That year, she left home to become the First Swordsman of the Nine Prisons, like a swallow cutting south through winter wind.

She believed if she tempered herself across worlds, if she kept pressing the edge, she would surpass the legend like a river breaking its banks.

She stepped into the Abyss and paid respects in the Divine Realm, roaming star-famous worlds like a lone comet scratching the dark.

Yet not a flicker of hope showed; every creature who knew that First Swordsman laughed when Amelie voiced her dream, like cold rain drumming on tin eaves.

Was it truly a height no one could climb, a peak iced by the heavens themselves?

She wavered then, like a lantern caught in a draft, for the first time doubting that dream so often mocked.

In that fallen stretch of days, she reached a world called Origin, a quiet spring under stone.

There, she met Ouyang, a rock in the stream.

Wind blew through, lifting dust like pale smoke over a battlefield.

Ouyang and Amelie stared each other down, two statues under a noon sun, neither moving a finger.

To the onlookers, it was the fabled duel of masters, a still pond hiding coiled dragons.

They held their breath like swimmers under ice, afraid a ripple would break the spell.

Because of Ouyang’s background, Amelie always felt that if she wanted to push higher, the Other Shore behind him was the best bridge across the chasm.

To reel her in, Ouyang had bragged oceans into the sky, his tongue a brush painting palaces out of cloud.

The Other Shore’s weight, plus Ouyang’s silver tongue, hooked her like a fish on silk line.

In that time, eager to hone her sword, Amelie sought Ouyang again and again, like flint seeking steel for a spark.

But our Ouyang, that Demon King in chief—how would he dare agree?

On kendo, he was fog over a swamp; sure, he could swing a long blade and cut people down like weeds, but ask him theory and he had nothing but wind.

To keep the dignity of First Seat, to keep his misty mask, he dodged Amelie like a cat stepping around water.

If she cornered him, he made excuses like falling leaves, or he deflected like a reed in the current.

Thus he bluffed his way through those years, and to this day Amelie still hadn’t noticed he was a novice in sword dao, a paper tiger in lacquered armor.

So Amelie held him in wary respect, like a deer watching a silent thicket; she didn’t dare strike first.

And Ouyang? What sword arts did he know—if he lunged first, his mask would crack like thin ice.

He waited for Amelie to move, a hunter waiting for snow to start.

They froze like that, both unwilling to be the first flame in dry grass.

In Irina and Fei’s eyes, this was a clash of shi, momentum piled like storm clouds, spirit and breath coiling tighter as they searched for a gap to unleash thunder.

Another wind swept past; a few leaves fell like green knives.

The moment a leaf kissed the Divine Sword in Ouyang’s hand, it split with a whisper, cleaved into twins by an unseen edge.

It was eerie as moonlight on a blade.

To everyone’s eyes, Ouyang’s sword was blunt, a kitchen knife gone dull, not even fit for scallions.

Yet a leaf just brushing it broke clean in two.

Irina and the others could tell themselves he’d wrapped sword qi around the steel, a heat shimmer over metal.

But Amelie, Kooson, and Valiant knew the truth—Ouyang had done nothing, not even a twitch, like a mountain pretending to nap.

They held the stalemate.

At first, Amelie felt the sword in her hand tremble like a trapped cicada; now she couldn’t tell if it was the blade or her heartbeat shaking the hilt.

Ouyang was still Ouyang—or weaker than before, a candle shortened by wind.

Yet Amelie felt a pressure, formless as fog and heavy as rain, the kind only those deep in sword dao can taste on their tongue.

A blade’s aura pressed on her chest like a cold palm; it startled her like thunder at the door.

Like Amelie, Ouyang was thinking, clouds moving behind still water.

Should he swing once and let the Divine Sword swallow Amelie’s blade like a python taking a hare?

Amelie never drew lightly; she raised her sword by not drawing it, feeding it silence the way you fatten soldiers in peace for one decisive march.

Train a blade a thousand days, draw it for one heartbeat—the old saying was a drum in his ear.

If she’d raised it that long, then her sword was no common iron; if his Divine Sword devoured it…

Catching Amelie’s strange glance, Ouyang calmly wiped the drool at his lip with his left sleeve, like rain brushed from a sill.

Everyone saw his awkward moment, like a flag flapping in a sudden gust.

Xi knew Ouyang’s head wasn’t wired like most, but she still couldn’t map whatever beast lived in there.

This was a master’s duel, starlight tight as strings, and he drooled—did he nap on his feet, or wander off dreaming of food like a stray dog?

She hated to believe the Demon King who led other Demon Kings to conquer world after world was this shambling clown.

The heroes who died resisting him would weep in their graves like reeds in a night wind.

They all guessed at Ouyang’s inner sea, but they could never chart it.

When Amelie saw him wipe his mouth, her right eyelid twitched like a moth wing—bad luck knocking with a fingertip.

While Ouyang worried she’d go mad if he ruined her sword, Amelie suddenly folded her stance away like a fan in evening cool.

She backed down.

Yes—this proud Second Swordsman yielded, wise as a fox leaving a trap.

“My skills fall short. We’ll spar again,” she said, words spare as a winter branch; everyone could hear it—she’d backed off.

It was only a friendly match, a cup of tea on a rainy day, yet she offered no explanation.

She cradled her sword and returned to her usual frost, a cold moon over still water.

Ouyang, for his part, was dreaming of letting the Divine Sword swallow her long blade, not asking it to fully wake—just a sliver, a spark, one ten-millionth of a dragon’s eye.

With that, he’d be an unmatched storm across the stars, climbing the peak of life like a wolf to a ridge, writing an immortal tale in fire.

But in his eyes, that stubborn girl Amelie had yielded.

It wasn’t scientific; by her nature, even staring at death, she wouldn’t flinch—she’d walk into the snow.

Regret heavy as wet cloth, Ouyang slung the Divine Sword over his shoulder and sighed.

“Sigh, life is lonely as need be,” he muttered, posing like a crane on a pine.

For some reason, Xi saw his put-on elegance and felt nettles under her skin.

Lightning crackled in her hands like dry twigs in a stove.

She glanced at Irina and remembered her image, laced her fingers behind her back; the lightning ebbed like tide from a shore.

All the while, Xi smiled gently, a sheathed blade under a silk sleeve.

Wiping cold sweat, Ouyang had no idea what string in Xi had snapped; if she’d dropped a single bolt, he couldn’t have caught it, not with this body.

He wouldn’t die, but the boss aura he’d spent years stacking in Amelie’s mind would blow away like ash.

“Good thing that girl didn’t move,” he thought, breath easing like smoke.

“Fine. When I draw her later, I’ll ditch those ugly old men and switch to vine tentacles.”

He’d been zapped by Xi too many times; how could he not nurse a little revenge, a thorn under the nail?

Now wasn’t the time.

Once things settled, he’d make great art like a potter firing a kiln.

“This world seems to have no lewd comics at all… their sex education is a dry well,” Ouyang’s eyes spun like marbles.

“If I flood the market with smut booklets…”

“Wouldn’t I become the legendary God of Smut? And if I tweak the stories so even beasts can get it…”

The more he thought, the brighter his grin, a fox eyeing a henhouse.

Then faith would pour in without end, a spring under stone.

As a god, mortals pray only when they need, a bell rung at dusk; unless they’re fanatics, few bow daily.

But as the God of Smut, he figured most folks would come every day, a tide kissing the same shore.

The frail might skip a day or two, but even then the river would keep running.

Faith gathered faster than any other god’s, like rain on a tin roof.

He decided on the spot: he’d make it happen, carve it in wood and ink.

Faith is faith, gold coins of incense.

He wiped his mouth again, then finally greeted everyone, warm as a hearth and open as a door.

No one saw the muddy thoughts he’d just waded through.

To think of harvesting faith with smut—he was a rare specimen, a strange blossom after rain.

His gaze drifted over the girls, sketching their curves in his mind like charcoal on rice paper.

If you’re making booklets, the best models are the finest figures under heaven, like peaks against a dawn sky.

He stared too hard.

To the group, he became a greasy creep, a stray dog panting at a butcher’s stall.

Amelie didn’t react, a statue under frost; Irina, hot-tempered, almost smashed him flat with a single punch, a hammer to an anvil.

Even gentle Fei felt prickles all over, like sitting on needles, a lotus on thorns.

“Hey, Nana… is that the Chief Demon King? Why does he seem so… lustful?” Fei tugged Irina’s sleeve and whispered like a mosquito by the ear.

But the Demon Kings present didn’t have mortal ears; her whisper sounded like a temple bell.

Amelie flicked Ouyang a blank glance, a blade of ice, as if to confirm something.

Kooson stared at the sky, a fool watching clouds, wearing an I-know-nothing face like a painted mask.

Valiant rested his war banner on his shoulder and watched the road, a sentinel carved from stone, hearing nothing.

“Tch.” Ouyang clicked his tongue, a pebble hitting a jar.

He knew he’d come on too strong; this sort of hunt takes time, like tea needing a slow pour.

He wanted to slow down, but someone wouldn’t give him the river’s pace.

If his leering eyes had focused only on her, Xi might have let it slide for the group’s sake.

He had already seen her bare as sunrise, so this was almost nothing now.

But that lecherous Demon King had moved his aim to the other girls.

That, she couldn’t stomach; that, she’d strike like lightning from a blue sky.

“Ouyang, your eyes were very… romantic,” Xi said, lightning crackling in her hands like summer cicadas, her face twisted like a storm front.

Sensing the weather shift, Ouyang stowed the mini Chen Castle with a flick, then bolted toward Dragon Gorge beyond the Nightfall Forest, sprinting like a hare from a hawk.

“Stop! Think you can run without explaining?” Xi’s voice chased him like thunder rolling over hills.

But no matter how she shouted, Ouyang ran with the Divine Sword on his shoulder, never looking back, a silhouette vanishing into trees.