“Hey! You up there! You deaf?” A man leaned out his car window, his voice like a horn stabbing the air.

The man in front turned, smiled, and said, “Sorry, drifted off.”

“Unlucky fool. Watch it, or someone’ll flatten you.” The driver spat, the window slid up, and the car flicked away like a gray fish.

“I’ve loitered long enough. Time to head back.” He checked his watch, a small tide of relief washing his smile warm.

He carried a briefcase and wore a suit, city-slick as rain on glass. A black metal eyepatch covered his left eye, etched with rune-like lines. His right iris was blue, but if you looked close, there was no pupil, an empty moon in a clear sky.

“Class is out~ Class is ouuut~”

Two little kids ran by with backpacks bouncing like sparrows across a fence.

He listened to their chatter and let a soft smile bloom, like sunlight slipping through leaves. She should be back about now, too.

It was only a small crossroads, bare as a bone, with no traffic lights for reasons no one could name.

The kids sprinted ahead, their steps tapping the road like pebbles on a pond. A shout rose from bystanders, sharp as a snapped string. A truck barreled toward them, the driver nodding off, head swaying like a tired reed.

Time held its breath. The world froze like frost on glass.

In the next heartbeat, everything flowed again like a river after a break in the ice.

The truck driver sat upright, eyes bright as fresh steel, guiding the truck calmly past the corner.

The kids stood hand in hand on the far curb, walking on with the simple joy of daylight. The passersby blinked and moved on as if fog had never lifted.

The man stood where he was, let out a long breath like steam from a kettle, and smiled. “Still a little awkward to use.”

Purple light traced the runes on his metal patch, firefly lines that winked out fast. Without staring, no one would notice at all.

He whistled down the street, mood light as wind through bamboo.

He reached the Gate and waited for the next train.

“The train to the Inferno has arrived. Please fasten your seat belts after boarding. We will pass through the Gate to reach the Inferno.” The attendant smiled as she spoke, her tone bright as a station bell.

“Sir, please turn off your phone. We don’t want the locals to lock onto your signal.” She stepped closer with a cordial smile, as crisp as a pressed uniform.

He nodded, showed the dark screen, a black pebble in his palm.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” She bowed, her gesture neat as a folded fan.

The ride was smooth as a leaf drifting on a lake, barely a shiver.

With a soft thump like a hand on a door, he knew they’d arrived.

He stepped out and looked up at the Inferno, now crowned with glass towers like spears of light. “Every time,” he breathed, a dry laugh in his throat. “It still feels wrong. Maybe letting them run wild wasn’t so wise.”

Two thousand years had passed since all races besieged the Celestial God, a span like two winters of stone.

After that reckoning, for reasons no one grasped, the old power systems began to crumble like cliffs eaten by the sea.

The truly strong held on like ancient trees. The rest—anyone below the Sacred Rank—bled away their power, drip by drip, until they stabilized around a third-tier trickle.

Across a thousand years, those systems thinned and vanished like mist at noon.

Meanwhile, scattered humans forged something opposite to magic, a fire of their own making. They called it technology.

Then a group named the New Era Sect gathered flocks of brilliant human scholars and reshaped the world like smiths at a roaring forge.

Tech surged like spring flood. Magic, already ebbing, slipped underground like a fox into its den. Hot weapons landed a heavy blow, and the arcane went quiet.

People forgot magic and Battle Aura, shelved as myths under dust. Other races lost their power too, their lives now nearly human in span, their differences mostly in the mirror.

The Seafolk seemed gone, the oceans now only schools and whales, cold shine and salt breath. No more eerie blends of human and seafood flickering in the deep.

Angels were wiped out, their feathers scattered to history, but the Demon Race remained. Most lost their power, yet their bodies stayed strong as seasoned oak, with an average lifespan of one hundred and twenty years. As for beauty, the Elf Race and the Demon Race both kept a reputation that traveled like perfume on wind.

“Sir up ahead, please wait.” A woman in a police uniform with small ram’s horns lifted a hand, her stop-sign firm as a wall. “Please show your entry permit. I’ve been calling, but you didn’t answer.”

“Oh. Sorry, I zoned out.” He gave a rueful smile, scratched his head, and pulled out a card from inside his jacket, offering it to the fiendish-looking officer.

She scanned it, then smiled warmly. “All good. Welcome to the Inferno, Mr. Eli Aestor of the Human Race.”

Yes—this man was indeed our protagonist, Eli.

He returned her smile, took back the card, and moved on, his footsteps soft as rain.

The Demon Race still had a skewed gender ratio, not as bizarre as millennia ago, but about three to seven, a scale tilted like a seesaw.

His eyes hadn’t recovered yet; the time wasn’t ripe. He was still, in truth, blind.

The left eyepatch was a rune device that let him see, a borrowed lantern in the dark. The right eye saw nothing at all, an unlit well.

Eli walked a long corridor, his pace steady as a metronome. At a certain spot, he snapped his fingers, and a security door surfaced like a shadow from a wall.

He drew a slow breath, set his feet, and went to the door.

He pushed it open and smiled. “I’m home~”

Two blurs shot into his arms like twin swallows, slamming him back against the door.

Edlyn looked up with that familiar smile, soft as evening light. “Honey~ Welcome back~”

From the other side, another bright face laughed. “Welcome home, Dad~ Brought gifts for Mom and me?”

That was Alice, the little princess of the Demon Race, bright as a ruby.

On the couch, a girl with one leg crossed tipped her chin at Eli. “Oh. The main body’s back.” Her voice was cool as a silver chime.

Across the room, someone faintly translucent lay prone over a book, never looking up, sunk into pages like a cat into sun.

Yulie and Bruyal were away, but the room still felt full, a hearth with all its chairs warm.

Eli rubbed the two heads in his arms like stroking kittens, a grin tugging his mouth. “You’re heavy. Up you two go. I’ve got news.”

Edlyn and Alice slipped free with reluctant smiles, light as feathers shaken loose.

In the living room, Eli took in four familiar faces, comfort settling over him like a blanket. “Home really is the best.”

“Spill it. What did you find out there?” Edlyn dove back into his arms and nuzzled, warm as a small flame.

He tapped her forehead with a knuckle. “Your horns are poking me.”

The paired horns marked her full maturity now, a crown earned over long seasons.

Alas, the Demonic Lord’s figure still refused to level up, stubborn as a mountain.

Alice, though, had grown into a striking beauty—about one-seventy tall, lines clean and curves sure, her face as precise as moonlight on water. Eli figured she had plenty of admirers in the shadows, as inevitable as moths to a candle.

“Hey!” Edlyn puffed her cheeks, eyes narrowing like a fox’s. “I can tell you’re thinking something very rude!”

Silence finally returned, like ripples fading on a pond, and everyone settled to hear Eli’s report.

“On this trip, I confirmed something,” Eli said, setting the jokes aside like closing a fan. “Global energy just dropped another notch.”

“Again.” Edlyn frowned, her nose twitching like a wary hare. “What about other races on other planets?”

“Outside our world, there aren’t any races left,” Eli said, brow knit tight as a drawn bow.

“Didn’t we still have traces? It’s only been two hundred years. And now… nothing?” Edlyn’s surprise flashed like a struck match.

“It means Zero’s wounds are mending. The pace of devouring life is speeding up. If the rest of the universe is cleaned out, the barrier we laid won’t hide us much longer.” Eli sighed, the sound low as distant thunder.

“Modern weapons are pretty advanced. Can’t they take down Zero?” Alice asked, her brows pinched like two dark wings.

“No. Nukes don’t match what your old man threw back then. Zero would shrug it off and keep walking.” Eli gave her forehead a light knock, a father’s rebuke like a tap of a fan.

Over millennia, magic and Battle Aura, demonic miasma and sacred light—all of it dwindled, not because the Celestial God was gone, but because of Zero.

To heal, Zero refined the very laws of the cosmos, feeding that furnace with everything, a black sun burning the sky.

That skewed the balance. Magic drained like a leaking cistern, while technology leaped forward like lightning arcing through dry air.

Society changed with it, waves reshaping shorelines. Eli’s group tried to blunt those waves, to keep Zero from noticing the wake they left.

“On our Old Continent, magic’s faded to a terrifying low,” Eli went on. “Outside of oddities like us, what remains is good for little more than hardening the body.”

“It’s serious,” Edlyn said, her tone cool as steel. “And to be honest, lately I feel… out of step. Not weaker—just unable to pull on the power around me. Like I stepped into a new world.”

“Me, too,” Yiyi said, her voice floating like gauze.

“Then we move fast,” Eli nodded, resolve firming like ice. “It’s time to bring the higher-ups out.”