Whoosh.

The man brushed the extra snow off the igloo, white powder sliding like sifted flour. Then he crouched by the fire, fussing with their meal like a patient fox.

Nothing lived here but snow and the two igloos he’d built, white mounds under a pewter sky. The world held its breath like a frozen lake.

“Hoo—your cooking’s still that good. Teach me, yeah?” The white‑haired girl sat in the snow, hugging her knees like a bundled fawn, eyes shining like frost stars at the man tending the fire.

He looked thirty‑something, long hair hanging like a dark stream, beard shadow rough as bark, years carved in like wind on stone.

He set down the stick, scooped a lump of snow to smother the fire like a blanket, then turned to look at her, eyes calm as night.

He smiled, rubbed her head like smoothing a cat’s fur, and sighed with helpless warmth. “I teach you, but will you stick with it? You burn hot, then out.”

“Really. I really want to learn—teach me, pleeease—Dad.” She bit her lip, tugging his sleeve like a kitten batting yarn.

He sighed, then flicked her forehead, a crisp snap like a pebble on ice.

“Mm.” She rubbed her brow, cheeks puffed like a sulky squirrel. “That hurt!”

He only smiled, no words, and walked into the igloo, the doorway swallowing him like a white mouth. “It’s late. Eat up, then sleep.”

“Okay—” Her voice rang like a silver bell in the cold.

He shut the door and let himself fall onto the bed, limbs heavy as wet wool, eyes blank on the ceiling like a clouded sky.

The war between the Elf Race and the Beastkin was ebbing like a spent tide. In this timeline, Yiyi wore Eli’s face, drove back Beastkin raids again and again like breaking waves.

Then, for reasons unknown, the Beastkin halted like a spear held mid‑thrust. The restless races were penned in Elven lands, stuck like arrows in bark.

Advance or retreat, both felt wrong, like walking a blade’s edge. The Demon Race fell wholly silent, a cave with no echo.

The reason lay in Edlyn’s strange slumber, a sealed sphere that never opened, a cocoon with no crack of dawn.

Fallen Angels who planned to hedge their bets were forced into a corner, wings folded like knifed sails.

With war paused, the Elf Race turned spare strength inward, their net tight as winter reeds over a pond.

So the Fallen Angels kept burrowed like moles, not daring to show a feather. Reni and Era were locked deep underground, roots bound in Elven soil.

This was already the second year after Edlyn sank into sleep, a winter that never blinked.

Eli, guided by the Abyss like a whisper in a cavern, took Anna out of the Abyssal region, hunting the Demon Race’s remnant embers like fireflies in fog.

The Abyss told him this: you cut off Edlyn’s Fiend awakening, and it skewed her path to her source, scattering her power into eight vassal clans like seeds on the wind.

Now Edlyn holds the power like a lantern, but her mind wanders outside like a ghost in the night.

So he brought homeless Anna to the land of Everwinter, far north of the Miter Empire, a map’s edge dusted with ash‑cold snow.

They sought the lair of the snow sprites, pale whispers in the white, where storms braid their hair like river reeds.

The Abyss freed Anna from the divine sphere that had caged her, a glass moon cracked by a dark tide.

Bring her, the Abyss said, so I can sleep; otherwise, time’s corrections will ripple near me like grinding plates, and I won’t find rest.

“Two years already?” Eli lay on the bed, dazed, the thought floating like breath in cold air.

In two years, the outer slopes of the great snow mountain bore his marks like quiet runes. Find a yeti’s trail, and he’d know at once, like a string tugged.

He leaned on the bed, at a loss, a boat with no star. It was his first time this long away from Edlyn, a tether stretched thin as frost.

On the road, he cared for Anna with a steady hand like a hearth’s glow, and let the rest blur past like drifting snow.

His body was woven from Stellar Power, so unless a divinity‑level foe struck with full force, most blows were only scratches, a moth on armor.

Wear and tear didn’t stick to him; nature’s taxes slid off like sleet on stone. So he went day and night, eating little, sleeping less, a wolf on a scent.

Without Anna as a second pillar, he might’ve looked like a beggar by now, a lantern with no oil.

The door opened with a soft scrape, a seam of warm light. Anna stood there blushing, clutching a blanket like a shield. “Dad. I’m cold...”

Eli frowned, confusion creasing like ripples. “How? Is it the stove? I’ll add some wood.”

His body ran on Stellar Power, and it didn’t play like normal flame. A slip turned sparks into pops, small blasts that left him sooty and cross.

So he used older ways, flint that kissed tinder like two stones ringing. If that failed, little Anna would mutter a spell and wink a flame.

“It’s not the firewood.” Anna bit her lip, then crawled onto his bed like a small fox and curled beside him. “I’m sleeping. Night~”

He sighed, helpless and fond, and patted her head like smoothing silk. He leaned back and let thoughts drift like smoke.

He moved a finger, and the lamp’s glow pinched out like a snuffed star. He lowered his head and placed a kiss on her brow, light as snow.

Anna rubbed the spot, face scrunched like a kitten. “Dad. Your stubble hurts.”

Eli chuckled, no defense, and tapped her head. “How old are you now, still sharing a bed with Dad?”

“I’m only fourteen,” Anna muttered, voice small as a mouse in straw.

Eli smiled. “Your mom was running wild with me at fourteen, boots beating dust like drums.”

“Tch.” Anna turned away, lips tilted like a sliver moon.

He tucked the blanket around her like a nest, then sank into meditation, mind quiet as deep water.

...

Unlike the snowbound hush around Eli, this place burned with flame and killing intent, heat rippling like a mirage.

Between six statues, a man who looked exactly like Eli stood at the center, eyes shut, his terrifying aura spreading like wildfire.

Space trembled around him, a pond quivering under thrown stones, as his power climbed like a storm’s spine.

Crack. The sound was glass snapping under a heel, sharp and clean.

The scene around him shattered like a mirror, then vanished, a curtain torn down. He opened his eyes, coals packed with anger and revenge.

He drew a deep breath, and space knit itself like healing skin. He blew it out, and the world around him splintered again like thin ice.

He frowned. “Why’s the space here so weak?”

Behind him, a voice both male and female slid out like smoke. “The Abyss has begun a true sleep. Also, the Fiend who kept this zone is gone.”

“Don’t look elsewhere—it’s that old monster who sealed you for three years,” the voice added, silk over a knife.

“Oh?”

“So this zone is collapsing,” the voice tittered, mirth like pins. “If you came out later, you’d die with it, trapped in a broken dimension.”

He frowned deeper. “Don’t talk like that. It grates on the ear like sand.”

“Oh? Without me, you’d be dead,” the voice hissed, laughter like a cracked bell. “And now you hate the sound of me?”

He raised his left hand and clenched the air behind him, fingers closing like an iron trap.

Space burst open like a clay pot, and he hauled out a purple, strange creature hidden in the seam, then crushed it to pulp like rotten fruit.

“Work with me, and show respect,” he said, eyes narrowed like drawn blades.

“Hehehe. Fine. I’ll be waiting~” The voice fell from above his head like a drip from a stalactite.

He ignored it, and when the zone grew quiet again, still as a held breath, he reached and seized the space of the Gate of Inferno.

He dragged himself out like a man hauling up from a well. Outside lay the deep sea, black and heavy as ink.

Sea beasts nearby saw him and closed in like a tightening reef. “Birand! You’re not dead!”

The man was Birand, remade and complete, his smile cold as iron in winter. “Submit to me. Rebel, and there’s only death.”

“Big talk!” A giant octopus surged up, its bulk looming like a drowned hill, tentacles thick as pillars whipping down.

Birand didn’t spare it a glance. Behind him bloomed thousands of chains, each thicker than those arms, steel serpents lashing forward.

The octopus’s tentacles exploded on touch, meat popping like overripe pods. Chains wrapped its body, and it deflated like a punctured bladder.

“In that case, you’ll be the first blood pool of my revenge!” Birand laughed, wild as a gale over cliffs.

Uncountable chains flew out from behind him like a storm of iron grass, sweeping the beasts in a ruthless harvest.

“Myriad Spirit Lock!”

...

In the Abyss, Angelo’s face was ashen, a pale mask under a black sea. She too was a Fiend now, a flame lit in dark water.

At this moment she felt the root of her power like a spring far underground, distant but pure. The Abyss had severed its link with them, clean as a cut.

From now on, they could only rely on themselves, lone boats in heavy fog. Perhaps, even at the last, the Abyss wouldn’t wake, a god that wouldn’t stir.

Angelo sighed, breath a thin ribbon, then looked toward Edlyn’s direction like a compass pointing north. She grit her teeth and whispered, “Your Majesty, you’re our new hope.”

“You must wake, or the Demon Race will be ground under the wheels of history in the next clash, dust in the ruts of time.”