In a corridor with no end, Ouyang holed up with Nabelia and Eika in a room while crows outside cawed like black knives skittering on glass. It felt dire, yet the birds never crossed the threshold; they only slammed the door once like a token knock, then spiraled off like soot.

Fear pricked Nabelia before her voice found shape. “Lord Demon King, what do we do?” She wouldn’t flinch at a mere murder of crows, but this inn felt wrong, like marsh fog hiding a sinkhole.

Ouyang didn’t answer; worry sat in his chest like a stone before his hand moved. He eased the door open a sliver, checked for crows or a wild loli like a hunter peeking through reeds, then set his jaw.

“To the very top. That’s where the rot’s rooted.”

Agas had gone easy, and he’d made it blatant, like rain holding back at a funeral. Even that wild loli popped up to spook him and then vanished like a dragonfly. But Ouyang didn’t dare lie down and hope dawn would clean it all. Until the inn’s weirdness was purged, more people would come like tides against a cliff. He couldn’t bank on the second wave being as soft as Agas and Sin. Before word of this place spread like wildfire, he had to get out.

He stepped out and tiptoed, heels floating like a thief over frost. After a dozen steps, annoyance flared like a spark; he slapped his forehead. “What am I even worried about? Just sprint for the roof!”

Resolve surged like a drumbeat, and he ran into the dim like an arrow. With a plan clear as a mountain path, he didn’t look back at Nabelia and Eika. Every heartbeat felt like sand slipping; if Agas and Sin’s mercy leaked, the net would tighten like winter ice. Dragging Nabelia and Eika would be running with millstones in a flood.

He’d even wondered if that wild loli hadn’t gone easy at all, but slipped off to tattle to Agas like a magpie. Then he thought of Sin—too proud to snitch—so why did she pull her punches? The knot stayed like a burr.

Stairs ahead—right turn to go up. He spotted wooden steps jutting out like ribs in shadow and knew it was a way to climb. A middle‑aged man rushed up, breath hitching like a bellows; when he saw Ouyang, his face lit like a storm breaking. “Hey, kid, finally a living soul. We ran from the crows, ran and ran, and suddenly my people were gone like smoke.”

He wore long white robes, and the crown of his head shone bare, ringed by black hair, a classic horseshoe like a waning moon. For no reason he could name, that white robe burned in Ouyang’s eyes like mourning garb, the pale of funerals.

“Kid, you know where the others are? One man in this maze is scary; let’s find them together, eh?”

Ouyang stared at that horseshoe gleam like a target, then nodded once. “Fine—if you can keep up.” He said it, then blasted up the steps like wind through pines.

“Slow down, kid, why sprint? There’s nothing dangerous behind us,” the man called, but his feet bit the stairs like wolves; he stayed glued to Ouyang’s shadow.

Nothing dangerous? Disgust rose like bile; Ouyang almost kicked him on the landing. Nothing dangerous? Then explain the big machete you’re hiding down your back like a crescent moon. If I slow, you’ll lop my head with one clean arc.

A common blade wouldn’t kill Ouyang, but that thing hummed like a relic. A mortal clutching a divine artifact? Suspicious as a fox in the henhouse. Decay curled off the man like cellar air—another puppet dragged up by that heaven‑defying ultimate art, Deathless Resurrection.

Don’t kid me, Ouyang thought, scorn sharp as sleet. Back in the Starry Citadel, your Uncle Ou got chased daily by the city enforcer squad, always reading faces like tea leaves, spotting plainclothes like thorns in velvet. You think hiding a knife in your spine fools me?

He hit the next floor and saw another stairway rising like a ladder to the moon, so he kept running, breath hot as sparks.

“You’re from the Starry Citadel, kid? What a coincidence. Me too. We’re hometown boys; let’s sit, talk future and fate, share tea instead of you flying and me chasing,” the man said, then chopped the wooden handrail with his machete, shards bursting like hail.

“You almost made me believe that,” Ouyang threw back, a slice of mockery like a grin with knives. Then a figure appeared above, and his feet froze like deer in snow; the man behind stopped too, a mirror stall.

She was a girl. Ouyang swallowed, throat dry as sand; the man swallowed too, Adam’s apple bobbing like a buoy. Black hair flowed to her waist, tied with a white ribbon like frost on ink; a pink dress made her look soft as spring petals.

She truly was lovely, a beauty walked out of a scroll. That wasn’t why they halted like stones in a stream. She was famous in the chronicles—Princess Qingmeng. A comet of talent who died young, a genius whose fall left a hollow like a crater. Legend said that the moment she ascended the divine throne, she could raid a star‑beast lair and return alive, blood smoking like meteors.

Many swore she would stand like her elder sister among the Five Emperors of the East. Fate laughed like thunder; an accident took her like a candle in a gust.

Looking at that scroll‑born face, Ouyang’s right eyelid jumped like a drumbeat. Left twitch means fortune; right twitch means calamity. He didn’t think; he bolted down the endless corridor like a rabbit from a hawk.

Wood cracked behind him like lightning splitting a tree, and the middle‑aged man yelped. “Hey—why’re you hitting me too? Stop! Hey, stop—”

He pounded after Ouyang like a dog after a fox. “Kid, get back here, this chick’s nuts—let’s team up and drop her!”

“Baseborn vermin, shut your mouth.”

The voice rang cold as winter water from far behind; Ouyang didn’t need to look to know it was Qingmeng’s frost. The scene echoed the records like a bell. Qingmeng was a born monster of talent; even the God Emperor sighed at her gift. But geniuses often stood alone like lone pines on a cliff. In her eyes, all around were lesser creatures. She wouldn’t party up; she wouldn’t share a hunt.

So, yes, both she and the horseshoe were puppets of Deathless Resurrection, with orders to kill Ouyang like hounds on a scent. But she’d happily cut down “allies” she disliked on the way, like pruning weeds while felling a tree.

“Horseshoe, how many of you got dragged back?” Ouyang knew that art wasn’t true resurrection. When the caster died, the puppets fell like puppets with strings cut. Still, too many names from history walking felt like wolves coming out of old snow.

“How should I know? I woke in a fog like a man pulled from river silt. I just wanted to see the outside sky, and bam—ran into this unreasonable psycho,” the man grumbled, not minding the nickname as he flicked glances back at Qingmeng like eyes on a storm, and forward at Ouyang like a hawk. “Kid, don’t run. We drop her together, and the corpse is yours. Do whatever you want with it.”

“Beat it. I don’t do corpses.”

He wouldn’t take that deal if the heavens cracked. Never mind the horseshoe sharpening his machete for Ouyang’s neck. If Horseshoe and Qingmeng had shown up, others might be prowling the inn like wolves in fog. Stop once, and another shadow might fall like a net.

Another stair up ahead. Ouyang cut the corner like a swallow and sprinted up. The inn felt bottomless, like a well with no stars, but the upper floors smelled of twisted space, a storm‑tang of ozone. Whatever held this place crooked was likely roosting on the top. He didn’t know how many floors there were, but infinity felt like a bluff across a table.

With two shadows clinging like burrs, nerves scraped like bark. Then a spark of hope lit like a lantern. On the stairs again, another figure rose in view. At the sight, Ouyang’s eyes burned wet as dawn. “Dongze, boss—I finally found you—”

A boot flashed, and Ouyang went flying like a kicked gourd.

“Boss Dongze, you died too?”

Before they sealed Ouyang, the black‑haired man had lived just fine, his presence steady as a mountain. He hadn’t thought even this boss would end up a ghost. What happened after?

“Mm. Dead. I thought I was the protagonist, but I still got killed off,” the man said, black coat fluttering without wind like a banner. He sighed, old soul in a twenty‑year face like autumn in spring.

“By Deathless Resurrection’s leash, I can spare your life, but I gotta make trouble for you. Kid, scram.” He smiled bright as a blade in sunlight, teeth white and neat, and rolled his knuckles—crack‑crack like ice breaking.

Seeing that, Ouyang wanted to swear like thunder. Have to make trouble? Then why flash that sunshine grin? You sure this isn’t voluntary? No time to stew; he veered and ran like a hare. Behind him, Qingmeng and Horseshoe slammed into Dongze like waves hitting a boulder.

A heartbeat later, Horseshoe screamed, a pig‑killing squeal ripping the hall. What—was the boss schooling him for me? Not bad, boss. Say you’ll pound me, but secretly help me—so moving. Boss, I’ll never bad‑mouth you again.

Elsewhere, Dongze pounded Horseshoe like a blacksmith at an anvil, fists ringing. Prideful as she was, Qingmeng slid aside like a cat, and didn’t dare toss “baseborn vermin” at him.

“You bald donkey, you dared block my road! If you hadn’t barged in, I’d have turned that Ouyang brat’s face into a pig’s head. I’ve been itching for it like fire. Can’t smash him now? Fine—then I’ll smash you into a pig’s head!”