“Yang, did you know there’s an old tale in this world? After rain scrubs the sky clean and a seven-colored rainbow hangs like a bridge, an Azure Bird will sweep across the vault of heaven. Follow its drifting trail. Where the Azure Bird comes to rest, a patch of Prayer Grass grows—grass that grants any wish.”

Hazy as mist over a river, Ouyang blinked awake. Prayer Grass? That’s a bedtime story. In everything he knew, there was no such herb.

“Lord Ouyang, we’re about to exit the space tunnel. Are you ready for combat?” Valiant’s face was all iron. He snapped a perfect military salute, the kind that said his blood sang for war.

“Chill, chill…” Ouyang waved him off like shooing midges. Combat prep? With a bunch of god-tier freaks packed in one place, what’s there to fear? Call it a fight if you like; it’d be a slaughter.

Then the sky flipped the board.

The whole tunnel bucked like a storm-tossed ship, and the castle drifted in the unstable flow like a black leaf losing its branch.

“Bastard, which idiot stuffed himself and got bored enough to trigger a spatial quake? Don’t let me find out, or I’ll make him learn why flowers bloom so red!” Ouyang staggered, the world spinning like a tossed coin.

Through the window, scenes flickered past like shards of a broken mirror. Mountains split and sank; fields turned to seas of corpses. The frames never held, but every one was cruelty etched in iron.

“The Second Seat. Cataclysm.” Memory snapped tight. That was the Second Seat’s power. The Second Seat of the Demon King Council. Ouyang knew little—just that the guy hid in a hooded cloak day and night. Name unknown. Race unknown. Gender unknown.

He owned the art of calamity. The other Demon Kings simply called him Cataclysm.

“Looks like he’s back at full strength. But what’s he doing? Met something terrifying?” For Cataclysm to swing that kind of force, the enemy couldn’t be small fry.

Not the time to think. That tidal force was about to slam straight into Ouyang’s castle.

“Cataclysm, to hell with your whole family!”

He barely got the words out before Cataclysm’s power collided with the castle. The impact hit like thunder under the skin. The battered old fortress somehow rode it out again, clinging to life like a stubborn bone in a storm.

Watching that, Devila couldn’t hold back. “You sure that castle is Realm God-made?”

They’d drifted in time-warped currents for what felt like an age. By all rights the castle should’ve fallen to dust, yet it clung on, ragged but unbowed. Everyone figured a casual tap would finish it. Instead, inside a space tunnel, it ate a god-tier strike head-on and came out whole.

It still looked ready to fall apart, but Devila was sure—this thing was tougher than it looked.

“Good. Realm God-made, top-shelf.” Ouyang wiped cold sweat like dew off his brow. He remembered the builder—the alchemist who’d given him the method to craft the Seven Sins. Back then he’d bled his savings dry to buy the Seven Sins. The castle? Buy one, get one free. The guy tossed it in.

Suddenly, Other Shore felt like a place where dragons slept under every stone. Even a shady merchant you bumped into could build a fortress that refused to die.

While Ouyang and Devila breathed out relief, Cataclysm’s strike hammered into the tunnel again, a second peal of iron rain.

“That punk’s rebelling now?” Once could be a fluke. Twice was a message. Ouyang wasn’t having it. Valiant stepped up, banner on his shoulder, and saluted like a blade.

“Lord Ouyang, calm your fire. Leave that sort to me. I’ll plant our standard in their nest.” He said it, and before anyone could blink, he leaped out like a hawk diving into cloud.

The rest stared wide-eyed, silence pooling like still water.

“By my senses, the enemy’s at least mid-tier divine. That thick-headed fool can win? And they’ve got help besides…” Devila’s wine-red eyes watched Valiant vanish, puzzled, as if asking, Where’d he find that courage?

For Ouyang, it wasn’t a big deal. When it’s time to cut someone loose, you cut clean. “We’ll get him revenge after we land safely.”

Maybe Valiant’s grand gesture spooked them. From the moment he left, Cataclysm’s strikes never fell again.

“All units, ready. We’re landing!”

A seam like black ink split the blue bowl of the sky. A black castle tumbled down like a fallen star.

“I… forgot something…” For nearly a year, Xi had lived with that ache, like a hollow behind the ribs. She could feel the missing piece, yet whenever she reached for it, she caught only broken images—dream-scraps fading at dawn.

It was as if everything she’d lost had been a single dream. Wake, and fog was all that remained.

Recently, her childhood friend Irina had visited again. Irina’s news loosened the knot. But words from someone else never weigh like your own bones. Xi now knew a Demon King existed, yet the past refused to return. Why couldn’t she remember what had happened?

She didn’t understand why her memories of that Demon King had vanished. Irina’s digging said everyone who rode the airship back then still remembered Ouyang. Which meant Ouyang returned to Ancient Memory Town with her. And yet no one in town remembered Ouyang at all.

What in the world had happened?

A great upheaval had come; even the dragons stirred their wings. News said the Demon World had launched a full invasion. As a Contract-User, Xi should have drawn on that Demon King’s power to fight the oncoming horde.

But no matter how she reached inside, the contract on the back of her hand stayed cold. It felt dead.

Today, the invading demons reached the town’s gates.

“Humans… submit to His Majesty the Demon Emperor. Or die.” The demon commander spoke like a winter knife, then ringed the town with steel. Few in the town could lift a hand against that storm.

The Glachidor Clan had shone in ages past, but that was yesterday’s sun.

At the brink, the former clan head—Xi’s father—set everything in order. “Xi, take the town’s children through our clan’s secret passage. As long as the children live, our hope keeps breathing.”

Shiriel Glachidor, a man whose shadow stretched across this small town, made his choice as the fire closed in. The adults chose to hold the walls and buy the children time to run.

“As long as the children live, the flame of hope doesn’t go out.” The town’s mayor looked like frost on white hair, a man ready to return to earth. In truth, he was only in his thirties. They said he’d been cursed for the town’s sake.

The only blacksmith lifted his hammer like a lifted sun. “No choices left. We’re not scholars. We can’t preach sweet philosophy. But we can stand and shield the next generation. That’s what I can teach you.”

“I wish I could say, ‘Don’t raise them in hate.’ But that’s a lie we can’t afford. Don’t rush revenge before you’re sure.” The seamstress aunt smiled like a lantern, gentle even now.

Xi clenched her fist till the knuckles blanched. She wanted to die on the wall with them, bone to bone. But as one of the few mages in town, she had to guard the children—the last ember of their home.

The passage was narrow as a vein through stone. The children didn’t wail. Some sniffled like rain in moss, but none kicked and screamed. In this moment, they all seemed older.

Xi walked last, eyes on the dark behind them like a cat at a door. If demons came pouring down the passage, she had to sound the alarm. One breath of carelessness, and this flock of little lives would be lost.

“Jiejie, where are we going? Are we going to find Big Brother?” Xian slowed her steps. She hugged a small teddy bear like a life buoy, and her bright eyes leaned close.

Big Brother? Xi blinked, off balance. What was the girl talking about?

“What big brother? We’re going somewhere far, very far…” She didn’t know where, not really. Maybe Terracafe would do. If only it hadn’t fallen.

Hearing that, Xian bounced like a sparrow on a branch. She hooked an arm through Xi’s. “Big Brother, the one you brought home a year ago! He disappeared after that. We’re going to find him, right? I can feel it—he’s amazing.”

A year ago? Xi almost laughed and cried at once. When had she ever brought a “big brother” home? But Xian’s hopeful face was a small sun. Xi chuckled, patted her head. “Yes, we’re going to find that Big Brother. Does that light a fire under you?”

“Mhm! Last time he ignored me. This time, I’ll make him notice me!”

Xian clenched her pink fists, cheeks puffed like steamed buns, a tiny storm of grievance.

“Let’s go, then. We’ll find your Big Brother. But no crying on the road. If you cry, I’ll tell him all about it.” Xi pinched her cheeks. From Xian’s look, that maybe-real, maybe-vanished Big Brother had serious power over her heart.

Whether he existed or not didn’t matter. If the thought of him kept Xian brave through this long night, then Xi would believe too. If believing gives strength, why not let the dream breathe.