The fifth seat of the Demon King Council—Jue, the Undying; his name drifted like ash on a cold wind.

A soul padlocked inside a decaying shell, like iron rusting under seawater.

No one knows what age birthed him, like a star whose light arrives too late.

No one knows his past, like footprints swallowed by dune and night.

Some say he rose in the Fifth Epoch, when black magic roamed like wolves.

Only that era, they say, could temper a thing like Jue, like ice forged in a volcano.

Others disagree, because the rot on him is too strong, like swamp gas eating moonlight.

Even a god’s soul smells of decay around him, like old incense turned to mold.

Immortal gods rotting—what century lies that far behind, like a cliff behind mist?

So some say he predates all calendars, a time like bedrock beneath buried bones.

In the council, a seat doesn’t always mirror might, like rank on paper in a storm.

Top ranks tend to hit harder, like thunder before rain.

But the lower ranks aren’t necessarily weaker, like deep currents under a calm sea.

Many Demon Kings simply won’t bother to fight, like tigers sleeping through noon.

So Cataclysm sits second, yet he knows Jue would gut his odds, like frost biting marrow.

Likewise, the sixth seat, the Plant Fiend, tends flower seas like a harmless breeze.

Cataclysm won’t poke him either, not before he finds the true body and a counter, like a hunter mapping the wind.

“We meant to ambush Ouyang here,” Sword Demon sighed, breath like smoke over steel.

“Who knew he’d erupt and flatten the whole city, like a hammer on clay.

Now it’s a dead city.” He shuddered at the angelic shadow behind Ouyang, like a blade tasting cold rain.

That terror still lingers, a bruise that throbs when clouds gather.

A thorn of doubt pricked him first; the question came after, like thunder chasing lightning.

“What is a Guardian Angel, really? I thought more wings meant more power, like branches on an ancient pine.

They say the Divine Realm birthed a twelve-winged angel, called the Father God.”

Sword Demon knows blades, not lore; his world is edges and echoes, like moonlight on water.

He isn’t a walking library like Cataclysm, who hoards rumors like winter stores grain.

“Guardian Angels…” Cataclysm’s voice went cold and hollow, like wind through a ruined hall.

“They had another name—Ancient Angels. The first angels. No gender. No emotion.

Nothing to desire, nothing to fear, like snow on a silent peak.”

That was an age too old to track, like constellations erased by dawn.

Afterward, the Ancient Angels vanished, like cranes into cloud.

No one knows how. No one knows why.

Then people dreamed angels into shapes, and the new ones came, like clay molded to a wish.

They had sexes. They had their own thoughts.

Their strength rose with their wings, like tiers on a pagoda.

“Later… the Ancient Angels returned,” Cataclysm went on, voice like a slow bell.

“They appear when a hymn rises, like dawn answering a rooster’s cry.

They guard the singer of that hymn, like shields closing around a flame.

Every time a mighty being plays the hymn, one Ancient Angel descends in answer.

That’s a Guardian Angel.

Each appearance carries the will of a God Above Gods, like edicts carved in stone.”

“Then what about Ouyang?” Sword Demon’s brow clenched like a fist.

“Is he a God Above Gods, or does one back him from the dark, like a mountain behind a wall?”

Either way felt fatal first, like a drop over an unseen cliff.

A Realm God would wipe their team, like a wave erasing sandcastles.

An Ancient God was worse, like a storm that tears roots from earth.

A Primordial Deity would kill by a casual murmur, like frost cracking a pond across galaxies.

He wanted to curse that towering ladder, like a man spitting at thunder.

“Don’t panic.” Cataclysm’s words fell like snow that doesn’t melt.

“Ouyang isn’t at that tier. You think I’ve got a death wish?

That kind of power would drown even him, like a river washing out a bridge.

If we don’t aim for a fatal blow, the Guardian Angel won’t show, like bees ignoring a fallen leaf.

As for a God Above Gods behind him—of course.

The Other Shore claims over twenty beings addressed as ‘Your Majesty,’ and that’s a low count, like fish you see from a boat.

You think they didn’t leave backhands, like knives under sleeves?”

“Besides, we have no retreat,” he said, cloak drifting like smoke over graves.

“If we don’t do this, we die now, like candles in a gust.

If we live one more second, we still have a sliver of dawn.”

His cloak fluttered, and helplessness bled through, like twilight leaking into day.

“Cataclysm, tell me the truth.” Sword Demon’s tone slid cold, like steel through silk.

“Who is that lord we serve?”

He works for the man, yet he knows nothing, like a blade without a hilt.

Cataclysm, the know-it-all, must know a thread, like a spider holding a strand.

“Don’t bother asking. I know nothing.” Cataclysm shook his head, like a willow shedding rain.

Sword Demon didn’t buy it; the lie rang hollow, like a cracked bell.

Cataclysm was the one who dug up Ouyang’s black history at Starry College, like a crow finding bright trinkets.

“Enough. Time to pull back,” Cataclysm said, voice like a latch falling.

“I have zero confidence against Jue, like a match in a storm.

And after being around Ouyang lately, I’m sure we can’t kill him, like arrows against a mountain.

That lord knows it, or never expected us to succeed.

He told us to play it by ear. So we just disgust Ouyang, like grit in a boot.

Not face to face. We needle him in the dark.

That’s likely the plan.”

As Sword Demon and Cataclysm vanished, Jue stood outside the City of the Dead and watched the tower, expressionless as stone.

“Hey, you’re just letting them go? Boss Ouyang will blow his top,” a black skeleton clacked beside him, like bones in a sack.

They had sensed the two from far off, like thunder before rain.

But Jue strolled as if blind, like a cat ignoring mice.

The Lich alone couldn’t win anyway, so he pretended not to see, like a fisherman eyeing storm clouds.

Jue looked toward the city, where ghosts drifted like fog.

“Ouyang only told us to manage this City of the Dead,” he said, voice like a still pond.

“He didn’t tell us to catch those two.

No need for extra moves, like steps off a cliff.”

Cataclysm feared Jue, and Jue feared Cataclysm, like tigers circling in tall grass.

Any Demon King in the top ten wasn’t simple, like deep wells with covered mouths.

Each kept a hidden card, each could try for Realm God, like arrows pointed at a higher sky.

Jue knew Cataclysm was born from a dark artifact, ancient as buried iron.

It was a nameless relic few had ever heard of, like a myth trapped in amber.

That artifact once sowed countless cataclysms across the starry void, like storms sweeping a sea of lamps.

Comets smashed some worlds; life died to the last leaf, like frost after harvest.

Moons crashed into others; they shattered like glass under a hammer.

Still others were riddled by meteor swarms, like leather punched by a thousand awls.

That cataclysm scoured myriad worlds, and the source was that dark artifact, like a heart beating beneath an earthquake.

It could tug planets with its own force, across impossible ranges, like a net cast over the sky.

Power like that speaks for itself, and a being born from it made Jue wary, like a wolf hearing a bigger wolf.

Sword Demon wasn’t simple either, like a river with a hidden whirl.

He was once a sword—a demon sword—cold as winter iron.

At the end of the Second Epoch, an Unbeaten God Emperor slew a thousand gods, like scythes through wheat.

He crowned himself a God Above Gods, riding a hymn of slaughter, like drums calling thunder.

Later, a peerless Killing God stalled at Primordial Deity and tried to imitate that path, like a shadow chasing the sun.

He wrought massacre without number, and the Supreme Law chained him, like vines binding a stone idol.

An Ancient God forged a demon sword from the blood of those slain god-level beings, like quenching steel in molten dusk.

Its birth alarmed the Divine Realm, like wolves howling across a valley.

The Supreme God of Light struck and shattered the blade, like lightning through a dead tree.

The sword spirit fled and became the Sword Demon, like a spark nursing itself into flame.

None of them are simple, like chess pieces that bite back.

Jue wouldn’t stuff himself with trouble by chasing those two, like swallowing thorns.

The City of the Dead seethed with wandering souls, like dandelion seeds in a stale wind.

Jue climbed the tower and looked down on them, like winter over a field.

“From today, I am the City Lord of this City of the Dead,” he said, voice flat as slate.

“Disobey, and your soul will vanish, like dew under noon sun.”

“I’m the vice–City Lord,” the Lich added, jaw clacking like castanets.

“Naughty children, my lab loves you,” he crooned, like a spider praising silk.

He had no vocal cords, yet sound crawled out of bone, like wind through reeds.

City Lord? The souls wavered like reeds in a slow current.

Dead, yet ruled? The thought curdled like milk.

“No,” one ghost cried, voice thin as frost.

“I won’t be ruled. I’m dead, so I’ll be a free ghost.”

He drifted for the gate like smoke seeking a crack.

Others joined, voices like crows taking wing.

They streamed out of the city, black and whispering, like a night tide pulling back.

Jue and the Lich stood on the tower and didn’t move, like statues in a storm.

To them, that flurry meant nothing, like foam on a breaker.

“Anyone else leaving?” Jue asked, voice level as a ruled line.

It was quiet, yet every ghost heard it, like a bell tolling inside the skull.

The words rose from their own soul-depths, like bubbles from a sunken well.

Some felt that and froze, like rabbits sensing an eagle’s shadow.

Anyone who could do this wasn’t simple, like iron under silk.

“Then the rest of you are citizens of the City of the Dead,” Jue said, gaze like frost.

“As for the disobedient ones, they’re yours.”

The first line fell over the ghosts like rain; the second flicked to the Lich, a black skeleton under a pale sky.

The Lich nodded. The green flames in his skull burned brighter, like willows lit at dusk.

He clawed at empty air and dragged out a ghost, like a fisherman yanking a net.

His left hand kneaded it into a ball, like dough under a palm.

His right hand grabbed again and hooked another ghost, like hooking a carp.

He mashed them together, hiss by hiss, like tar merging in heat.

And again. And again. His hands moved like millstones.

Time bled unclear, like sand through a cracked jar.

At last the Lich stopped. The disobedient ghosts were spent, like a storm wrung dry.

Before him swelled a twisted lump, born from forcing countless ghosts together, like a hive cast from sorrow.

It howled and wailed and despaired and wept, a chorus like winter wolves around a lonely fire.