“This is?” Edlyn looked up and down at the massive teleportation array, a stone wheel sleeping under orphanage dust like a coiled dragon.

“This is a gate to the Abyss. It’s been idle for a while. I need to fix it.” Ugillian smiled, brushing gray ash off the giant stones like fallen snow.

“Uh… Grandpa, how long has this storeroom been unused?” Edlyn asked, curiosity flickering like fireflies.

This underground warehouse held only the stone array and jars sealed tight, mute like buried moons.

“Hahaha. I haven’t come down here in decades.” Ugillian surveyed the room, nostalgia drifting like old fog.

“Wait, you never planned to store anything here?” Liqianyu frowned, confusion rising like a ripple on a still pond.

A cellar is never left empty by ordinary folks, like leaving fertile soil to crack.

Big Fiends… and yet no hidden experiments in a cellar, no shadows boiling in jars.

Edlyn caught Liqianyu’s runaway thoughts, feeling exasperation first, like a weary breeze. She sighed long, voice slow as an old bell. “Miss Yu, stop reading that messy stuff. For someone with your IQ~ there’s zero benefit.”

“You!” Liqianyu sprang up, heat flaring like sparks, yanked Edlyn into her arms, hugged hard, then pinched Edlyn’s cheek like soft clay.

“Ai-chan, did you forget I’m stronger than you for now? The moment you know your lover has a chance, you stash that sour face, huh? Huh? You Demon King—picking love over friends, hm?”

“Y-you—you—let go.” Edlyn struggled, only to find Liqianyu’s grip like iron tongs, holding fast as a vise.

“Hahaha. Youth brims like spring.” Ugillian chuckled, smile blooming like chrysanthemums.

“Alright, back to business. Why bring me here?” Edlyn peeled Liqianyu’s hand off her face and squared up, eyes steady as twin blades.

Ugillian’s smile turned secretive, gaze weighing Edlyn like a craftsman sizing jade. “You haven’t gone back to the Abyss in a long, long, long time, have you?”

“...Yes. But it’s not that I don’t want to. The Abyss Gate closed.” Edlyn’s voice carried a quiet chill, like frost along stone.

Ugillian rubbed his hands, laughter dry as old parchment. “Figures. That geezer left this here for a reason.”

“Huh?! The Abyss left it to you?” Edlyn’s surprise burst like a struck gong.

“Mhm.” Ugillian widened his eyes and nodded, smiling like a lantern’s warm glow. “I’ve stayed here for centuries. No place to go, nowhere I can go. Why build a gate if I’d only irritate myself?”

“Uh. Oh—oh.”

“Miss Liqianyu, I’ll need you to wait here for now. The Abyss still forbids other races.” Ugillian bowed, the gesture smooth as flowing water.

“Uh—hehe. Please don’t. I can’t bear that.” Liqianyu laughed awkwardly, feeling mortal years flutter like fragile moths before an elder’s bow.

A billion-year old monster bowing at her—her lifespan felt brittle like thin ice.

“Then the part about keeping things from them is in your hands. The Demonic Lord and I won’t be gone long.” Ugillian’s tone settled like dusk.

“Shall we go?” Edlyn tilted her head, a sparrow’s quick glance.

Ugillian smiled again. “No rush~ I said I needed to tidy up.”

“Right. You keep tidying. Anything we can help with?” Edlyn pointed at herself and Liqianyu, offering like an open palm.

Liqianyu bobbed her head, eagerness bright as morning.

Ugillian frowned and thought a moment, silence pooling like ink.

“Mm. That works.”

The old man laughed inside, satisfaction like a hidden ember. Just waited on that sentence.

“Demonic Lord, stand in the center of the stone array.” Ugillian’s tone rang like a chime.

Edlyn nodded and stepped to the array’s heart, footsteps soft as falling leaves.

“Miss Liqianyu, right? Go to the Demonic Lord and pin down her hands.”

“Eh!” x2

Both stared at Ugillian, bafflement hanging like mist.

“It’s fine. I just want to see if you two will crush the array.”

Edlyn: “...”

Liqianyu: “...”

“Do we look that heavy?”

“Alright, just do as I said.” Ugillian waved them on, words drifting like wind.

Edlyn stood there, unwilling as a cat in rain. Liqianyu went over and held Edlyn’s small hands, fingers locking like entwined vines.

“Miss Liqianyu, hold tight. Don’t let go, no matter what.” Ugillian walked to another stone, smiling like a fox in moonlight.

“Um, sir, what exactly do you want us to do?” Liqianyu asked, confusion like a knot.

Ugillian suddenly shouted, voice cracking like thunder. “Demon King, look back!”

Edlyn turned at once, motion swift as a swallow.

A spear screamed toward her brow like an icicle thrust from storm.

Edlyn jolted, shock flooding like cold rain, and reached for her sword.

Ugillian vanished and appeared beside the two women, a flicker like lightning between clouds.

He gripped a rust-eaten iron sword. With a vertical cleave, he severed the hands Liqianyu had pinned—clean as a guillotine.

“Ah!” Both women screamed, sound shattering like glass.

The stone array flared, light blazing like a newborn sun, drowning their sight in white waves.

At the peak of radiance, the brilliance paused, then ebbed away like receding tide.

Liqianyu rubbed her eyes, tears bright as dew, peering around. “I’m not blind?! Ai-chan’s hands—where are they? Wait! Where are Ai-chan and that old man?”

At a valley’s mouth, Edlyn drifted down wrapped in gold light, a falling star gentled by wind.

She checked herself in a rush, breath tight like a drawn bow.

Her hands were whole. Nothing was missing, no blood on her skin.

“What… what is this?” She had felt the pain, sharp as a thorn. What trick was this?

Ugillian appeared next, stroking his goat beard, smiling like a seasoned farmer.

“You—what did you do?” Edlyn’s gaze cut hard, a blade under frost.

“Without the Demon King’s soul stirring emotion, this array is tough to start.” Ugillian laughed, words clinking like pebbles.

“Eh—eh—eh?!”

Dark swelled like deep ocean.

No light existed here, no sound, only the stillness of a sealed tomb.

Eli sat upright within the black, breath steady like a candle in a cave.

He’d been testing a concept, reaching for the stars, when a strange, heavy-gravity star yanked him in like a black whirlpool.

This is all he sensed—emptiness vast as winter sky.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here. Time fell apart like brittle leaves.

In this place, meaning peeled away like old paint.

Elsewhere, Zero lay in deep coma and smiled, a crescent hidden in cloud.

“Finally, the time. These will help you.” Zero pointed at the air, gesture quick as a darting fish.

A spark of energy flew from the white aura Eli kept near him, a firefly streak cutting the dark.

It sank into Eli’s mind like ink into silk.

Eli reeled, shock flashing like lightning. This—!

In a void world, Angela drifted inside darkness. She didn’t know how long, her sense of time dissolving like salt in rain.

Space meant nothing. She floated like a leaf on a black river with no banks.

“This has to be that guy’s illusion. I… I can beat it.” She bit her lip, set her legs, trying to cultivate like a monk under night.

No matter what she did, she felt no energy flow within, no ripple outside—only blank stillness like stone.

She tried to call on godforce, awaken her Divinity, and purge every negative thing—emotion, illusion—like sweeping ashes from a hearth.

No matter how she called, her Divinity gave no answer, empty as a sealed shrine.

She could only sit in the dark, helpless, eyes on the endless black like a ship facing starless sea.

Time numbed her nerves like slow frost. Then, a single cold drop touched her neck, light as dew.

She jolted, fear rising like a startled bird, scanning the void. Still, only the horizonless dark.

Eli sighed, humor flickering like a candle. “Guess I’m lucky. That guy left me this one last trick. Ha.”

He sat again, spine straight as a spear, and tried to open his Judge Mode.

He followed the girl’s strange path, feeling this world like palms reading rain.

The masked man had locked that girl into an artificial dark, a prison black as pitch.

She kept tasting the world, seeking a way out, her senses probing like roots.

Unseen, the masked man stood beside her, collecting her insights like a patient hunter.

Now all of it was handed to Eli, a ledger of shadows laid bare.

Eli smiled, bittersweet like autumn wine. “Sorry. In memory of you, I’ll sing you a song. Hope that masked creep didn’t torture you to death.”

“Study Lei Feng, a good example— loyal to the revolution, loyal to the Party— clear in love and hate— never forget your roots— firm in stance— fierce in will—”

Walking the Abyss with Edlyn, Ugillian suddenly spat blood, red as hawthorn, a splash in the dark.

He rolled his eyes, exasperation like thunderheads. “Damn brat, you’re off-key. Stop singing!”

Eli froze, scanning the dark, gaze sharp as knives. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

Ugillian shook his head and ignored him, silence settling like dust.

Edlyn eyed him, brow creased like folded paper. “You alright?”

Ugillian looked at Edlyn with wounded theatrics, complaint rising like smoke. Your little lover is terrifying, I swear.

Eli waited a long while. No one answered, silence tight as a noose.

He cleared his throat. “If I stop just because you said so, I’ve got no face!”

“Sing if you want, sing it loud—”

“Shut up, damn it!”