Eli set his hand on Aster’s shoulder like a stone slab, his voice cold as winter iron. “You. Have to leave. Now. Hear me—don’t you ever come back.”

“Huh? What are you even saying?” Aster blinked, baffled, then shook his head with a loose smile, like grass swaying in a breeze. “Well, I get the gist. Relax, my lord. Once the civilians are lined up to retreat, I’ll—”

“Do you not get it?” Eli’s temper snapped like a bowstring. “Right now. Immediately. Leave. Do you hear me?”

Liqianyu tugged at his sleeve, worry pooling in her eyes like rainwater in a basin.

Aster’s smile thinned, like a lantern guttering in wind. He gave Eli the highest salute of a knight, crisp as a drawn blade. Then he flashed a sunny grin, bright as noon. “My lord, I’m grateful you worry for me. But Draco’s people aren’t safe yet. As the guardian knight here, how could I walk away?”

“I’m just not cut out to be a deserter,” Aster shrugged, wearing a clean, boyish smile like fresh snow.

“Your son’s still little, isn’t he? You can leave him like this?” Eli couldn’t help it; the words came out like pebbles skipping across water.

“Uh… it’s not that bad.” Aster patted his chest, a drumbeat against steel. “Besides, I’m not necessarily going to lose. Once the Empire’s reinforcements arrive, I’ll pull out.”

“I’m a Grand Knight of the Sacred Rank. Guarding home and realm is my only mission.” He rubbed his head, eyes flicking to the kids behind him like sparrows under eaves. “There are children back there younger than my son. I can’t be that selfish.”

Eli sighed, the sound a thread of smoke. “I don’t even know what to say to you. Doesn’t leaving your wife and child feel wrong?”

Aster scratched his head, awkward as a farmer caught in rain. He turned and kept directing the tattered soldiers, his voice steady as a bell.

Only after a long moment did he look back at Eli. “I… of course it feels wrong. I miss my wife. I miss my kid. But I have a duty. I must be worthy of my emblem and my honor.” His gaze dipped, haunted like a moon behind clouds. “As for my wife… sigh.”

“Forget it. I can’t control that much anyway,” Eli let out another breath, thin as mist.

“Right. You really can’t.” A voice rose like a tide. Abyss stood beside Eli, shrouded in black haze like night fog, arms folded, a smile sharp as a crescent blade.

Eli glanced at him, startled, then deadpanned, “You off digging coal in Africa?”

“Screw you.”

Eli’s face flattened like a slate.

“Eli, you need to know,” Abyss said, his look weighty as a stormfront. “I sent you back only to learn the truth, to fuse your soul with the will of the cosmos, to become a true star-born lifeform. Not to change the future.”

“I staked everything on you,” he added, shrugging with a wolfish smile. “If you can’t do it, then when the Only appears, that’s our extinction.”

“Easy for you,” Eli rolled his eyes, the gesture dry as sand. “Set the pieces, then drop dead. No worries left.”

“Who told you I died?” Abyss blinked, sly as a fox under snow.

“…figures—you’re an old fox for real.” Eli laughed and shook his head, like ice cracking on a river.

“Preparation is water before fire,” Abyss said lightly. “Who knows what storm comes next? Besides, I still have unfinished business. I won’t die that easily. She’ll atone, and I’ll stand by her. With me there, she won’t be lonely.” His gaze angled skyward, distant as starlight.

“Fine… shelve that for later.” Eli’s tone frayed like an old silk ribbon. “Can you let the timeline move again? Do you know what kind of torture it is to have my old man frozen in front of me with that face?”

“Oh… sure.” Abyss nodded, brisk as a drop falling. “I can’t stay long anyway, or suppression will erase me. From here on, you’ll be part of this whole history, from start to end. Remember—don’t overstep. Or I can’t protect you.”

“OK, OK, go do your thing.” Eli shrugged, loose as a cloak in wind.

Time clicked back into motion like gears catching.

Eli turned and gave Liqianyu a small smile, warm as a hearth. “It’s fine. I’ve thought it through.”

She nodded, a quiet petal falling, and stepped aside.

After a few polite words with Aster, they left like shadows sliding off stone.

Aster didn’t try to stop them; he simply smiled and saw them off, a gate opening and closing with calm hands.

Eli and Liqianyu stood high, hoods up like midnight hoods, watching the busy knight order below, and sighed like wind across pines.

Much is already set, carved like seals in jade.

Earlier, he had appeared and used power far above the era’s average, a beacon flaring like a torch in night.

That glow drew the Demon Race like moths to flame; a grand army now marched for this place, iron hooves as relentless as thunder.

Inside it rode his old friend, Pandora, a thorned rose in a brass gauntlet.

This knightly force, capped at the Sacred Rank, would be crushed like pottery under their cavalry.

Aster’s fate was bound, tight as a knot in rope.

Because he died for the realm, the Holy Court Church draped him in honors, accolades pouring like rain on bronze.

His son, Birand, still a child, was pulled into the Church’s upper halls, a door closing like a whisper.

Eli knew he’d been dragged from that world, fused with the child’s soul, reshaped into a new life, a flame woven from two wicks.

That was the birth of the Hero Birand, a name rung like a bell.

Eli sighed and rose into the sky, a lone star lifting above clouds.

Now he had to watch what happened when he crossed over—down to each heartbeat and shadow.

He needed proof for what Edlyn and he had guessed, a thread pulled taut like a bowstring.

Edlyn wiped blood from her cheek, crimson bright as maple leaves, and leaned against a towering tree like a pillar of the world. She stared at her unseasoned grilled fish, char and silver skin like a cinder-struck river.

It looked bad and tasted worse—outside the borders of edible, a failed spell burnt black.

An ordinary person would gag three times and swoon like a wilted lotus.

Cough, cough, cough—she tried and failed not to laugh at herself.

She chewed her own cooking, alive yet wishing for the earth to swallow her, eyes drifting to the sky like a lost kite.

In the time tunnel, a storm tore her and Eli apart, time itself howling like a pack of wolves.

She fell into this primal forest, trees stacked like green mountains.

No one was around; she couldn’t even tell the era, the calendar stripped like bark.

“Eli… where are you? I’m starving.” Edlyn’s face crumpled like damp paper. Her clothes hung in tatters, skirt sliced by thorns, fabric clinging in ruined patches.

Her pure-white stockings were ripped, a snowfield scored by dark lines.

Her little succubus tail flicked through the skirt hem, a nervous pendulum in empty air. Goat horns stood amid white, tangled hair like obsidian crescents.

She looked like a ship after a volley, hull cracked, flags torn, still afloat on stubborn will.

And Edlyn found a terrible truth, heavy as a moon: here, in this slice of time, there was no existing energy at all.

No demonic qi. No holy qi. No mana, no Battle Aura—only air clear as mountain glass, laced with the subtle breath of life.

“Where even is this?” she moaned, eyelids drooping like half-shut fans.

It meant that once her inner demonic qi ran dry, she’d differ little from a true little girl, fragile as porcelain.

(Her body might still be somewhat stronger—iron wrapped in velvet.)

Heat flared inside her, sudden as a spark in oil. She swallowed, dread unfurling like black ink in water.

“Succubus… need? No way… I can’t hold it?” Panic pricked her like nettles.

She curled her legs in, small and lost, eyes sweeping the trees like a hare watching hawks.

The succubus tide she’d long suppressed gnawed at the Demon King’s qi within her, two rivers clashing under moonlight.

Her face scrunched, soft and miserable. “I’ll never underestimate succubi again. Ugh, I’m sorry…”

As if summoned, beast growls rippled from the brush, low thunder in green shadow.

Her scalp tingled like an ice rim. She stumbled back a few steps, leaves whispering around her ankles.

These damned beasts—did she have to spend energy swatting gnats in the rain?

“Begone! You low creatures!” Edlyn’s shout cracked like lightning.

The forest answered with cries and broke, beasts scattering like startled birds.

Edlyn sagged to the ground, weak as a candle after wind.

Heat pooled in the little girl’s body, a fever blooming like a red peony. A subtle dampness told its own story, a line we won’t cross on the page.

(If we go further, trouble blooms like thistles.)

Once he pieced together the truth of his arrival, Eli sat stunned for a long time, mind a struck gong ringing.

Abyss and Liqianyu sat beside him in silence, company like shadows under lantern light.

Abyss wore a smile sharp as a hidden blade; he wanted to see what this man would do.

“Honestly,” Eli muttered, head bowed like a cloud. “I don’t get you ancients. Are your skulls stuffed with dung? Why did Teacher pull this nonsense? Too full to sit still?”

“This is killing me. Fuck.”

Abyss kept his faint smile, cool as night dew. “That’s about all you need to know for this timeframe.”

“You didn’t show up just to mess with me, did you?” Eli rubbed his temple, ache pulsing like drumbeats.

Abyss chuckled and looked far off, mischief glinting like foxfire. “I’ll ask you about other matters later. Now, you need to go somewhere—no, you must.”

“Where?”

“Ah, ah. Heaven doesn’t leak its secrets.”

“Did your brain soak in water? Want me to find you a doctor?”

“You’ll thank me.” Abyss sighed like an old willow. “This father worries himself to bone. You two are progressing too slow.”