Atop the clocktower, Ouyang only wanted to call up a powerful underling—throw a pebble and ignore the ripples spreading through the lake of fate.

He felt the Hericot Crystal thrum, like thunder trapped in glass, and he breathed out a satisfied moan. This force… this is the strength I’ve missed. It’s a thin ember beside my prime, but I can’t wait to clutch that fire again.

His mood skewed and cracked, like a mirror webbed with frost.

Heh-heh-heh… Sealed for so long… I missed the hour when that door opened. The whole world… can be buried with it.

He shook his head, as if a bell inside rang off-key. No… this… this is—

No…

Snarls returned and carved his face. He stood like a crowned tyrant, staring down at Terracafe as if over a chessboard of bones.

I missed it. I missed it! To open that door again… Without the God Emperor, without a Dominator, without a Princess… without those people, how do I pry it open a second time?

Fine, then let the world and the whole star sea pay the toll. Let blood fall like rain for my companions’ farewell. Let the flash of countless stars be a shroud for this sky.

Hahaha… Once, His Excellency the God Emperor forged a Twilight of the Gods, and the world sang to the drum of fallen divinities. His Excellency the Emperor Sovereign dimmed the constellations; gods and fiends withered like frostbitten leaves. I, Ouyang, will use the blood of this firmament to send you off—farewells owed across endless ages.

Ugh… He clutched his brow, teeth grinding, as if wrestling a serpent in his skull.

Ori—

Why… why are you here? The God Emperor said it—mere slaughter and ruin don’t make a strong one. He held on like a man in a storm, muttering to the wind.

The grudge locked in his heart for countless years swelled like a tide. He was the Demon King, iron-willed enough to stare past all things, yet for that missed door he had once wept. With every beat his dark feelings bloomed like poison flowers, and he wanted to smash everything to ash.

I have no future! None… With their departure, my road ends. If there’s no tomorrow, then this world, this starry vault, this sky and earth—what meaning do they have?

He wrestled with himself, a man split into day and night. One moment he howled to destroy; the next he snapped, Get out. Who he was driving away, even he didn’t know.

There’s no meaning… why resist what means nothing?

A laughing voice drifted through a pitch-black space, sprightly as a mischievous child. He stood in the dark like a lone pine in winter, and he couldn’t pin the voice to any corner; it came from every wall of night.

Didn’t expect it—you grew a will. I should’ve guessed. For revenge, or for the most potential vessel under the stars, in this era when they all left, I’m the obvious choice.

Ouyang cursed his own dullness. If he’d asked the Ancient Turtle straight while it was still around, maybe none of this would be happening. If the thing succeeded and had time to ripen, even the Ancient Turtle—the oldest creature beneath the sky—might not handle it.

Hee-hee… you’re so smart… The voice stayed young, prankish, a child’s bells with no hint of boy or girl.

Give it up. Once they step on the road back, you can’t run. He searched every seam of the trap for light. Aside from borrowing the awe of those who’d left, he found no blade to cut the knot.

Hee-hee… The child’s tone bubbled again, from everywhere at once. Useless. They’ve gone home… they won’t be back for a long, long time… and then—hee-hee—I’ll already be beyond them.

Big Brother… let’s become one… The world will be ours… the star sea will be ours.

Black faded from the blackness, as if ink thinned with dawn, and white flooded everything like snow in a dream. In his sight, a little girl in a black dress lifted her hem and walked toward him, slow as a clock’s second hand.

Your power… my power… In this world, under this sky, we’ll have no rival. She wore a crooked smile, and kept gliding closer. Ouyang caught the detail—the girl’s pupils were ink-dark with no whites at all. They were deep like cold wells, and fear rose like frost in the bones.

That is— He froze the instant he saw those eyes. Those legendary eyes? How do you have them?

Hee-hee… She kept coming. He backed away and she never sped up. The gap neither closed nor widened; it was a riddle written in steps. That? Hee-hee… I killed him, of course. Kill him, and the eyes that crowned an entire epoch are mine.

Hee-hee… So, come on. Your power, my power—no one left who can stand.

Ouyang kept retreating, refusing the conclusion. She shouldn’t have had the ability. In that age, she couldn’t match that Supreme’s might. So how did she wear those eyes?

Big Brother… hee-hee… you can’t run.

What? He found that no matter how he edged back, she drew nearer by the heartbeat. He could rush or crawl; she kept that slow cadence, and the distance shrank like a shadow at noon.

How do I break this game?!

At last: Closer now… The child’s voice chimed like a silver bell.

He couldn’t move. He strained to withdraw, but his body was iron nailed to the floor. The little girl rose, a drifting wisp, until their faces were level, and she folded him in a cold embrace.

Your power. My power. This world, this star sea—no rivals. Her lips brushed his, a cold petal, and the world snapped to black.

On the clocktower, Ouyang’s scarlet eyes turned midnight, no whites left at all. The black was deep as an ocean trench, terrifying as open space. It felt like those eyes were the night itself; like those eyes were the whole star field.

The weave of fate has broken. We’re late. Climbing to the tower’s top, the White Elf stared at the crystal ball, face like still water, and sighed the verdict.

No, why? Terracafe is gone… Irina clenched her fists, despair stinging like sleet.

The White Elf shook her head, a snow-laden branch giving way. Not just the Most Ancient City. This world, this star sea… has no future.

How? Even a Demon King breaking seal isn’t new to history, and the world didn’t end then. Not even the Age of Demon Chaos could finish it! Irina had given up once, but hearing that the whole world had no tomorrow felt unreal—as if a feast at noon turned to a funeral by dusk. Yet these words came from the White Elf, the one closest to the river of time. Irina had to drink that bitter truth.

Then, the White Elf, who’d been expressionless all along, suddenly widened her eyes, disbelief like lightning, and then her gaze eased, like a storm passing.

…

A dream-sky arched above, and an angel’s flight left a rainbow like paint across blue. Fragrant grass spread a green sea underfoot.

This is… the Other Shore. The far end of starlight, the far bank of time. It was the world that had appeared when a “meteor” from beyond crashed into Ouyang. That “meteor” was a passage to the Other Shore. He’d stumbled through once, then no matter how he tinkered, he couldn’t force a return.

He realized he stood in open air, high as a hawk riding thermals. He drew his gaze back from the earth below and looked around.

A palace—broad as a horizon—loomed like a mountain of marble.

This… could it be the God Emperor Hall? He ransacked his meager lore and found no name to fit the shape. Beside him, the little girl puffed her cheeks, glaring at the palace like a child scowling at a locked candy jar.

Don’t tell me… this palace’s master sealed you back then?

He felt as if he’d pried up a corner of a great riddle. That mysterious titan with sky-reaching means—no one knew the face, or the gender, not even a name.

He soon spotted a plaque hung high like a moon. On it was written: Eternity.

Oh, come on. Don’t tell me this is one of the Ten Legends—“the Palace of Eternity beyond time.” Even a battle-seasoned Ouyang felt his mind go blank, like a page in snow.

Big Brother… I’ll come find you again. Then we’ll fuse, completely and forever… hee-hee… Her dress whispered as she stood, and flame licked up her small frame like paper catching light. Your power… my power… This world… this star sea… no rivals…

At last the girl turned to ash, and the palace swallowed the dust.

What the hell?

The crisis had eased, yet Ouyang’s mind was a fog bank. He knew only that danger had backed off—for now. Why for now? She’d promised she’d come again, hadn’t she?

At the base of the clocktower, the White Elf whispered in shock, Winter cracking on her lips: I didn’t expect it. Though “they” have gone, they reached through the river of time to touch this moment. Against enemies like this… do we still have hope?

Maybe the stand we’ve held to all this time is laughable in their eyes.