Tonight, Terracafe throbbed with a feverish bustle, nothing like its usual nights. Many prayed for quiet, but the storm still came. Under this sky, countless homes shattered.

From the distant high ground, ribbons of color lanced at the minotaur. People shouted and leapt like sparks in dry grass. The spellcasters had acted—mystery and might made flesh. Hearts bent in near-blind worship.

At the first spell, the commander’s frown smoothed. The blow didn’t kill the minotaur, but it bit deep. A few more like that, and it would fall.

The minotaur roared, not from pain—it was already dead. Dead things don’t ache. It roared from fury, from being challenged. Its scarlet eyes fixed on the spellcasters atop the rise. Instinct dragged the roar toward them.

In an instant, a visible wave of sound tore across the ground.

When people blinked back to themselves, a scar gouged the earth from the minotaur to the spellcasters’ perch. Anything in the way lay smashed. The vaunted spellcasters scattered like straw in a gale, blood seeping from ears, eyes, and nostrils.

That roar rang through Terracafe once more, across this oldest of cities. Panic climbed another rung.

Up in the Mage Tower, those who had sworn, “Not until the last moment,” finally felt the wrongness. “Arsen, something’s off. That roar—our foe sounds Epic. Elites alone won’t cut it…”

A white-haired elder stroked his long beard, brows knotted. Fear comes from the unknown. Mages terrified the world because they rarely showed their faces. If you saw them haggling in markets, their mystique would crumble.

So they’d kept the old way—stay hidden, don’t act lightly.

This time, they’d overplayed it.

“Not ‘seems.’ It won’t work. Those rookie spellcasters are all down. The target is confirmed Epic-tier!” A richly robed elder burst in, panting. The gathered mages stiffened.

Epic.

By rank, they were second-tier Legendary. The enemy was third-tier Epic. Fewer than ten mages stood here. The odds looked thin.

A man in a pointed wizard hat snatched up his staff and robe. “Move. The army’s numbers are still holding. Casualties aren’t crippling yet. Go.” One after another, they strode out. The mages who had watched from the tower finally moved their hands.

However—

Terracafe shook with another minotaur roar. It rattled skulls like a gong. Minds went fuzzy; eyes stared blankly. Thought stalled.

Two fleshy orbs swelled on the creature’s back, glistening like ripe fruit. They burst, and a pair of crimson bat wings unfurled.

Wings beat. The minotaur lifted into the sky, roaring and raging. From its body, a scarlet barrier blossomed outward, a blood-red dome trying to blanket all Terracafe.

“This power…” The commander stared up, terror crowding his chest. That pressure carried a thread of law. “It’s at the peak of Epic-tier. Stop it now. If it reaches the fourth tier, only the nation’s full strength can contend!”

The spiral worsened again. Even the few mages in Terracafe lost their composure. The opponent was climbing in power for reasons unknown. If it touched the threshold of Demigod, the whole kingdom might burn.

A Demigod stands one step from a god. One of them can war against a country.

“Report to the capital now. This is beyond us. If we can buy time, that’s all we can do.”

Ouyang had toyed with a vial and birthed an Epic threat that could erase a human kingdom. That was a Demon King for you. Their knowledge alone defied mankind. Even with a sliver of force, they could upend the board.

Different levels of life mean different reservoirs of knowledge. The undying spend their idle eternities on experiments. The potion Ouyang fed the minotaur came from one such bored immortal.

Atop the clocktower, Ouyang watched the minotaur wreak havoc, and warmth curled in his chest.

“I heard if you push the seven creatures of the Seven Sins to Demigod, then fuse them by force, you can birth Original Sin… Uh… where did that legend come from? Why do I feel like I just tripped over something…”

He’d gotten the formula from an eccentric alchemist, and that legend from the same man.

“Don’t tell me he had a hand in that old mess?” Ouyang muttered. Back then, when he met the alchemist, the man was only Creation-tier. But Ouyang had been a rookie, far from any throne. Claiming Creation-tier to him wasn’t a lie worth telling.

Before absolute power, there’s no need for tricks.

Now, remembering the Watcher’s words, Ouyang felt certain that alchemist’s fingers were in the pie. Yet with only Creation-tier, he shouldn’t have been able to take part…

“Forget it. The more I chew it, the more it tastes like danger. We finish this job, then seal the Seven Sins away.” Another Original Sin showing up? Ouyang could see it happening.

The barrier swelled across the sky. A lance of white light shot from the clockface, bright as noon. The scarlet dome shattered in an instant. “Finally showing yourself? Terracafe’s guardian—the fabled Nightfall Clan…”

Even Ouyang grew cautious at that name. Not for anything else, but because they were the Nightfall Clan. Legend said that, at the end of the Sixth Epoch, a being whose true name couldn’t be spoken wiped them out to the last. Yet here, in this world, he’d found traces of that clan. Only a handful remained. But to survive that being and save a spark—on that fact alone, Ouyang held deep respect, edged with dread.

Worse, that clan hated those of the Other Shore.

All of this came from the Library of Truth. Hard lessons say history books lie. But Ouyang wouldn’t bet against this.

So he chose this method to draw them out.

In the Sixth Epoch, this would’ve been suicide. But this was the Ninth Epoch, the so-called Dusk Age. Like the Other Shore’s faded bloom, they too were down to a few flicks of life.

“Now.” Feeling space twist within the clocktower, Ouyang snapped open the Oil Paper Umbrella and yanked Kooson through the fold. They vanished. At that instant, above Terracafe, a rider appeared. He wore deep-blue knight’s garb and sat a horse wreathed in blue flame. The sky itself turned blue around him.

He glanced back at the clocktower.

“Seven Sins…” The helm hid his face, but surprise colored his voice. “Deal with this one first. Then we’ll learn whether our clan once bore glory, or Sin.”

Elsewhere, Ouyang and Kooson stepped into a wide space, white as bone. Bubbles drifted like pearls in milk. With no up or down, no east or west, the world had no edges. Orientation died in the glare.

Seeing it, nostalgia flickered across Ouyang’s eyes. He knew this prison style too well. For past mistakes, he’d been locked in places like this more times than he cared to count.

He closed his eyes and felt for the seams of the space.

“Sigh. The trap’s weaker than before. The Nightfall Clan is fading by generations.” The white fell away. Gravity returned, like a hand on the shoulder. Floor surfaced. A ceiling settled above.

A standard prison took shape. In the cells on both sides floated black spheres, dark moons in iron cages. The cells were empty otherwise.

“Where are you, my strategist? Where are you?” Ouyang hurried past the bars, peering in. With no prisoners in sight, he had no idea which to choose.

“Boss Ouyang, look—maybe this?” Kooson pointed.

Ouyang followed his finger. Red letters: The person you’re looking for is here!

An arrow followed, pointing to the next cell.

What was this? He knew those neat strokes. His strategist’s handwriting. But why? Had that guy bribed the Nightfall Clan?

For a moment, Ouyang’s thoughts tangled and fell apart.