“Let’s try it. Flip void and real like turning a mirror,” Ouyang said, his long sword cold as moonlight in his grip, his gaze fixed on the angel.

It wasn’t smooth, like a blade snagging on wet silk, and he still couldn’t see the “track” like a thread through fog.

Why? Where was the mistake, like a pebble under clear water? The world in his eyes reset like a ripple fading, and there was no track.

Emerald hills and rippling rivers, blue sky and drifting clouds, even the angel herself, all turned translucent like morning mist.

“So... this is the truth? What a cruel shore after a beautiful tide.” The angel lay on the ground, laughing like wind over broken glass.

At life’s last lantern, she learned her origin like a name scratched on ice. “An illusory being, illusory memories... only today is real like a pebble in hand.”

“I wish... I could keep this one true memory like a seed under frost.”

The angel pressed her hands together, praying to the sky like a flower facing the sun.

“Human, it’s useless. I know your power, like fire under snow. Unless you cut my link to the Mist Mirage, all this is water in a sieve.”

Her words startled Ouyang like thunder behind him.

Cut her link to the Mist Mirage, like severing a root from a mountain? Wouldn’t that make him its enemy, like a moth against a storm?

No joke. This place was a graveyard where even a Primordial Deity sank like a stone in a whirlpool. What was Ouyang but a leaf in rain?

If the Divine Sword in his hand restored its peak, he might try, like a swimmer daring a black sea. As he was now, it wouldn’t work.

“Human, thank you,” the angel said, smiling like a candle in wind. “Your power cut something, like threads binding a puppet, or I’d be blind like the Blood Kin.”

“At least I now know my origin like dawn breaks a dream. Even if I vanish like smoke, I know I once held a true memory.”

She laughed bleakly, like a harp with broken strings.

The Blood Kin nearby froze like statues in frost, with bodies turning transparent like melting ice.

Among all manifested beings, only this angel saw the truth like a star through cloud. Only she still thought at the end like an ember under ash.

Ouyang felt a faint loss, like a tide pulling at his ankles. There was no sadness, because she was a passerby like a shadow crossing a road.

At the last moment, they both let go of their biases like dust on sleeves. Her tragic smile looked beautiful like a wildflower after rain.

No finery, no makeup, just a face more radiant than the false sun above, like a clear dawn over snow.

“Beautiful things are brief like fireflies,” a voice in him said, like wind through bamboo. “Blossoms fall at their brightest, so seize the fleeting spark.”

Who said that, like a name under fog? Ouyang couldn’t place it; everything felt hazy, like a membrane you could pierce with a finger.

“The sword in my hand can cut everything, like a storm felling reeds. Past, present, future,” echoed a voice like steel on stone.

“This is my Way of the Sword, the path of the foremost swordsman beneath the stars, like a lone lamp in a sea of night.”

In the blur, Ouyang remembered like a bell in mist. Fallen Leaf—that man called the first swordsman, a blade no one could match.

In his mind rose that stunning strike, like lightning stitching cloud to ground, a cut that claimed it could sever all.

“Place your obsession on your blade like a hawk perched on a glove, and it will awaken like thunder in spring.”

He gripped the hilt and closed his eyes, like a swimmer sinking calm into deep water. He recalled every word that man had told him.

“Trust yourself. You can do it. Surpass it, with this strike,” he roared inside, like a volcano under snow, not knowing what he meant to surpass.

“Ninth Prison—Ninth Sword. Shatter!” His voice cracked like ice on a winter river.

In that instant, he felt it, a world-ending power like a black tide. It was far beyond his prime, like a mountain beyond a hill.

One finger could pierce and break countless worlds, like needles popping bubbles, each pop a universe.

He felt the world’s brittleness like eggshell between fingers. Mortals are fragile; one fall can end a life like a candle in wind.

Now the world itself looked brittle like frost on a leaf. One light poke and it shatters, and order collapses like a house of cards.

“The Mist Mirage is nothing more, like silk under a knife. It’s fragile too,” he whispered, like a blade kissing air.

The sword swung like a crescent moon falling.

Silently, a crack rang in every heart, like glass breaking underwater. Everything returned to white fog like snow swallowing a road.

The Mist Mirage split with a pitch-black gash, like a wound across the sky.

Ouyang stretched his palm toward the distance like a fisherman casting. A black, miniature castle floated into his hand like a raven landing.

“This power... it’s me from the future,” he said, like hearing his own echo in a canyon.

The power faded fast, like a tide slipping away. It came from his future self, their resonance a coincidence like stars aligning.

The fog rolled like a gray sea, and Ouyang reacted like a hunter to rustling.

“The Mist Mirage is angry,” the orc shouted as he leaped, like a boulder thrown by a catapult. No kidding, Ouyang thought, like a grin under a mask.

He had slashed a gash through it like carving bark; how could it not rage like a wasp nest kicked?

“Pick up that guy on the ground. We’re bailing,” Ouyang said, pointing at Devila like a commander pointing at a map.

The castle flew from his palm and grew like a seed devouring rain. He also noticed the angel hadn’t vanished, like a star that refused to set.

“Coming with us, homeless angel?” he asked, holding out a hand like a bridge over water.

He exhaled in relief as she smiled, a peerless face like dawn on ice. She lightly gripped his hand like a petal landing.

“My lord, from now on, let me serve by your side,” she said, voice like a soft bell.

Ouyang didn’t refuse, like a door opening to warm light.

After everyone entered, Ouyang steered the castle into the rift like a ship into a midnight pass. The cleft sealed slowly like lips closing.

In the distance, a diary appeared like a leaf blown into view.

“That Litian fellow... will it beat me when it wakes?” it muttered, like a sparrow scolding. “The master told me to help it recover.”

“But that thing’s impossible to please, like a cat with two bowls. Better toss the bundle to someone else like a hot potato.”

“When I find Eternity, Litian won’t dare bully me,” it preened, like a magpie in sunlight.

Having dumped the burden on someone, the diary puffed itself up like a proud rooster. “If it were Liuguang, that little lass would obey orders.”

“But could her smarts compare to mine, like a candle to the moon? You hog the First Artifact seat, so sleep more.”

“I haven’t sat as First Artifact long enough,” it cackled, like kindling catching.

The Divine Sword had no idea a sly diary had sold it like a fox selling a hen. When it learns, the show will be fireworks.

Inside Ouyang’s castle, through the windows like frames of dark glass, six of them watched the outside swirl odd as a dream.

In the rushing timestream, if you sat still like a stone in a river, the view was almost beautiful, but Devila had no such mood.

The trio and the angel were relaxed, like cats in sun. They had watched Ouyang borrow his future and swing that peerless sword like a comet’s tail.

In their hearts, as long as Ouyang remained, everything else was wind on water.

They didn’t know Ouyang worried with Devila, like two men under one leaking roof. He knew his house.

The power was his, like a seed in winter. But it wasn’t his now; it belonged to the future like fruit not yet ripe.

“Sigh, drifting in these time currents is boring,” he said, like a gull over empty sea.

No one knew how long they wandered, like travelers in fog. They were lost in the timestream like a leaf in a whirlpool.

Miraculously, the castle endured like a stubborn reef. That was a miracle like a flame in rain.

Over this time, Ouyang learned the trio like a player knows his cards.

The orc had a tiger head and a human body, a sight like a totem walking. His name meant “valiant,” so Ouyang called him Valiant like a banner in wind.

Others cheered that, like sparrows in chorus, because Valiant’s true name was long and twisted like knotted rope.

The dwarf was Bartley, a god-tier dwarf and a god-tier smith, like iron and fire made man.

Bartley coveted the Divine Sword like a moth to a lantern. In his hands, he found nothing, and the blade ate his metals like a wolf gnawing bones.

He wasn’t angry; he was feverish, like a prospector who glimpsed gold.

Sadly, the world didn’t bend to his will, like stone ignores a wish. No matter his fervor, he learned nothing but echoes.

Of course, if Bartley did learn something, Ouyang would know the sword was fake, like a painted tiger.

The last of the trio was a human girl, with short water-blue hair and a blue mage robe like ripples at dusk.

She looked fresh as spring water, thirteen or fourteen at a glance, but was an old monster over ten thousand years, like an ancient pine wearing dew.

They said a world worshiped her as the God of Water like a lake worships rain. She didn’t care; she forgot the world’s name like a lost coin.

Ouyang and Devila felt sorry for her believers, like mourners with empty candles.

Eunice was her name, and she loved to act young, like winter playing at spring.

Right, they’d forgotten the angel, like losing a treasure in a drawer. Memory was false, so names were false, like clouds naming themselves.

She refused to use that false name like a bird refusing a cage. They argued over names like thunder over hills.

At last, the angel named herself Ruola, a name like dawn on the horizon. It meant her life had welcomed daybreak.

For gods, time meant little, like water to a stone. Though Ouyang cut Ruola’s power, her body remained divine like a statue touched by sun.

Time’s flow barely grazed them, like wind over glass.

Until one day, the back of Ouyang’s hand grew warm, like embers under skin.

“Huh, this is... a contract?” he said, like a diver finding a rope.

He remembered the fake contract he made with Xi, like a shadow and a mirror. “Perfect timing. We can use it like a beacon to steer out.”

Time meant little to them, like snow to a mountain. But a small castle bored everyone, like a cage to a hawk.

Ruola was the exception, like a moth to a familiar flame. Any world with Ouyang was bright with color like a festival lantern.

“Bartley, get ready. It’s time to let our Divine Sword feast,” Ouyang said, stroking the hot sigil like a brand, his battle heat rising like sunrise.

With his castle found, his confidence returned like a tide.

Inside his castle, he was the Supreme Demon King, first seat of the Demon King Council, like a king on his moving throne.

Outside, he was less than cannon fodder, like straw in a storm. But his castle could move like a whale through currents.

“Roar! Let those mortals hear our fury,” the orc howled, like a drum in a valley. He didn’t know the plan, but it felt epic like a storm brewing.

Ouyang slid a banner toward Devila and gave a dangerous look like a drawn bow. “Vice-captain, what’s wrong? Shouldn’t you say something?”

Under their predatory stares like wolves on a ridge, Devila clenched his teeth and gave up resisting like a dam cracking.

He seized the pole and shouted like a horn, “May our banner be planted in every world!”