“The cosmos is so vast—boundless, fathomless—like an ocean without shores. Here, if I turn my wrist, it feels like I could hold the entire starfield in my palm,” the cloaked man said with a smile, his voice drifting like starlight across dark water.

“Sure. Too bad that’s just your daydream,” the long-haired man replied, shoulders lifting in an easy shrug, as breezy as wind skimming high clouds. “So far, you haven’t done a thing that helps the world.”

The cloaked man chuckled and glanced at his watch. His hands had no blood in them—chalk-pale, waxen—dead man’s fingers, with a thin, eerie chill breathing off the skin.

“Almost time. Do we keep waiting?” He looked back at the woman behind him, her eyes shut, and smiled like moonlight teasing the edge of a lake.

Her eyes opened. They were twin black holes, deep and terrifying, swallowing light like winter wells swallowing sound.

“Not yet,” she said, voice flat as frost on stone, not caring how strained the others looked. She closed her eyes again, like a shutter falling over midnight.

“At the dawn of creation, do you think anyone after us will remember we existed?” the cloaked man asked, a toothpick at his lips, smug as a cat sunning on a roof.

“Three, don’t get cocky. Whether there’ll even be a later age is still a question,” the long-haired man cut in, his tone a cool stream. “What we’re up against reaches far beyond what we imagined.”

“Eh. One’s working on it. When it’s One, there’s always a way,” Three drawled, devil-may-care, slouching like a reed refusing the wind.

“One has far too much to think about. Three, lend a hand, will you? Your wit’s no less than One’s,” a pleasant voice rang out from behind Three, bells in mist.

Three turned. A face of world-toppling beauty filled his sight, sunrise over jade peaks. Only one thing ruined the scene: an Adam’s apple at that slender throat.

A shiver hit Three like cold rain. Goosebumps rose and ran. “Little Nine, don’t tease me. I’m nothing special. This personality’s not changing in this lifetime.”

“Heh.” Nine smiled, a thin crescent, and let the silence ripple.

One spoke then. Her voice was ice without shade, a blade without echo. “It’s time.”

Space rippled—fine, like a silk curtain touched by wind—and nine figures stepped into the universe. They had no names, only numbers: from One at the start to Nine at the end.

Five men and four women, gathered. Pale-gold light spilled from them like dawn from a horizon, drifting outward, bathing the cosmos in a soft, sunlit wash.

In a far corner, a blue flash flared—whoosh—and streaked away opposite the nine, a comet fleeing the net.

Three smiled, fox-bright. “Oh? Running now? We camped ages to catch this cosmic stasis point. We paid dearly to find you. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Less talk. More work,” One’s soundless-cold voice cut into Three’s ear like a winter gust through reeds.

Three pouted and kept quiet, but his blow landed heavier, like a hammer swung through fog.

The fugitive light began to keen—low, aching—like a wounded bird under storm, the sound a plea wrapped in tremor.

One’s pupils held nothing—no sea, no flame. She spread her hands. Boundless darkness roared out like a tide at night, and smothered the gold before her.

“It’s over.” Her voice drifted across the void like frost descending from high eaves.

The light fused with One’s power, and layer on layer of wards laced the firmament, spider-silk woven into steel across the sky-veil.

At the same time, behind that weave, the Gate to other universes was torn by a force beyond terror. A crack opened—fine as a hairline in ice—yet enough to show the claw’s monstrous strength.

One’s pretty face stayed winter-cold, no change in snow or shadow. Two’s color sank; his body trembled, as if holding a thunderhead inside his ribs. Three stayed rakish and even flipped off the thing that tore the Gate, gesture sharp as a black wing. Four’s cheeks reddened, but she knew this was the hour to stand together; she would not drag her brothers and sisters down. Five wore a wooden mask, as if the storm didn’t touch him. He raised both hands and poured power out like a river, keeping the ward steady. Six gritted her teeth; strength flagging, she still sent energy along every thread, forging matching patterns to support her kin. Seven kept his eyes closed. Blood slipped from his nostrils like a thin scarlet thread, and the boy’s face was stubborn stone—he refused to fall. Eight healed and shouldered Seven’s wounds, drawing pain into herself; her body trembled, willow in gale, hurt and holding. Nine stood with eyes half-lidded and chanted; each word he spoke set the ward harder, like iron quenched in snow-water.

The one who cracked the Gate peered through endless void with a scarlet slit pupil, measuring the nine siblings up and down. He sighed, and a greater pressure rolled in with a voice, storm carrying thunder into this universe.

The tongue was alien, but the meaning struck clear, like drumbeats across a plain.

“It isn’t over. You blocked me once—can you block me twice? Thrice? My years are without end; yours have a limit. I’ll wear you down and see how much you can bear. You’re only my experimental stock, and you dare defy Me.”

The eye left the crack. Eight seized the moment, stitching the Gate shut like a seam pulled tight in moonlight. Together they drove that alien force out, wind sweeping dust from a temple floor.

One and Three went pale and collapsed, two lilies felled by sudden frost.

“Are you spinning a tale to amuse me?” Edlyn asked, doubt pricking her like small thorns, eyes on Eli’s face. He looked so sure, yet she couldn’t believe it.

It felt too absurd. Maybe he’d seen her unhappy and brought a story to soothe her—another gentle lie wrapped in warm hands.

“How would I be? I’m not that bored,” Eli said with a helpless smile, as if fending off mid-summer gnats. “I know the kind of stories you like.”

“So you’re saying this really happened?” Edlyn pursed her lips, still full of scorn, a chill breeze brushing a pond.

“Not entirely. Who knows? The energy here told me that’s how it was,” Eli said, pointing at the earth under their feet, soil breathing up old secrets like smoke from moss.

“That’s not what we found. We saw that Zero was the only one in this world, left for some reason, then came the Abyss, the Celestial God, and the Netherworld, then this and that.” Edlyn’s voice fell like pebbles into water, rings spreading in conflict.

“Isn’t your story completely different?” she said, exasperated.

“Truth’s messy. Maybe both are right, just in a different order,” Eli replied, easy as sunlight through leaves.

“Uh…”

“Maybe this happened before or after the war of the Three Gods of the Abyss,” Eli went on with a faint grin, a man unbothered by distant thunder. “We haven’t lived through that. Who knows what it’ll look like?”

You can’t read a whole mountain from a few carvings; murals don’t swallow the entire past.

“Besides, look: Zero forged the Abyss. Yet in the tale I just recited, they’re One through Nine, lined up by number. That doesn’t feel like coincidence. We’re in prehistory, witnessing a lost chapter. That’s luck enough.”

Edlyn nodded, a little wistful, like dusk on a quiet shore. “But… Eli. Do you think something exists that can punch through a universe?”

“Who knows? I don’t know much about this world,” Eli said, laughing softly, like a man warming his hands over thin fire. “I’m ordinary at heart, just brushed by a Celestial God. I still don’t get how your world is put together. Now something of that scale shows up again… it’s a lot.”

Tiredness washed over Edlyn, like rain soaking old cloth. “Feels like we’re children. Powerless.”

“Tell me about it.” Eli sighed, seeing the shadow on her face. He smiled, reached out, and rubbed her hair, gentle as a palm smoothing a frightened bird. “Don’t worry. Maybe the records are wrong. Maybe that thing couldn’t rip a universe. Maybe it happened somewhere else.”

“Oh…” Edlyn’s interest stayed low; she tilted her head, a crane listening to distant reeds. “Eli, you said you got this from the energy. If it never happened, then…”

“Then these traces wouldn’t be here.” Eli sucked in a sharp breath, like cold water hitting the chest. He’d searched and searched, and forgot to think.

“So the story we read here predates Zero’s age by far,” Edlyn said, stunned, like snow catching sudden sunlight.

“And you said only recently this universe birthed natural life, not the crafted life on our island. That means…”

“…Don’t overthink it. Let’s decide what to eat tonight,” Eli said with a rueful shake, like a man brushing off dust and dusk.