As everyone’s attention narrowed onto Ouyang, Collin, who’d been knocked out cold, swayed like a buoy and pushed himself up.

“What’s going on? Something hit me, by the One God—” Before he finished, another black shape dropped like a stone from the sky. The world stayed blurred; a second thump snuffed him out again. Poor kid—what karma did he stir.

Seeing another innocent scorched by the blast, Queyas told his men to rinse the man’s face so he could identify him. Clean water flashed like glass. After a quick wash, a face surfaced for all to see.

A middle-aged man, his skin laced with black lines like dried riverbeds. It was Lagu, beyond doubt. Ouyang’s “air-drop cannon” had too wide a radius; in the end, Lagu couldn’t escape.

“Stubborn vitality…” Queyas noticed the other charred figure was breathing too. He looked to Jelinka, seeking her call.

“Bring them both,” Jelinka said. In cases like this, she wouldn’t usually send injured strangers to the palace. But one was a familiar face, so she took both. If she only brought Ouyang and the other turned out to be his friend, then what? Better to take them both.

A dim sky, a dead earth, buildings stitched from concrete and rebar. Towers lay collapsed like trees snapped by a typhoon. The pavement was a mosaic of cracks, and weeds crept in like silent water. Half-ruined high-rises were wrapped in green vines. This was an abandoned city.

Ouyang stood on the deserted street, adrift. The place felt familiar and foreign in the same breath, like a hometown glimpsed through fog.

Concrete streets. Skyscrapers that stabbed the clouds. All of it spoke of memory. Yet grasses blanketed the ground, and vines climbed the facades, and that strangeness gnawed like frost.

Sunset stretched the buildings’ shadows into long black blades. He glanced down and saw nothing under his feet. No shadow.

“What does that mean? That my essence is absence?” A sour tangle swelled in his chest—anger, revulsion, then a dull ache that bled like rain.

Head bowed and thoughts in knots, he felt a hand tap his shoulder. Very light, like touching porcelain, as if a breath too hard would shatter it.

He turned. Another Ouyang, a mirror made flesh, stood looking at him.

“Another me. This is our first meeting, isn’t it...” The other’s voice was gentle, easy, like friends under a eave in drizzle. “I know what keeps you up…”

Ouyang just listened. The sun on the rim of the world never sank. It held at its most brilliant, the sky stuck in a forever-dusk that refused to yield to night.

No telling how long passed before the other Ouyang stopped. “I’ve said what I should. Believe me or don’t—it’s your choice. Still, I truly hope you’ll inherit my will and carry my dream forward. At least, the dream of going home to see it one last time… That unreachable dream can only rest on your shoulders.”

“I want to see everyone again, to see the compatriots who survived… But I’m a soul already gone to mist, long since dissolved into nothing.”

Words crowded Ouyang’s throat and wouldn’t come. He looked up into that familiar face, like looking into a still mirror. “Do you regret it?” he asked softly. Truth be told, the answer had set long ago, the moment he chose to call himself a Void Messenger.

“Regret? Heh… The moment I decided to drag the Night King and the White Empress into the void, I had no more choices. Regret or not, what changes? There’s no true rewind in this world.”

Listening to him, Ouyang’s heart twisted like wind in reeds. He’d always believed he was just a vessel, a container to resurrect the real Ouyang. But the moment they met, the worry fell away.

It was that simple. No grand reasons. Like family separated for years, and at first sight, trust rises like warm light for no reason at all.

“Then I’ll wait at the place where it all began. When the time comes, I’ll hand everything over—at the beginning.”

The world blurred, soft as fog over water. Ouyang knew it was the edge of waking.

Right before a wash of white light tore the world open, that familiar voice came again: “Oh, one more thing—beware Original Sin. What Dream Chaser made isn’t as simple as it looks. Of the three divine artifacts, that book is the most—”

The rest was swallowed as the world shattered.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, then stretched his limbs.

“Ss…” Pain rippled through him like cold fire. How long had it been since he felt pain like this? Morning sunlight poured through the window, bright but not hot, a gentle blade of gold.

“Saved, huh?” He forced his battered body upright. He kicked something. A dull thud answered from the floor. He scanned the room. In his eyes it was nothing special, but for mortals, this layout was luxury.

The bed’s fabric was fine as mist, the window’s wood rich as amber, the flagstones smooth as river-worn slate. All of it costly.

Looking closer, Ouyang found someone lying at the foot of the bed. Black hair like his. Skin veined with black markings like creeping ink. Lagu—if Ouyang wasn’t mistaken. A remnant of the Night Clan.

“Good… very good…” he muttered. He ignored the bandages binding him. On the table, a pair of scissors glinted like a thorn. He moved lightly, step by step, then lifted them in a careful grip.

The instant steel touched his palm, he spun. “Beast, die!” He stabbed for Lagu’s spot, his speed faster than his own eyes could follow.

“Did it work?” Had Ouyang cut down a Night Clan remnant and cleared a blight for the people? Had he avenged the fallen souls? The scissors struck stone with a sharp clang, and the recoil sent pins of numbness up his arm.

He turned. Lagu stood clutching a fruit knife, eyes wide and locked on him.

Rewind to before Ouyang woke…

Lagu opened his eyes and figured Ouyang had blown him to bits. He blinked at the room and realized he wasn’t dead. He rolled over and saw Ouyang asleep right beside him. Panic leapt like a fish; he shrank back by instinct. Ouyang had ruined him, and Ouyang frightened him.

After a while, he cooled down and saw Ouyang still didn’t stir.

“Heh. After long years, I, Lagu, will be the first to kill an otherworlder. The blood of the Other Shore flowing in you will break the God Emperor’s curse on our Night Clan.”

His hands crept toward Ouyang’s throat, ready to choke the life from him in sleep. He paused. Choking wasn’t sure. Not a clean kill. If the other fought back, he might pay with his own life.

He rolled and spotted a fruit knife on the table within easy reach. No need to leave the bed. He grabbed it; his heart thudded like war drums. He knew even a dozen stabs to Ouyang’s heart wouldn’t kill him. A mere fruit knife couldn’t slay a man with a godly body.

But he only needed Ouyang’s blood. That was enough to lift his curse.

Closer. Closer. The thrilling instant drew near. One push, and the blade would sink into Ouyang’s throat.

Unexpectedly, Ouyang stretched lazily and kicked the edge. Lagu, perched there, toppled like a sack. Already badly hurt, he fell and blacked out for a breath. That’s why Ouyang found him still “sleeping.”

The moment Ouyang seized the scissors, Lagu snapped awake and slipped aside.

Two figures swaddled in bandages faced off. One held scissors. One held a fruit knife.

“Beast, drop the weapon!” Ouyang flashed the scissors like a fang and tried to cow him. Lagu wasn’t a fool. “Idiot, I’m going to use your blood to—”

Ouyang didn’t bother listening. He slashed with the scissors.

Steel rang, bright as sparks. In moments they both flagged, strength leaking like water. Under the harsh collisions, scissors and fruit knife flew from their hands.

No weapons didn’t slow the killing urge. With godly bodies, common steel couldn’t end either of them. Neither stooped to pick the blades up. They lunged into each other, fists first, knuckles chewing flesh and bone.

Lagu looked the bulkier and pinned Ouyang to the floor. “Hmph. I’ll pound you flat, idiot!” His fist crashed into Ouyang’s skull. Stars burst behind Ouyang’s eyes. The second punch arced down.

At the brink, ice-cold cunning pricked through the haze. Ouyang’s hands shot to Lagu’s crotch. His fingers found their mark. He clamped down.

“B—bastard…” Lagu’s raised fist halted midair. “Let go…” Wariness crept through his grit teeth.

Ouyang chose his moment and drove a punch into Lagu’s crotch.

“Ah!!”

Lagu folded, both hands clutching himself, a portrait of agony. Ouyang rubbed his knuckles and drawled, arrogant as winter wind, “Sigh. Not one worthy opponent. Life, lonely as snow…”