He ducked through rooms without end, like a rat weaving a honeycomb. Frustration welled first, then thought snapped cold; freaks that should’ve stayed dead kept sprouting like bamboo after rain.

One nagging question kept needling him like a thorn. If they sent killers to hound him, why spawn this many rooms? It felt like throwing nets across a lake yet leaving coves to hide in.

Drop it, he told himself, letting doubt drift like mist. In this room, he met someone. Memory pricked—a flash of a corridor, thirteen faces after the hotel warped. The man in front of him was one of them.

Ouyang remembered the arrogance like a blade’s glare. The man claimed he was from the Land of Light. A citizen of the continent’s biggest empire, he wore superiority like armor and stared down others like a hawk scouring the field. It soured the crowd, like vinegar spilled on rice.

This room looked like a kitchen, walls bristling with tools like a forest of iron. Ouyang’s left hand scooped up a kitchen knife; his right forefinger brushed the blade like snow tracing a cold moon. Brother, he said with a grin, that’s a fine knife. He praised it as if it were a relic, a jeweled saber hiding in soup steam.

“Lower caste,” the blond sneered, chin raised like a rooster at dawn. He fished along the wall and drew a butcher’s knife, thick as winter iron. “Lower caste, how’s this blade? Perfect for slaughtering swine.”

“Yeah, all fine knives,” Ouyang answered, smile soft as spring sun. While the blond glanced aside, he slid his kitchen knife behind his back like a fish slipping under reeds. The word “lower caste” rolled off him like rain off tile.

“Big brother,” Ouyang said, voice light as tea steam. “Rumor says the hundredth floor holds a divine dragon. It grants three wishes. Let’s team up and climb. I’ll take two, you take one.”

“Hmph. Lower caste.” The blond sniffed, pride flaring like a torch. “If I know that, why give you two? All three are mine.”

He wouldn’t stop saying “lower caste,” as if that drumbeat proved his height. The tone was a gilded cage clamped around his tongue.

“No, no,” Ouyang coaxed, like guiding a stubborn ox. “You alone won’t make it. On the hundredth floor, you gotta find seven Dragon Orbs before you can call the divine dragon. You don’t know where they’re hidden. You don’t know what they look like. Without me, no summoning.”

The blond hesitated, a pebble in his shoe. Then he snorted, disdain sharp as frost. “Lower caste, we find the orbs first.”

So Ouyang and the blond sprinted toward that fabled floor, feet tapping stairs like rain on shingles. Truth was, Ouyang didn’t know how many layers lay above. If he guessed the builder’s malice right, there was a seventy percent chance of a full hundred.

He glanced right. The blond ran on his right wing; from Ouyang’s angle, he never saw the man’s right hand do anything. Likewise, the blond couldn’t see Ouyang’s left hand, tucked like a snake coiled behind a rock.

They climbed god knows how many floors. The higher they went, the quieter the air grew, like winter settling on a pond. No more crows wheeling like smoke. No more dead weirdos popping up like mold. Silence threaded the steps like silk.

Finally, a shut door rose at the stair’s crown, barring the path like a slab of night. Usually stairs spilled into a corridor with the next layer humming beyond. This time a door stood firm; only by opening it could they rise.

“This should be the last floor,” Ouyang said, a wry smile tugging like a hidden hook. He knew the rhythm—final boss behind the last gate. Climb to the hundredth floor, slay the boss, rescue the trapped princess. Become a hero, marry into power, ride a sunlit road to the peak.

He shook off the fairy-tale dust. Whatever waited in there could wait. He had another itch to scratch. The blond was ghosting closer, shadow like a cat slipping along a fence.

“Big brother,” Ouyang said, laughter warm then turning cool. “Heads up—I’m not into men. My orientation’s straight. You sneaking up like that? I can’t accept a dude creeping on me.”

The blond froze, anger flaring like sparks popping off a forge.

Caught, he went for it. His right hand flashed; the butcher’s knife leapt like a boar’s tusk. “You Demon King—die!” He chopped. In that instant, Ouyang’s left hand bloomed a kitchen knife, steel ringing like a temple bell as it met the blow.

“Tch.” Ouyang’s eyes narrowed, voice slicing like ice. “Even the Twelve Families of the Sky Council are dumb enough to wade into this muck. Play with fire, get burned.”

Of the thirteen, Agas had killed three. Four belonged to the Sky Council. Take Ouyang and the Nabelia siblings out of the count, and only three were civilians. Ouyang had pegged the blond from the first meeting.

Hard not to—his clothes basically screamed I’m one of the Sky Council’s Twelve Families, like a neon sign hanging from his collar. An assassination on the Demon King is grave business, yet these clowns wore their family colors like parade banners. Did they think Ouyang’s brain was tofu?

“Kill you, and I, Aivis, will be the continent’s savior,” the blond hissed, dreams puffing like incense. “I’ll be the hero adored by thousands.”

Of course. Hearing Aivis mutter was enough. Another fool brainwashed by the Twelve Families. “Kill the Demon King, become the savior”—idiocy polished to a shine. Heroes? They’re usually the first to die. Most get their laurels after death. Facing this wannabe, Ouyang wanted to rap his skull and whisper: Wake up, kid. Since ancient times, heroes die young.

“If your Twelve Families insist on crossing us,” Ouyang said, voice calm as a winter lake, “you’ve accepted extinction. Extinction starts with you.”

To Aivis, Ouyang’s body blurred like heat-haze. Then Ouyang vanished. Warm liquid slid along Aivis’s neck, a creek winding down a cliff. He looked down. Red shone like a banner.

“Impossible… In this place… your power… should…” He didn’t finish. His head parted from his body like a flower cut from stem, thudding and rolling, gulu gulu, across the floor.

“Nothing in this world is absolute.”

Ouyang flicked his kitchen knife, steel bright as lightning. It flew straight and pinned Aivis’s head like a skewer. “If your Twelve Families had kept your tails tucked, I’d’ve let you be. Why rush in like you’re missing a screw, begging for death?”

Clack…

Clack…

He eased the door open, a breath steady as dusk. He didn’t know what waited beyond, but he knew this next opponent wouldn’t pull punches like Agas.

He stepped into the so-called hundredth floor. No endless corridors; no numberless rooms; no walls or ceiling hemming the sky. The world stretched open and empty, a void woven like a quiet sea. Underfoot lay a grid of black and white lines, a chessboard stretched into a plain. Through it, Ouyang saw a silver river running like moonlight, born from the void, lost back into the void.

“Is that the River of Time?” Awe beat first, words chasing after. “Primordial Deities meddle with past and future across time. They must use that river to reach through the ages.”

Above the nothingness, blue chains swarmed like a sky of vines, appearing from the void and sinking into its deep.

“If I’m right, those are the Chains of Fate,” Ouyang murmured, respect rising like tide. “Each chain marks a track of destiny. I’ve only seen them in textbooks. Now I’m seeing them for real. I should thank you all, shouldn’t I?”

At the end of the stretching grid, a purple-haired man with black wings watched him, eyes narrowed like blades. Behind Ouyang, the door clacked shut, sealing like a lid on a jar.

The man’s wings were huge and midnight-black, fluid like raven feathers. Purple markings coiled around his arms, thighs, and face, curling like ancient totems cut in twilight.

“Night Clan… the ‘Prince.’”

Truth be told, Ouyang hadn’t known him. But the moment he saw the man, memory surged like a flood breaking a dam. New knowledge poured in—about the Prince, about this place.

The purple-haired man was the Night King’s son. The only heir. When the Night King fell, the White Empress, Bai, begged for mercy, and the Night Clan’s Prince was exiled into the Rift.

“I thought,” Ouyang said, voice level as a beam, “people from the same starry sky would never partner with you—their blood enemy. I underestimated their bottom line. I figured they were just cowards skulking from their past, running from a sky swollen with dark memories.

Now I get it. They’ve grown used to playing tyrant here. To keep their wind and rain on command, they chose to cooperate with you.”

The Prince’s face twisted, hatred writhing like snakes. He slapped the air. Force struck like an invisible wave. Ouyang flew, body cracking like pottery hit by a hammer.

“Cute theory,” the Prince snarled, teeth bared like a wolf. “But it doesn’t change your reality. In this Rift, the Guardian Angel can’t descend. No one can save you.”

“Secret Art: Celestial Aegis!”

Ochre ripples spilled from Ouyang, widening like rings on a pond.

“Useless,” the Prince said, still distant, fingers pinching the air like plucking a gnat. “Between us stands the gap of god and mortal.” Ouyang’s ochre ring shattered like sand glass.

“Despair,” he crooned, madness foaming like storm surf. “Despair at a gap you can’t flip. Fear. Let fear root you. Let despair rot you. Await death.”

Ouyang watched the Prince with a tired shake of the head, a lantern flickering in wind. He was broken by years that dripped like cold rain. He had married solitude, slept with hatred, and woke to madness.

“What’s that look?” the Prince snapped, voice cracking like ice. “Pity? I need no pity!”

He lunged and tore Ouyang’s arm off, brutal as a tiger ripping a limb. The right arm flew and skidded away like a thrown stick.

“I admit,” Ouyang said, breath thin but steady, “between you and me stands the distance of god and man. But this is the Rift. The ending’s already written.”