The Sealed Land was a place that made the whole continent shiver, fear pooling like winter fog in a ravine.

It wasn’t dreaded because it supposedly held the most Demon Kings; legends felt like campfire stories blown thin by wind.

People shrugged at ancient tales like old banners fraying in rain, yet the dread clung because danger bloomed there like poison thorns.

The Sealed Land was a dead-black plain, soil like cold ash; anything born from it came out twisted, like shadows learning to crawl.

A prince once rode in on a white horse, the saddle creaking like ice; ambition burned in him like a lantern.

He met a beautiful princess by chance, her smile like moonlight on water; he fought monsters like storm-swept waves.

He beat trap after trap, teeth snapping like iron; by their wit and grit, he led the self-styled fallen princess out.

Up to there, it read like a bedtime tale, the kind whispered like warm tea on a chill night.

Its ending was easy—prince and princess, a life of happiness—like a painted screen with no cracks showing.

But the folk version didn’t stop there, the hush deepening like dusk; adults kept the rest back, to spare the children.

The prince’s servants whispered he’d gone mad, their doubt crowding like crows; in their eyes, no princess stood there at all.

He seemed to speak to the air, words drifting like smoke; their fear knotted tight like rope.

A year later, the prince died in his bed, breath gone like a snuffed wick; morning found him cradling a skull like a lover.

A year after that, someone saw him on the rim of the Sealed Land, hand in hand with a pretty girl, dancing by a glass-dark lake.

The eerie tale stirred a bishop of the Light Church, resolve hardening like steel; he led paladins and priests from the Land of Light.

They crossed leagues like ants over parchment, seeking the rumored lake where silence hung like frost.

At the shore, they found two corpses, bodies stilled like fallen statues; a man and a woman embraced like vines.

Word sped back to the prince’s kingdom, a hawk’s cry in court; the local Light Church defied the king and opened his tomb.

The tomb was empty, hollow as a scooped shell, its echo cold as stone.

Their inquiry said one skeleton by the lake was the prince, the bone-speak clear as winter stars.

They judged he’d been dead three years, a calendar washed clean; that was when he entered the Sealed Land.

So who came home two years before, wearing his face like a mask?

No one knew, and no one dared pry deeper; fear sealed lips like wax.

Those investigators died a year later, deaths coiled like mist; more bones turned up by that same lake.

The Sealed Land was ominous and strange, a drumbeat of doom; such cases dotted history like black sparks on parchment.

Any who went deep met their fate in a year, the pattern locked like knotwork; another year, bones lay at the Lake of Death.

Some say in its depths sleeps a monster that could break the world, a shadow vast as night.

If it breaks free, the stars go dim like embers, and sun and moon shatter like porcelain under a hammer.

What waits in the deepest dark?

No one has answered in a thousand years; the question hangs like a blade.

On the black earth, sparse weird plants rose like bent nails; the dwarf Bartley trudged under orders from Ouyang.

He’d come to release the sealed Demon Kings, his confidence bright as brass; taboo felt like a fence meant for mortals.

Now, his contempt had drained away, dread crawling like ants; the Sealed Land was too strange, too close to the bone.

He felt something terrible sleeping in its depths, a breath like cold iron, a beast that never blinked.

Since following Ouyang into this world, wonder had sharpened like a knife; this place made that knife bite.

What was sealed here? Even sealed, those sleepers sighed terror like winter storms behind doors.

Regret churned in him like black water; if time could turn back, he would refuse Ouyang and flee this place.

He was a god, and though the world’s will had pinned him to a Demigod’s strength, his knowledge stood like towers.

Here, those towers did nothing; every rule broke like thin reeds in wind.

He couldn’t recall the last sun he’d seen; time felt stalled like a frozen clock.

The land had no edges, distance yawning like a mouth; he’d walked long enough to circle half a world.

Still, the black barrens held him, flat and endless like ink spilled across stone.

Despair pressed in, heavy as rain; then a parasol pricked the horizon like a lone sail.

He drew closer, steps crunching like dry bones; it was a person beneath the shade of an Oil Paper Umbrella.

The umbrella was strange, old and yellowed like pressed leaves; he’d never seen that style in any age.

The figure looked first like a beautiful woman, then like a beautiful man, a face shifting like ripples.

Ouyang came to mind; this one had the same black hair, the same black pupils, eyes dark as obsidian.

“Bold, aren’t you,” the voice drifted, cold as sleet.

“A mere lowest god, walking into this place.”

The ancient Oil Paper Umbrella turned gently, its paper whispering like moth wings; Bartley knew it was Wutong.

Seeing anyone alive here should have felt like spring, but wariness spiked like bristles; survivors here were never simple.

“Speak your purpose, dwarf.” Wutong looked down like a noble at a peasant, disdain sharp as a blade.

Dwarf—he hadn’t heard that in an age; the word bit like salt.

“I… came by Lord Ouyang’s order,” he said, anger banked like coals, “to release the sealed Demon Kings.”

“Ouyang?” Wutong let the Oil Paper Umbrella float, spinning like a slow star.

“That idiot. For his sake, I’ll take you there. Follow me.”

The tone stayed lofty, but the edge dulled a shade, like iron wrapped in cloth.

Bartley had no choice; caution sat on his shoulders like a hawk.

He kept distance, steps measured like drumbeats, watching for teeth behind smiles.

They reached a lake black as ink; in its center stood a huge oval stone, planted like an egg of night.

A stele pierced the shore like a gray spear; its writing curled like vines he couldn’t read.

Wutong touched the stele, fingers light as rain; ghostly light streamed out like a river toward the lake.

A Yulan-blue bridge unfurled between stele and stone, glow cold as frost; at the stone, a door opened like a cut in the dark.

“Behind that door is the end of the Sealed Land,” Wutong said, voice steady as bells.

“The Demon Kings are sealed inside.”

“Two things to remember,” the words clicked like beads.

“First, once you step onto the bridge, you go to the end. Don’t look back.

If you do, you’ll forget everything behind you, memory blown away like ash.”

“Second, beyond the door, not only Demon Kings sleep. There are worse things.

They’re asleep. Pray you don’t wake them.”

Worse than Demon Kings—his eyelids twitched like startled birds; questions rose like steam.

He turned—and Wutong was gone, vanishing like mist; dread pooled heavy as lead.

How would he tell who was a Demon King and who wasn’t, in a dark full of teeth?

If he woke the wrong thing, the world might crack like glass.

As he hesitated, a sudden boot hit him, blunt as a hammer; he stumbled onto the Yulan-blue bridge.

Who kicked him? The question flashed like lightning; he started to turn, then seized the warning like a lifeline.

Don’t look back.

Doubt gnawed his gut like rats; then fighting rang from behind, metal singing like winter wind.

“Cataclysm. Sword Demon. So it’s you insects.” Wutong’s voice was empty of warmth, cold as iron on tongue.

Bartley knew a third faction had arrived; the kick had come from them, not Wutong.

He swallowed hard, the taste of sand in his mouth; he set his foot and moved forward into the blue.