White Soul—his origin lay hidden like mist beyond the mountains, his true power buried under dusk-colored legends.

In this age of twilight, he stood almost invincible, a lone peak against storm and tide. Yet tales said he broke into a world like a shattered mirror, and no one knew what storm he weathered within. He came back waned, his strength falling like autumn leaves in slow, measured drift.

Every ten thousand years, a minor rank slipped away, like frost thinning beneath a pale sun. Long ages passed, and perhaps he was no different from a mortal walking under the same moon.

That’s what the demon commanders told themselves, but the power spilling off him pressed like thunder over a plain. Even a starved camel dwarfs a horse; even diminished, White Soul was a mountain they couldn’t climb. Their boots scraped backward on stone.

“White Soul, His Majesty the Demon Emperor will come to settle accounts!” One commander cracked open a black door like a split in midnight, ready to flee, yet still threw his shadow of a threat.

“Demon Emperor… Your Majesty?” White Soul’s smile was a cold wind over a lake. “At most, a Realm God who grasped the law of creation—daring to call himself Majesty?” In his eyes, that title was an ant’s crown beneath rain.

“Since you’ve come, don’t even think of leaving. For the sake of that old undying in the Demon World, I wasn’t going to pursue this. But you forced White Soul to this edge. You… have no chance to live.”

“No… Lord White Soul… spare us!” Their voices broke like reeds in gale.

In a heartbeat, flesh burst like red rain, and the commanders who held whole provinces in the Demon World turned to pulp on stone.

When it was done, White Soul stood before the ancient tree at the town’s heart, gaze raised like a pilgrim under towering bark. Wrinkles furrowed like dry riverbeds; his straight back bent like a bow under age.

At his lips, blood slipped out, a crimson thread under moonlight.

“Miss, where are we even going?” Leticia’s voice was a small lantern in wind. Xi kept walking, her spirit fraying like silk in salt air. There was no rainbow in the sky, no Azure Bird winging across clouds.

Yet Xi kept whispering to the wind. Rainbow. Azure Bird.

They walked without eating or drinking, as if under a spell, Xi lifting her eyes to the empty heavens and stepping toward a horizon that refused to end. The path stretched like a pale river into nowhere.

Leticia wanted to comfort her, but Xi’s mind was a locked gate in fog.

As days thinned, another truth surfaced like a shadow under water—the chance of meeting demon scouts grew smaller by the hour. At first, Leticia crossed blades with them like flint striking sparks. Now, a full day had passed since the last skirmish.

Humans thinned to silence along the road. In Leticia’s body, her demon bloodline trembled like a string under cold fingers—that was fear itself rising like smoke.

By night, Xi moved as if the veil of darkness were clear glass; even the stars felt close, like beads on a thread.

At last, Xi stopped.

A lake lay ahead, ringed tight by trees like a dark crown. Above it, a radiant rainbow bridge arched like a bow, linking shore to shore. Moonlight poured like silver, and fish with seven-colored scales leapt, sending ripples like glazed porcelain across the water.

“How… how is this possible…” Leticia stared at this strange place dyed in mystery, a dream painted over sky and leaves. Above the heavens, aurora light spilled like rivers of silk.

Everything felt blurred, dreamlike as breath on glass.

“Xian, wait. On the far shore lies a dreamland. There’s no life and no death there.” Xi’s laugh cracked like ice under thaw. Her hair was tangled like forest vines; her clothes hung in tatters like torn flags. The long march had hollowed her bones, but she never forgot the weight of her sister on her back.

As Xi stepped onto the rainbow bridge, the lake’s fish burst upward like scattered gems. Evening wind combed the trees; leaves fell in a slow dance. Leticia lifted a leaf, light and thin as a promise, and felt the world grow unreal, like a picture too perfect to touch.

When Leticia set foot on the bridge, she learned its secret. Each small step felt like crossing countless worlds, as if star after star slid beneath her feet. Hope tugged her forward like a warm current.

In a soft haze, the far end of the bridge seemed like the spring of all good things, the well where childhood dreams drank starlight. You don’t remember the shape of the dream, only the warmth it leaves, like sun on a winter wall.

When Leticia came back to herself, the world had changed. In the sky, countless rainbow bridges laced the air like bright threads. Each bridge spanned two floating isles. Some bloomed with seven-colored flowers like fields of lanterns. Some were green as spring meadows. Some carried houses like nests in the clouds.

Mist pooled over the ground, and through its gauze she glimpsed a sea of blossoms, moving like tides of color.

Dreamlike, hazy. The place breathed an eerie feeling that words couldn’t hold, like music felt through bone.

“We’re here… finally here… hee-hee… found it…” Xian, who had ‘died,’ spoke with a voice like a cool knife. Leticia should have rejoiced, but instinct snapped like a trap—she feared Xian the way a mouse fears a cat’s shadow.

“The Aurora Goddess’s dwelling… hee-hee, I finally found it.” The voice curled like smoke. Even Xi felt the wrongness, a chill rising like moonlight over snow.

Suddenly her back grew light; Xian floated ahead like a pale moth. She smiled, but that smile carried knives. It chilled Xi and Leticia to the bone, like frost laid on skin.

“Who are you? Get out of my sister’s body!” Xi’s voice was torn cloth, but it held iron.

Her body shook like grass in storm, yet she couldn’t step back. Hope stood one bridge away; a legend had opened like a gate. How could she retreat when sunrise was within reach?

“Giving me a body is her honor.” The voice was smooth as oil over water.

Seeing that face—her sister’s face—twisted by arrogance, Xi’s anger flared like a bonfire. “Get out of Xian’s body!”

She roared, but that was all she could do. She didn’t dare strike; she might cut her sister like a rope in the same knot. And even if she tried, could she win against this cold star?

“Foolish mortal…” Xian flashed before Xi like lightning. Violet power wrapped her tight, a cocoon constricting like wet ropes. Leticia gathered herself to move, but one cold glance was enough—the violet energy sealed her too, a glass prison under violet tide.

“Le—let me go.” Xi’s face reddened, breath snagging like a bird caught in net.

Xian only smiled, savoring like a spectator watching the last flicker of a candle.

Am I dying? A thin regret spread like ink in water. What haven’t I done? What promise did I leave unkept? Memories churned like leaves in wind, ten years of shards clinking in the heart’s deep well.

Ouyang—she remembered! That trickster Demon King! That bastard!

“Bastard, get out here!”

Light flickered on the back of her hand like a star under skin. An unseen force burst outward, blowing the violet shroud away like dust. A crack opened in the sky, black and raw; a dark castle dropped from the clouds like a falling mountain. When the dust settled, Ouyang hoisted a long sword on his left shoulder and a white flag on his right, a red skull painted like blood.

“Ah-hahaha… Mortals, tremble and bow to Ouyang the Demon King!” His shout rolled like thunder across a plain. Devila, one foot past the door, jerked back like a rabbit, slammed the gate, terrified anyone might learn he was with Ouyang.

As if to prove Devila right, Ouyang swung the flag behind him and barked, “Vice captain, catch the flag!”

Clatter—the flag hit the ground, ringing like metal on stone. No one came. Ouyang turned slowly, and the castle door stood shut like a sealed tomb.

“Kid, you dared make me look this awkward. You. Are. Dead.” His words snapped like whip cracks.

He tossed Devila’s mess aside like straw. Only now did he truly see this place, this sky stitched with color. “Weird. How’d I wind up here? Last time I thought I’d found the road, it broke like a rotten plank. This time I never meant to come, and I just drop in.”

He scratched his head, sheepish as a breeze stirring reeds. “Must be that saying—you hunt till your boots fall apart, then it lands in your lap.”

“Hey, brat, you’re here. Perfect; let’s settle that old debt. So—are you Yuan or Sin?”

He’d locked on Xian the instant he saw her; that rancor rolled off her like smoke after a fire.

“Not your business. You’re annoying.” Xian’s smile stiffened like freezing water; impatience cut through like a wind that bites. “While I’m not in the mood to kill you, get lost.”

Ouyang didn’t buy it. You think I fear you?

He snorted, gripped his Divine Sword, and the air around his knuckles tightened like frost.

“Let’s see who kills whom.”

The moment Xian saw the blade, her face tightened like a drumhead, then turned ghastly pale. “Heaven Departing Divine Sword… You… damn…” She stamped once, then folded to the ground like a puppet with strings cut.

A bitter voice drifted over the air like ash. “Wait for me!”

“Huh?! She just left?” Ouyang blinked as if stung; he hadn’t expected a retreat fast as a gust.

He stood still for a heartbeat, calm as a pond. Then a voice filled with spite surged like storm surf.

“Ouyang!!!”