The Boundless Sea, where fate weaves like tides threading moonlight. In Ouyang’s memory, the First Epoch rose from that sea like dawn and sank because of it like dusk.
He knew no deeper secrets, only what the chronicles etched like frost upon stone.
“Fallen Leaf or Dream Chaser, we’ll meet again,” Ouyang whispered, voice like wind in gears. “Far ahead, in that age like storm-tossed waves.”
...
A black castle cut the air like a raven’s wing, and inside, Ouyang stared like a blade at the vampire, Devila. “You’re saying you got killed, then someone revived you, then shoved you toward my castle like a pawn?”
“Yes!” Devila said, serious as iron, his words like nails. “The other side was too strong, like a mountain. We should put aside our grudges and face outward like shields.”
But Ouyang laughed at once, his mirth like flint sparks in a dark forge.
“Don’t kid me,” he said, voice like cold water. “I know that without you saying a word. I want intel, like maps and tracks. Tell me about the hand in the shadows.”
This time Devila said nothing, his silence like fog. He drifted toward the window without thinking, as if feeling for a back door like a fox.
Seeing that, Ouyang narrowed his eyes like a cat at dusk. “Kid, don’t tell me you don’t even know what that person looks like, like a blind man in rain. You got erased without ever seeing them?”
At the window, Devila gave a sheepish smile, thin as paper, and readied to leap like a spring. Because…
“If that’s the case, what use are you?” Ouyang cracked his knuckles like hail on a drum. If this vampire had no scraps of intel, then in Ouyang’s eyes, his verdict was written like ink.
If he had any use, Ouyang might have let the nest-theft slide like dust on a sleeve. But he was useless, so all debts would be tallied like beads on a string.
“Trying to run? Don’t be naive,” Ouyang said, voice like a drawn bow. “You must’ve heard of the ‘City of Time,’ that ultimate art like a clockwork citadel. I can’t wield it fully like a god, but you think you can flee under its gaze?”
Devila’s face went bloodless in a flash, pale as chalk under moonlight.
The Legendary Ultimate Art, the City of Time—an art like a barrier dome. Inside, you could rewrite time like ink on wet paper, past or future. Even if Devila ran, Ouyang could roll time back like a tide, and he’d ‘return.’
Of course, Ouyang was bluffing, his threat like a painted tiger. A Legendary Ultimate Art was something he’d never seen, like a star behind cloud, and even with a teacher he might not learn it like a bird born flightless.
They said arts of that rank were unique, like a single flame on a single wick. Only the art’s owner could use it like a name. Other arts let outsiders dabble a little like sparks, but not this.
Even so, Devila was spooked, his courage like a candle guttering.
Only those from the Other Shore truly grasped ultimate arts like sutras, so Ouyang was bullying Devila’s ignorance like a whip.
Devila stood by the window, sweat beading like dew, tangled and twitching. Ouyang chuckled low, hands rubbing together like grinding stones, clearly ready to pound a certain vampire like dough.
Minutes later, Ouyang’s clothes were in tatters like torn sails, bruises blooming like plum blossoms. But the vampire fared worse, sprawled half-dead on the floor like a broken doll. Spooked as he’d been, once fists flew like thunder, Devila still swung back like a cornered wolf.
The two idiots seemed to share a tacit pact like gamblers: no power, no aura, no arts—just fists like stones. In the end, Ouyang won by a thread like frayed silk, and Devila lay half-dead like driftwood. And it wasn’t over.
With his last strength, Ouyang heaved Devila into his black coffin like a sack into a boat. Devila felt baffled, his thoughts like tangled weeds, yet he still muttered a “thanks” like a reflex. To Devila, a coffin meant comfort like a nest, and Ouyang’s act felt like a truce carved in wood.
He set the lid in place and left a small gap like a cat’s-eye.
Then Ouyang stooped and gathered the loose garlic scattered nearby like white pebbles. He’d wanted to throw garlic into the coffin before, like salt in a wound, but he couldn’t get close, so he let it go like a passing cloud. Now was a golden moment like ripe grain, and he wouldn’t forget.
He piled the garlic together like a mound of snow, then hammered it with his fist like a pestle. Soon, reeking paste formed, the smell rising like a swamp. He cupped it in both hands like a wicked offering, crept to the coffin like a shadow, and suddenly flung the paste through the gap like a dart.
He slammed the lid shut with lightning speed like a falling gate. Then he spun a chain of magic like quicksilver and wrapped the coffin tight like ivy. He clapped his hands like dusting flour, walked out of the castle like a breeze, and left the deed behind like a hidden name.
Inside the castle, the coffin thrashed like a hooked fish. Something inside pounded the lid like a war drum, fighting to break free like a storm. But the magic chain locked lid and body together like welded iron.
“Bastard… let me out!” The shout rang like a crack of thunder.
Devila felt he would die, his lungs burning like coals. The stench of garlic wasn’t fatal, not like sunlight, but imagine standing in a cesspit like a drowned alley. Devila felt exactly that, like a mortal thrown in filth.
“Foolish human, you’ll pay for this,” he snarled, his voice like a rasp on bone.
“The great Blood Kin Devila won’t be… be… beaten…” His pride flickered like a dying wick.
His voice grew smaller and smaller, fading like mist at dawn. Ouyang didn’t believe he’d really die from that, his doubt like a raised brow. If that were true, it’d be too ridiculous, like a joke on a gravestone.
After a few quiet minutes, when Ouyang started to wonder if the vampire had truly croaked like a silenced crow, the obsidian coffin shuddered hard like an earthquake. With a loud clank, the magic chain shattered like glass, and the lid blasted away like a shell.
“Hahaha… fools!” Devila floated above the coffin like a golden hawk, blond hair shining. “How could a human kill me?” His smugness hung like a crown.
Ouyang’s face darkened in an instant, stormy as a brewing squall.
“Two corrections,” he said, words like knells. “First, you already died. If not for Deathless Rebirth, if not for the Boundless Sea, would you still live like a ghost?”
He pointed at the ceiling like a judge. The coffin lid was jammed into a white crystal like a wedge in ice. “Second, the castle’s drive got wrecked by your coffin lid like a hammer to a heart. Before my castle plows into the ground like a falling star… fix it.”
Since leaving the Boundless Sea, the castle had flown the sky like a lost gull. No one knew where it sought like a compass gone wild. But Devila’s stunt smashed its power like a cracked core.
“This… this was built by the Creator God,” Devila said, eyes wide as moons. “Shouldn’t it be all everlasting magic like a self-fed spring?”
“You idiot,” Ouyang snapped, words like slaps. “It survived the time–space turbulence like a battered ship. And you expect it to run like before, as if new?”
The castle was sinking, its belly heavy as stone. Devila panicked at once, his calm scattering like leaves.
Normally, with Devila’s power, this was nothing, like dust on a sleeve. But Deathless Rebirth had gutted him like a thief, and though he’d shaken it off with help from the Boundless Sea like a cleansing tide, he couldn’t recover fast in a snap like spring grass.
As for Ouyang, he didn’t want the Supreme Law staring at him again like an eye. He could use the last three Divine Grace Crystals to fix things like balm, but he hadn’t caused this, like clean hands in a mess. Why should he sweat?
The castle kept dropping, the rivers and mountains below sharpening into view like ink on silk.
What now? What now? Devila clutched his head like a man in a storm, and no idea came like rain. Ouyang offered a mild reminder, voice like tea. “If it comes to it, just lift the whole castle like a cart. You’re not a god now, but you should manage one castle like a weightlifter.”
Devila almost vaulted out on reflex, ready to shoulder the castle like Atlas. Then it hit him like a bell—he could use Levitation.
He shot Ouyang a vicious glare like a dagger, then cast Levitation again and again like tossed nets. Dozens of spells later, he barely steadied the castle before impact like a last-second catch. When it settled safe, Devila was dead tired, his magic burned out like ash. He hadn’t felt this drained in ages, like a drought.
Ouyang walked out of the castle and drew a long breath like a sip of mountain air. Seeing Devila on the edge of collapse like a wilted flower, he clapped the vampire’s shoulder with a straight face like a commander.
“Nice work,” he said, praise like sunlight. “From now on, you’re Pope of my Demon God Church. Let’s conquer this low-element plane like pioneers.”
Devila’s face twitched like a plucked string. He didn’t say yes, and he didn’t say no, his silence loud as thunder. His look said everything like a banner. This world felt inert, its elements sleepy like winter. At best, its strongest might be Second Tier, like saplings.
“With respect,” Devila said, words like cold steel, “this world has no strategic value, like an empty field. We should repair the plane-hopping array in the castle first, like fixing a bridge.”
He had zero interest in this place, his boredom like dust. He couldn’t fathom why Ouyang wanted to conquer such a meaningless world, like a man courting a shadow. Devila had once stood above mortals like a tower, and still he couldn’t read Ouyang’s heart like a riddle.
Ouyang shook his head, hands on his hips like a farmer, and said nothing, only humming under his breath like a bee.
At length he turned, slow as a turning wheel. “I sense a familiar aura in this world,” he said, voice like a thread.
“Huh?” Devila stared, baffled like a calf. Ouyang’s mystery felt like smoke and mirrors. Did he think Devila had been raised on snake oil? He’d carved his path out from the zealots of the Light Church like a blade.
Seeing Devila still blank as a slate, Ouyang’s face fell like rain. He looked at Devila with the disappointment of iron that won’t forge, his glare like tongs. “Idiot. The breath of this world feels like yours, like kin. You really don’t feel it?”
Devila stood there a long moment, eyes lifting to the sky like a pilgrim. At last he spoke in a low voice like dusk. “This… seems to be my homeland.”
