“Another weapon again.” Eli’s sigh drifted like wind across an empty ridge, his gaze fogged with bewilderment.

“I don’t know what to chase anymore. Really.” He glanced at Liqianyu beside him, lost like a sailor in mist. “When I chase what I can’t have, I ignore the lanterns close to me.”

“But this one’s right at your fingertips.” Zero shrugged, casual as a leaf in a breeze. “Just nod or shake your head.”

He flicked his right hand behind him. A massive red stone gate bloomed like a cliff of cinnabar, cleaving space before the three.

Zero pointed at the gate, his voice steady as a river under ice. “Eli. Beyond this is the heart of the cosmos, the spring where all power rises. Fuse the Origin Tree’s lifeblood with that man at the center, add the right methods, tell it the shape of your power or the weapon you favor. The Origin Tree will merge with you and become part of you.”

“From then on, you’ll count as this universe’s primordial god.” Zero smiled, a crescent with hidden points. “You’ll have endless years, and a high-grade Divinity to shield your soul.”

“...”

“Looks like you’ve decided?” Zero chuckled softly, like bells under a veil. “Think it through. This concerns millennia, the weight of autumns and springs.”

“Do I even have another choice?” Eli’s voice carried grit, like a blade scraping stone. “You know I did all this for power to break the future. If you say it’s strong, and the Origin Tree already handed it to me, then I have to seize this chance. I’m still too weak.”

Zero looked him up and down, the way a hawk measures the field. “After centuries with me, did you learn anything?”

Eli blinked and stared, puzzled as at a riddle on wet sand.

Zero toyed with something in his right hand, slow as rubbing a smooth pebble. “The astral is a god’s body, you know.”

“Honestly, no.” Eli grimaced, a crack in calm stone. “I only feel the energy in me growing terrifying, and my flesh less human. I haven’t sensed anything else.”

“After this long, not learning how an Astral Body survives is a shame.” Zero sighed, like dusk settling on frost.

“To be frank, apart from what I’m crafting now, of Astral Bodies with minds, we might be the only two in the universe.” Zero shrugged, a dusting of snow off a sleeve.

Eli rolled his eyes like a tossed coin. “Please. Besides the three of us, what life is there in this empty universe?”

“You can’t say it like that.” Zero’s smile held meanings like stars behind clouds. “You’ve heard it—look past the surface to see the truth.”

“For you, a guest from the future, I can’t say too much.” He tilted his head like a curious raven. “So—train, or not?”

Eli studied Zero’s face. No jest, no ripple; solemn as a shrine gate before dawn, as if weighing the hinge of future ages.

“What’s there to say? Of course I’ll train.” Eli smiled, flint catching a spark.

He had no room for second thoughts. To change everything, he had to grow, even if it cost blood and seasons.

For a breath, a shade of disappointment skimmed Zero’s features like a cloud’s thin edge—gone too fast to be sure.

Zero chuckled. “Then go. Survive that trial of despair, and you’ll become a high god, above the tides of life. But—well—that depends on your fate.”

Eli nodded. “Little Li, wait here for me. When I’m out, we’ll find Edlyn, then we go home and get revenge.”

Liqianyu scoffed, a spark flicking off steel. “Go on then. I want to see what weapon you can forge.”

“Mm.” Eli shut his eyes, drew a deep breath like drawing in a winter lake, and stepped into that space, slow and steady as a pilgrim.

Zero’s face shifted like sun and shadow across a mountain.

Liqianyu saw it, too.

After Eli went in, unease gnawed at her like ants under bark.

A while passed. Liqianyu frowned. “Hey, you—Zero.”

“Uh? What is it?” Zero turned, his glance quick as a dart.

“What are you worried about?”

“Emmm… it’s fine.” He thought, then gave a bitter smile and shook his head, like a reed in a bad wind.

“Tch. Just say it.” Liqianyu’s voice snapped like a twig.

“Okay. Don’t laugh at me?” Zero looked at her with the eyes of a stray dog after rain.

Liqianyu rolled her eyes, waves slapping a shore.

What on earth is in this guy’s head?

“Of course not. Who am I to laugh at you? Just talk.”

Zero weighed her for a moment, cautious as stepping on frost. “All right, I’ll say it.”

“Hurry up,” Liqianyu urged, impatience tapping like rain.

“I thought the kid’s Astral Body was perfect. So I figured he could endure the baking of the cosmic blaze. But…” Zero scratched at the air, awkward as a cat with wet paws. “I just realized the solid astral energy in him is from you.”

“I misread it. The aura was coming off you.”

“Are you a pig?! How could you get that wrong?!” Liqianyu exploded, a firecracker in a quiet street.

“Hey… I didn’t expect another physique besides an Astral Body could absorb astral energy. So I took it for granted.” Zero’s smile was thin as paper.

“Then—then what do we do? Will he be okay?” Liqianyu’s nerves tightened like bowstrings.

“Emmmm… probably… once his astral energy runs out, he’ll be fine.”

“Fine?”

“Emmmm, as in—he’ll become a smear of ash in the cosmos. Gone.”

“Damn it! Isn’t there a way to save him, you—” Liqianyu lunged, teeth grit like grinding grit, and fisted his collar without caring who he was.

“Well… you could go in and feed him astral energy.” Zero’s voice ducked, a shadow under an eave. “That’s the only way.”

“Fine! I’ll—wait. I have that energy you mentioned, right? I won’t get burned away?” Liqianyu’s words jumped like sparks.

“Emmm, no, you won’t.” Zero tilted his head. “I don’t get why your energy’s richer than his, but you should be okay.”

A gust hit his face like hard wind. The blue silhouette vanished.

She had already dashed past the gate.

“Impatient to the bone,” Zero murmured, a smile folding away like a fan.

His face shed all feeling. Cold as carved ice, he looked at the crimson gate.

“I hope the girl forgives me. Only then will the universe stop rejecting her to death.” He turned. A vision unfurled—Eli in a sea of eerie blue flames, tides rising like ghostly banners, with blue energy cocooning his body.

Zero watched, voice low, like a bell rolling under snow. “Beginnings and endings. The cause is you. Your future’s already scrambled; past the first steps, it’s all different from what I knew.”

He looked back. Three vast spheres of energy hovered behind him like moons.

“These three will replace me, help the universe keep growing.” A corner of his mouth lifted, willow-soft.

“Let’s call it the Netherworld. Consider it one more step toward your godhood,” Zero said, a smile thin as smoke.

“Eli Aestor… no, they’ll say I’m plagiarizing.” He tilted his head, amused wind in his eyes.

“You three, you’ll be Ghoulia, Edward, and Yulia. As for surnames, earn them once you’ve carved your roads.”

He stretched out his hand. The spheres shrank to ant-size, then he placed them into the newborn planet he’d just molded, like seeds pressed into dark soil.

“If he comes out alive, many things may change.”

...

“Eli, where are you?!” Liqianyu could only barely hold the inferno at bay, her astral energy a dwindling spring against a drought of flame.

It wasn’t like Zero said. Not at all.

Worse, she felt it—what she’d absorbed kept burning away, while nothing around would refill her. The well was running dry under a merciless sun.

When the energy ran out, the fire would swallow her whole.

She bit down and tried to turn back, but the gate had already vanished like a dream at daybreak. Alone, she couldn’t escape the gravity well gripping this place like iron roots.

She held on, shaking, sweat raining off her like summer storm.

“Damn! He definitely lied to me.” Liqianyu ground her teeth, defiant as a pine on a cliff.

Then arms wrapped her, pulling her into a chest solid as a mountain.

She looked up. His face filled her world like sunrise.

“Why did you barge in to die?” Eli barked, his voice a slap of cold water.

“I…” Liqianyu looked at him, wounded, like a deer caught in briars.

Eli sighed, the sound a tired tide. He said nothing more, only braced against the encroaching fires, careful as a monk handling incense.

“Damn, this place really wants you dead. This heat… it could vaporize a person in a blink.” He clenched his jaw, fending off the blue flames gnawing at them like wolves.

“He told me you’d be done for. That’s why I came.” Liqianyu pouted, grievance like rain on stone.

“Huh?” Eli blinked, turning to her.

She bit her lip and spilled what Zero had said, words tumbling like pebbles down a slope.

“Tch. You’re being dumb.” Eli’s tone was a mix of pity and steel. “He doesn’t know your physique. He just knows you have astral energy. He wouldn’t know you stole it, and it runs dry. Coming in here is the real way to die.”

“Eh? So you don’t run out?” Liqianyu blinked, eyes like clear pools.

“No.” Eli stood silent for a beat, then tested his power, feeling it breathe, steady as a spring. “An Astral Body generates astral energy on its own. Zero would know that.”

He frowned, lines sharp as reeds in frost. “So he did it on purpose. But… why?”

He looked at Liqianyu’s innocent face, and a shadow of thought rippled through him like wind over tall grass.