Devila kept worrying one question, like a pebble rattling in a bamboo bowl: why is fate so absurd?

Before him, the trio and Ouyang pressed square wooden tiles together, like ants stacking leaves. Playing blocks? No, they were raising a tombstone.

When he learned he’d destroyed this city, Ouyang fell into grief like dusk swallowing a hill, and wept to the ash-strewn ground.

He looked guilty, a winter shadow on warm stone. Devila felt a flush of disbelief, cold wind skimming sweat—no way that Demon King truly felt remorse.

“Sigh, the dead are gone. Let’s give this city a tomb, a harbor for the fallen.” Ouyang wiped eyes that stayed dry, a desert behind a well.

“It’s all I can do… Rest easy. I’ll burn joss paper for you each year. Don’t come haunt me.” His voice drifted like incense smoke.

“As expected of Boss, thinking of all living things. Mm, I’m moved.” Eunice dabbed at her eyes with her water-blue mage robe, rain on silk.

Devila noticed her sleeve grew wet, a pond blooming at the cuff. Tears real? That performance cut like a painted blade, frighteningly convincing.

Bartley and Valiant shed no rivers, yet their eyes glowed red, embers in a forge. Restraint with a crack in it.

These goofballs were born for the stage, masks lacquered and smiling. Devila’s heart fluttered like a trapped sparrow—living under masks is terrifying.

“Vice-Captain, I think I heard you badmouthing us?” Ouyang turned slowly, like frost forming. Devila felt an ice pit open under his ribs.

“Ah… haha… no way. You’re hearing things.” He smiled thin as paper, rain tapping a temple eave.

He could never admit it; confession meant a pack-thrashing, like drums rolling toward a storm.

In the end, a certain noble Blood Kin who couldn’t act got edged out, lonely smoke drifting from a camp.

Ouyang and the trio kept tearing at the forest, like carpenters carving a mountain, assembling planks into a giant tombstone. Devila watched, a hawk on a branch.

At last they raised a slab dozens of meters high, a cliff face planted in ashes, solemn as dusk.

They set it at the dead city’s heart, dust swirling like ghosts. Ouyang carved with swift strokes: Tomb of Nether City.

Devila went speechless, words bitten off like strings. Crocodile tears, as fake as painted rain. He sensed something off, a burr under silk, but couldn’t name it.

“Alright, we’re done.” Ouyang clapped, dust blossoming from his hands like dry snow.

“As expected of Lord Ouyang, your wisdom’s beyond us.” Bartley bowed, buttered voice gleaming. Valiant, bluff as granite, bellowed, “Long live Lord Ouyang!”

What was happening? Devila, shunted aside, watched like fog watching lanterns. These goofballs grew stranger by the breath—joy like children at a fair.

“Lord Ouyang, now we just wait…” Eunice bowed neatly to the towering stone, reed bending before wind, then craned up on tiptoe.

“Lord Ouyang, who drew that skull up there? It’s so lifelike!” Her gaze climbed like a vine; her one-point-five meters couldn’t.

Everyone looked up, eyes like moons.

“That’s an actual skull, okay!” Devila lost to their silliness, like a kite cut loose. Stop playing dumb, or you’ll choke on it.

“Vice-Captain, open the portal. We’ll go celebrate.” Ouyang glanced at the skull, then beckoned with a calm that stilled water.

“Celebrate? You’re celebrating a city dying? And in your eyes I’m just the teleport guy?” Devila griped, yet spread magic like a door of light.

Under the eaves, you bow your head—he finally understood, like a reed learning the river’s law.

The portal opened. Ouyang stepped in first, blade of wind cutting silence. As the dangerous lot filed through, Devila’s clenched heart loosened, a knot wet in rain.

Once snake-bit, you fear every rope for years. He remembered their recent prank; his clothes still slick with grease, oil shining like night rain.

Wait…

“Am I an idiot? I could clean grease with a casual spell…” He froze, thoughts stumbling, brain a drum dropped in mud. Brain rot is contagious.

He doubted his IQ, then grabbed a thought like driftwood. “Maybe it’s good. Dirty clothes keep them from wiping hands on me. Clean clothes invite sin.”

With that ironclad reason, his pride smoothed like lacquer. He stepped into the portal, a fish slipping under a gate.

On the other side, Ouyang and the others appeared in a charred ruin, land black as charcoal. A burned ancient tree stood before them, a scorched pillar.

“This place looks familiar…” Ouyang peered left and right, clouds in his eyes, then reached the obvious.

“As expected of Lord Ouyang, recognizing it—amazing!” Valiant clapped fist to palm, worship blazing, tiger eyes wide as drums.

“What’s amazing? You, beastman, are least qualified to talk.” Devila kept that thought caged, iron gate shut. With god-tier memory and analysis, everyone but Valiant already knew.

Goddess of Water Eunice tilted up to the old tree, lake in her gaze. “Huh, this tree isn’t fully dead?”

Devila wanted to say, that’s not the point. The point is the sea of charcoal. He remembered they’d left without snuffing the fire, sparks riding wind.

Worse, he’d left last. If blame fell like rain, it’d soak him. He wiped the thought clean, deleting it in a heartbeat, a page torn.

Often what you fear comes knocking.

“Vice-Captain, you were the last to leave, right? Did you put out the fire?”

“I did.” He answered under self-hypnosis, smooth as silk, quick as a blade.

“Then it’s settled. Not our problem. Let it burn to ash.”

Ouyang had barely finished when the charred tree shed a shining mote, like dew turned to star. It traced a rainbow in the air, bright as festival lanterns.

It drifted closer, and they saw a palm-sized figure, human-shaped, with pointed ears and dragonfly wings, glass catching sun.

“A pixie!?” Eunice named it, a bell in a shrine ringing.

The little fey puffed up, cheeks like steamed buns, and pointed at them. “It’s you. Don’t lie. You destroyed Moer’s home!”

Spotting Ouyang as the mastermind, the pixie shot in and yanked his hair, a sparrow tugging a lion’s mane. “Bad guy, give Moer’s home back!”

Ouyang flicked her with one finger, a pebble skipping a pond, sending her tumbling.

“Ow… You burnt Moer’s house then hit Moer. Moer’s angry, really angry!” She darted again, a spark seeking tinder.

Ouyang swung a slap, wind whistling, yet missed, empty sleeve. Moer plastered his face, bared tiny tiger fangs, and chomped down.

Smack—Devila slapped Ouyang’s cheek, timing crisp as a gong. The pixie reeled, stars spinning, and fainted briefly like a candle snuffed.

That wasn’t the point. Ouyang touched the hot sting on his face, a coal under skin, and confirmed the truth.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“No, Captain. I meant to help, but it turned out like this. I was helping, just… badly.”

Devila spoke without blush or skip, a cloud drifting, leaving Ouyang feeling like he’d punched cotton.

Devila always stood on the side of righteousness, a banner fluttering, no matter his secret motives. Most would swallow it; Devila misjudged.

Ouyang had no bottom line, no need for lofty reasons. The world to him was a chessboard, not a shrine.

“Minions, on him. Beat this bat spirit good. If we don’t teach him, he’ll never learn why flowers are so red. Focus on his face.”

“No, don’t hit the face!”

The trio ignored him, storm drums beating. Valiant charged first, bull in a canyon. Devila braced, then saw Ouyang’s Divine Sword twitch, hungry light.

He despaired, moonlight drained from a pond.

“Kid, if we don’t pound you, you’ll forget who’s boss.”