a wind, some of the life force Birand took flowing to him like tributaries.

Eli used that tide to store his soul, a jar beneath spring.

At that key instant, Birand appeared again before him, smiling lightly like a crescent over still water.

“Later-born, don’t play little tricks,” Birand’s right index finger swayed like a willow twig, while his left hand slid into Eli’s soul like a blade into velvet. “To me they’re child pranks.”

He pulled back the hidden life force, smooth as a fisherman drawing net.

Seeing his soul thin like mist in sunlight, Eli sighed, weight heavy as rain. “Fine. What do you want from me? You’ve suppressed me from root to leaf. Why not devour my soul? What are you plotting?”

Birand smiled, silence round him like snowfall. “Relax. I’ll return your body, but not now. When it’s time, you’ll know. And what I gave you will come back to me then.”

“You damned piece of work,” Eli laughed, brittle as cracked porcelain.

“Right back at you,” Birand answered, dry as wind over stone.

...

“Eh… that one ahead!” Edlyn spotted someone ringed by a crowd of seafood like a living market, her silhouette different like a lone crane in ducks.

“Huh? She looks familiar,” Angela blinked big eyes, bright as stars.

Edlyn hesitated, then cupped her hands and called down, voice a tossed pebble. “Hey! Liqianyu! That you?!”

Miss Li was bored, fingers combing her hair like lazy waves, trying to kill time that lay flat as stale tea.

A shout drifted down from the sky, airy as gulls.

She didn’t bother opening her eyes, kept lounging with ankles crossed like a cat in sun. “Oh-ho, so it’s not the Black-and-White Wardens coming for me. God and Angels sent a pickup? Are they gonna deport me back to the Far East?”

Edlyn squinted, suspicion tight as thread. Had she misseen? Did that girl die like a candle? Why no answer?

She gripped Angela and floated down, soft as falling petals, toward Liqianyu.

Edlyn called again, voice sharp as a whistle. “Hey, Liqianyu, you alive? If yes, say something! It’s Edlyn!”

Liqianyu squinted, then opened her eyes slow as dawn. “Oh? Am I hallucinating?”

Seeing who it was, she shot upright, eyes round as bronze bells. “Holy—It’s really you!”

“Uh? What happened, why are you—”

Edlyn’s words cut off, snapped like a string, as a small figure dropped onto her like a sack and dragged her down.

“Ow, ow, ow!” x2

Edlyn rubbed her little head, wincing like a kitten. She looked at the fallen culprit from the sky. “Eh?!”

“Waaah!” The newcomer stared back, voice tumbling like marbles.

“Yiyi!”

“Edlyn!”

They spoke together, overlapping like echoes.

Yiyi hugged Edlyn and cried, tears bright as beads. “Ai-chan, long time no see! How’ve you been? Any aches anywhere? Hmm?”

“Hey, hey—stop, stop!” Edlyn pinched Yiyi’s cheeks like mochi and pulled her back, breath puffing like steam.

She looked between Liqianyu and Yiyi. “What’s going on? If you’re both here, where’s Eli? Yiyi, if you’re here, is he nearby too? Are you doing a field barbecue?”

The rapid-fire questions froze Yiyi for a beat, eyes blank as a plate.

Liqianyu drawled, slow as syrup. “Eh. I came to catch an octopus, got played, slipped, and fell in here. Let Yiyi explain.”

Edlyn’s gaze moved to the dazed Yiyi, steady as a lantern.

Yiyi paused, then pain filled her face like stormcloud. “Ai-chan. The original is in danger!”

“What?!” x3

...

Yulia traced a circle before her, clean power rising like spring water and enclosing everyone in a clear shell.

The man in the mask’s hands burned with pain like nettles; he couldn’t hold a sword, couldn’t stop me, his fate shaking like a leaf.

Beside him, the masked girl watched tight as a drawn bowstring, nerves singing like cicadas.

He gave her a reassuring look, a calm stone in a fast river, then bowed his head and gritted his teeth, drawing pale blue power like cold flame into his hands.

“Ah… trouble you for this,” the masked man whispered, voice thin as reed. “This is the last time.”

I smiled lightly, the feeling of certainty like a lantern under fog; eyes closed, I still knew every ripple around me.

I set my gaze on the Celestial God; she looked ragged, like silk snagged on thorns.

“I swore a venom oath, my whole soul as price,” I said, voice iron. “I clawed from Inferno, I crawled through the Netherworld—so you can absolve me?”

Yulia frowned, brows meeting like dark wings. “I told you—those maintain the world. They can’t be drawn back. Unless you… no. No unless.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” My confusion was flint on steel; she planned it all, and I only asked her to rescind.

Why wouldn’t she nod? The denial sat like ice.

“If so, then pay the price,” I said, the words a blade drawn.

“Over my will!” Yulia flung layered sigils, complex as snowflakes, at my chest. The masked man flew, a soft wind cradling him like a mother’s hands, placing him before Birand.

“Rest, wraith,” Yulia pressed her palms together, voice a bell in a temple. “No matter your power, you can’t defy rules. I’ll find who let you out of the Netherworld. For now, return to your grave.”

Behind her, space opened like night water, almost as when Eli called the Abyss, dark and deep.

A pair of pupils bloomed in that void, no killing intent, no madness—beauty so clean it stole breath, peace spreading like incense.

Those clear eyes fixed on me, weight settling like mountain snow.

I grunted and fell, a stone knocked from a cliff.

“No… hah… long time no see, your true form… but… what use… my revenge won’t stop…” I rasped, ragged as torn cloth.

“You’re no match for me. If not for law propping you, I—”

“Too bad,” Yulia’s gaze stayed cool as moonlight. “That possibility doesn’t exist.”

Pressure from those pupils deepened, a tide pushing; my power boiled like water under a lid.

I drew Thias from my body, the sword’s skin cracking like ice in spring.

Cracks ran through me too, spiderwebbing like lightning across stone.

Thias began to blaze again, brilliance flooding like sunrise, suppressing even Yulia’s avatar like cloud before noon.

The masked man held the masked girl tight, a shield like an oak over a sapling.

“If I can’t change anything,” I said, the words ringing like hammered steel, “then I’ll remake it.”

“Annihilation… Dawn!”

Thias swept from below upward, a vast blade-light like a tidal wave covering everyone on that field.

In the hush, all heard it—the snap of a long, taut string, fate breaking like a bow at full draw.

Then Thias shattered to glittering fragments, falling like star-hail to the ground.

The floor of the Celestial Realm split with a fissure, a wound dark as night; black and white ghost hands reached up like reeds, countless palms straining toward Birand in the sky.

“I won’t stop. Unless.”

In this world, there’s no me anymore—like a name scraped off weathered stone.

Hahaha, I know—you won’t let me just vanish, like mist at dawn.

Edward, what’s left is your show—the stage waiting under a dim curtain, isn’t it?

Birand laughed madly, eyes blazing toward the near distance like torches in a wind.

Ascaraun watched his frenzy, the sight roiling like storm-waves in a black sea.

Weariness pooled first; he sighed, a breath sinking like a pebble into still water.

This guy has dragged himself back into that moment—walking into the old smoke of that day.