“That’s the world—laughter and tears trading places like sun and rain on the same street.

Keep the hearth warm for your own; the crowd beyond is a passing tide.

Call it selfish if you want; the world’s a cold mirror either way.

Those who dream of smiles on every face are saints in lacquer, hypocrites painted bright.”

“If the ones beside me can smile, then let the far-off city cry like wind in the eaves—so what?”

“Ouyang, remember this: nothing on earth makes everyone smile.

Human nature—maybe… it’s selfish at the core, like frost under spring grass.”

Dream-fog curled like silk, and aurora bloomed like spilled paint across night.

Yet Xi’s face held no joy, only dusk thick as ash.

“It’s useless.

This place is already dead.

Nothing is truly eternal.

Years flowed like sand, and this land died,” Ouyang said, voice tired as old wood.

On Xian’s fate, Ouyang laid down the hard truth like a blade on stone.

Ruola folded her three pairs of wings like closed fans.

She pressed both palms to Xian’s brow, then rose and shook her head like falling snow.

“She’s… gone for good.

Even resurrection won’t bring her back,” she said, calm as a lake at dusk.

“If even an archangel’s rite fails, then my idea’s no use,” Devila said, a dry leaf in his tone.

He’d meant to turn Xian into a vampire, but a body without a soul is a lantern without flame.

Raise the flesh, and you get a mindless thrall, a shell gnawed by night.

Ruola and Devila had no path through this thicket.

Bartley and Eunice had even fewer.

Gods sound gilded, yet their troubles pile like snow on mortal roofs.

“Ouyang, please.

If you bring Xian back, I’ll do anything,” Xi said, knees hitting stone like broken bells.

She knelt, despair pooling like winter water.

With reason fraying like old rope, Ouyang’s mystery became her last candle in a storm.

“Useless.

If even the archangel can’t do it, how would that clown Ouyang manage?” Devila crossed his arms like locked gates and sounded bored as rain.

Bartley and Eunice drifted away from him at once, faces wearing the sign, Cherish life; stay away from Devila.

Head lowered, Ouyang chuckled heh-heh, the sound thin as wire.

“As the last of the Other Shore, you can’t handle a small thing like this?

That’s just sad,” Devila said, cool as moonlight, hair blazing like a field of gold.

The look, the voice, the golden shine—he could slay across ages.

But Xi’s worry hung like a storm over Xian.

Leticia sat quiet in the flower sea, watching Xi and Ouyang like a spring crane; the dashing vampire didn’t exist.

Ruola smoothed her feathers like a patient seamstress.

She couldn’t fly, yet she treasured her wings like a hidden garden.

Eunice, who’d seen Ouyang torment Devila daily, kept her distance like a cat from water.

“Heh… kid, you’ve grown bold, using reverse psychology on me.

Think I won’t smack you?” Ouyang rubbed his hands till his knuckles crackled like firecrackers.

The threat washed over Devila like drizzle on stone.

The vampire didn’t flinch.

“Once we’re outside the castle, can you even beat me?”

The onlookers stepped back like reeds before wind.

Excitement lit Bartley and Eunice like lanterns.

“Haha, we get to watch Lord Devila get stomped again!” Bartley crowed, making Ruola frown in puzzlement.

“Outside the castle, Master can’t beat Devila.

Does Master still have a hidden card?”

Eunice nodded at the archangel’s innocent face like a teacher with chalk.

“That idiot vampire forgot something important.”

She pointed at the long blade on Ouyang’s shoulder like a compass at north.

“I don’t know its rank, but with that Divine Sword, the vampire gets beaten to death.”

They could never forget that day.

Ouyang split the fog-illusion with one stroke, a scar across heaven.

They didn’t know he’d borrowed his future self’s strength, so they pinned the miracle on the Divine Sword.

The sword mattered, yes—but the Ouyang here couldn’t swing that cut again, not yet.

Whoosh—Ouyang gripped the sword with both hands and hacked at Devila in a flurry like rain on bamboo.

“Hmph.

Foolish human.

Even with a supreme artifact, you can’t touch me.

That’s the gap between men and gods,” the vampire said, pride rising like a bright moon.

Outside the castle, Ouyang had lost his anchors.

Only the Divine Sword made Devila wary, a thorn of light.

But invincible offense is smoke if it never lands.

If you can’t touch me, your storm is just wind in leaves.

Swish, swish, swish…

Devila’s little bat wings fluttered like black fans.

No matter how Ouyang swung, the edge cut only air.

“Bat-thing, fight me head-on if you’ve got guts!” Ouyang leveled the blade one-handed, as straight as a winter river.

Devila wasn’t stupid.

“Put down the weapon, and we’re still good friends,” he called, sweet as a snake.

Without the Divine Sword and without the castle wards, he could toy with Ouyang like a cat with string.

Watching their wild turn, Xi’s thoughts knotted like vines.

A breath ago they spoke of Xian; the next, they were fighting.

Were their brains off their hinges?

“In that case…” Ouyang lowered the sword, head bowed like a willow.

His left fist clenched till his teeth clicked like ice.

“In that case, I’ll step down.

You’re throwing a fit because you hate being vice-captain and want the seat.

Fine.

For the future of the Ouyang Demongod Church, for tomorrow of the Ouyang Adventuring Team, I’ll move to the back line.

You take captain.”

And the vampire fell into instant disarray, like a chessboard kicked mid-game.

Bartley and Eunice chimed an oh like gulls over tide.

“Worthy of Lord Ouyang.

For the team’s future, he steps back in pain.

We picked the right crew,” they said, tears glinting like dew.

Eunice dabbed one eye with a finger, sniffling like a flute.

“You old woman, drop the act!” Devila snapped, pointing at the loli-faced goddess like a thunderbolt.

He hadn’t expected Ouyang’s shamelessness to be a river without banks.

He hadn’t expected those two bootlickers to strike like knives.

The elegant vampire burned, a silk robe touched by flame.

But he couldn’t start a real fight; his gut held no iron.

As the last of the Other Shore, he believed Ouyang hid a card that could erase him like chalk.

He also believed Ouyang could bring Xian back.

So why?

Why play dumb?

He was sure Ouyang knew Xi.

Why treat his own people like ice?

Devila’s memory opened like an old wound.

The year was the same shape.

Only the faces changed.

Sisters became siblings; the father who watched his child die became Ouyang in the scene.

Frames overlapped like ghosts on glass.

Because of that merciless father, his sister died in the end…

“Why?

Why are you so heartless to your own?”

The sight before him pulled Devila’s past up like a hook from a deep well.

“Why?

I really have no way,” Ouyang said with a shy smile, like a child caught with ink-stained hands.

“This place is dead.

Unless the Aurora Goddess returns, it stays a cold grave,” he said, truth laid down like winter frost.

Time had drained this land of power; its old magic was a snuffed lamp.

“Besides, her soul was likely taken by Yuan.

What can I do?” he added, the name falling like a stone.

“Yuan?” Xi saw a filament of hope, thin as dawn mist.

Taken is not scattered.

“Think of it this way.

Back then, Yuan slaughtered the three thousand Demon Kings till almost none remained.

Maybe fewer than a hundred survive.

So you want me to butt heads with that kind of creature?” Ouyang said, helpless as a man in rain.

Devila looked at Ouyang’s weary face and felt his anger cool like tea.

Maybe he’d judged wrong.

Xi stopped crying and wiped her swollen eyes like bruised peaches.

“So figure it out yourselves.

If I meet Yuan now, I shake like a reed.

I’ve got a shadow on my heart,” Ouyang said, and to prove it he hunched his neck like a turtle, fear painted plain.

He thought the matter done and let out a stealthy breath like a pinhole sigh.

Then Leticia’s innocent face drifted close like a white moth.

The nearness startled him.

He almost kissed her on reflex, like a spark jumping to dry tinder.

“Maiden, what’s up?”

“Mr. Ouyang, the thing that controlled Xian’s body just now—wasn’t it afraid of your sword?” Leticia said, and her words rang like a bell in fog.

Xi’s gaze turned to blades.

“If you don’t bring Xian back, living means nothing to me.

Worst case, I die with you,” she said, resolve like ice underfoot.

She jolted awake.

A Demon King’s words mix truth and lies like dusk light.

How could she trust so easily?

Ouyang squinted, cheek twitching like a pulled thread.

He hadn’t expected that.

“Mr. Ouyang, did… did I say something wrong?” Leticia asked, face blank as new snow.

Seeing his look, she seemed to catch a glimmer, like a fish under ice.