The Boundless Sea—where the sentinels of fate and hope once slept like stones under waves.

Now, those Watchers are long gone, like lamps snuffed in wind. Yet this place stays strange. It’s one of the few star-void harbors that evades the Supreme Law.

To hell with it. Better to die in the time-stream’s riptide than be erased by the Supreme Law.

No one can chart the Boundless Sea. Only by diving into the time-space turbulence can you reach it. To drift there freely, only a Primordial Deity could.

Ouyang is gambling on fortune, like tossing a coin into a storm.

Enter, and there’s a sliver of hope. Stay, and the Supreme Law wipes you out.

He steels himself and guides the black castle. A pitch-black seam tears open around it, like ink split on silk. The castle slips into the gash. As it vanishes, the red sea of thunder above thins and fades.

Not far off, sakura petals whirl like pink snow. Wutong stands beneath an ancient Oil Paper Umbrella, watching the castle’s last shadow. His voice is a hush in the salt air.

“Mother, I’ve done my best. Wisdom can’t bridge this chasm of strength.”

A woman’s voice rises from the umbrella, soft as rain on lacquer. “It’s fine. His Majesty will understand. He’s the unofficial Seventh. He won’t fall so easily. He chose this path with eyes open.”

As Ouyang drives the castle into the turbulence, a memory cuts in, sharp as a wave’s cold edge. A route to the Boundless Sea lights up in his mind.

Why? It feels like I’ve been here before, like a home alley I can walk with eyes closed.

Inside the time-space riptide, everything flattens like paper. Time, space, self—those words shed meaning like leaves. Colors bloom and fade. Black-and-white grids knit and unknit.

He glimpses a Primordial dragon’s corpse, ridgelines of bone like dead mountains. He sees broken worlds, shards adrift like glass.

How odd. Why can a castle forged by the Realm God hold shape in this current? Why do these paths feel like a foot-worn trail?

He floats between clarity and fog. For a heartbeat, he feels like the turbulence itself. It’s only a trick of the mind.

The black castle drifts on, a lone ship in a sea without clocks or suns. When he surfaces into thought again, a vast ocean fills the window.

Starlight freckles the water, bright beads rising, bright beads sinking. The tide hums like silver strings.

He steps out and finds sand underfoot. The castle rests on a shore pale as bone.

Ocean, boundless to the horizon. Beach, endless as breath. Ahead, the sea swallows the sky. Behind, the shore runs like a quiet road.

This is the Boundless Sea of legend. The cradle where your Other Shore line began.

At some point, the vampire walks to Ouyang’s side, silent as a shadow. No blood, no wounds. Here, even the idea of death has thinned and lifted.

“Hey, Bat,” Ouyang asks, lost as fog. “How did we get here?”

The vampire stares, eyes wide like a startled wolf. “Weren’t you steering the castle? No… you… you’re not the you from before.”

Anger sparks, hot as flint. Ouyang grabs his collar and hauls him up. “Cut the nonsense. Talk straight.”

“I really don’t know…”

Ouyang lets go and clutches his head. Pain knifes through, like ice splitting stone.

“Ah!!”

He rolls across the sand, a stormtossed body in bright daylight. The vampire stands helpless, hands empty, eyes bleak.

With a shout, Ouyang bursts into the water, like a diver fleeing fire.

Instantly, starlight floods to him, threads of power stitching into flesh. His presence jangles the whole sea. Starlight scatters, panics, swirls.

“I… ah!!!”

What did I forget?

He drifts in the Boundless Sea, eyes empty, staring upward. The sky is a cathedral of gears, vast teeth grinding like old mills. Filmstrips coil around them, frames flickering.

Clack, clack, clack.

He hears the gears now. He hears the time in their grind.

His Mystic—he remembers. His Mystic.

Back then, he had none. He crawled alone through thorns, slow and bleeding. When he finally met a guide, the best time to awaken had already slipped past like dusk.

He asked and asked, visited sages and wanderers. Every head shook, like reeds under rain.

It was a cruel memory, heavy with refusal. Yet the sudden thread in his mind says he did have a Mystic. One never recorded—Null.

Once it triggers, he vanishes from every memory, from the river of history. He becomes what its name is—nothing.

This damned memory… what’s the truth? Who would be brain-dead enough to erase themselves from everyone’s mind and from time itself?

He keeps staring at the gears, eyes glazed like frost. His lips move, but no words climb out. Even speech feels too far.

Blurred, he sees a boy sprawled on grass, cheeks puffed like a sulking carp. Anger smolders like ember-red eyes.

“Falling Leaves, why did I awaken such a dumb Mystic? Ah, I’m dying of it. I’ve never seen a Mystic this dumb.” The boy kicks the other lightly, like a cat swatting string.

The man called Falling Leaves smiles, calm as autumn water. “Boy, nothing appears without meaning. If it feels meaningless, you haven’t found how to wield it.”

The comfort lands. The boy breathes out, a small flame rekindled.

A second boy steps out from behind a tree, grin shameless as a stray dog. Mischief sparkles like morning dew.

“Honestly, only someone as dumb as you would awaken a Mystic this dumb.”

“Dream Chaser, you asking for a beating?”

The memory stops there, torn like film. No matter how Ouyang reaches, nothing more comes. Who is Falling Leaves? Who is Dream Chaser? Riddles pile up like driftwood. Ouyang sinks deeper into fog.

At his loneliest, another fragment surfaces, raw as a scar.

A barren earth. A sky ripped open. Magma wells through ground cracks like blood through wounds.

Dream Chaser stands there, the once-roguish face now bleak as winter. His clothes hang in tatters. Scars run like maps. A battle carved him hard.

“A‑Yang, I worry most about you. Whatever comes, remember: Star Night never says die. It’s gone now, but keep the honor.”

“I… smashed everyone’s hope… hahaha… Different roads don’t run together. Star Night disbands, here and now.”

“Even if time rewound, I’d still break this road of hope. I only ever wanted to live.”

Tears flood, warm salt in the cold sea air. Ouyang doesn’t know why, only that he must cry. He cries for the blamed one, the man buried under a thousand fingers.

What am I crying for? What did I forget? Still, I’ll keep that line forever. Star Night—never say die!

He speaks, and strength pours through him like tide through a narrow gate. He stands, slow but steady, feet on the sea, eyes on the grinding gears.

He stands listening to sounds no one hears. Clack‑clack, tick‑tock. Time flowing like rain off eaves.

Suddenly, his aura flips like a banner in wind. He looks up at the gears, yet it feels like he looks down from a high cliff.

We of Star Night never say die. The journey hasn’t ended. It never did. Even if skies age and seas turn to stone, the road goes on. Even if it becomes a journey of one.

Starlight beads dance on the ocean, little flames of joy. They seem to sing for him, bright and light.

A‑Yang, do you know how existence is judged? I knew you’d stall on that. Existence rests on the world’s recognition. If a thing fades from every memory and the river of time, it is no more.

Your Null may make you forget yourself too.

I… will forget myself?

Unless someone pries your origin seal back from the Supreme Law. That’s almost impossible. Nothing stands against the Supreme Law.