The Demon King’s City was still itself, a fortress of rumor and stone, while in the Outer Domain every race bustled like ants after rain.

Inside Ouyang’s castle, a vast circular sigil hung in the air, black as ink; sparse lights flickered like dying embers, and at its heart a sun–moon emblem glowed like a guttering lamp.

Weariness pressed on him like a mountain at dusk, then purpose cut through: under the laws’ blockade, only wish‑force could unseal the gate, like chords needing resonance across a canyon.

On the far side it was their home turf, a field already thick with harvest; on his side, the road stretched long as a winter river.

He stared at the dim array and sighed, a breath like wind over ashes; one man harvesting wish‑force would take ages like stone eroding under rain.

Distrust rose first, sharp as frost, then thought followed; letting others collect it felt like handing your heartbeat to strangers.

So he settled the plan like a stake in earth: merge the wish‑force array with the Demon King’s City itself, and let people’s emotions fall in like rain.

From that angle, if the Demon Kings stirred the world like a storm, the City’s name would spread like wildfire, and wish‑force would surge like a tide.

It would echo the old Eternal Empire, a crown spanning countless worlds, the empire itself a vast field reaping the feelings of all living things.

Resolve clicked into place like a lock; he had to go to Terracafe and pray the Nightfall Clan still held that method, or else chase those three scoundrels.

He decided on Terracafe, a step like boot on stone; the imperial line that ruled worlds wouldn’t have left without a hidden legion.

If the Nightfall Clan boarded his ship, his cross‑realm empire would stand like a banner in wind, and a broad empire could gather wish‑force like nets hauling a full catch.

“Lord Ouyang, the fine black tea is ready,” came a voice, light as steam curling from porcelain.

A rabbit in a black butler’s suit carried the tray in, ears like quills; the Jade Rabbit now walked upright, the self‑styled butler of the First Demon King in the Demon King’s City.

Ouyang took the cup, sipped, the heat like a small hearth; “Rabbit, you took Valiant to hunt your enemy—how did it go?” His memory held that immortal human like a thorn in bark.

The Jade Rabbit’s ears drooped like wilted leaves; “My shame’s heavy as rain, my lord. That human’s slippery as oil—he sensed me, and I sensed him.”

“I hide in deep mountains like shadow under pines, but the moment I jumped into the human realm like a startled deer, he grew suspicious and vanished like smoke.”

Bottom line hung like a cracked bell: “I couldn’t find him.”

“So that’s how it is,” Ouyang said, his tone flat as slate; “I thought you’d settled it. Did your clan move over?”

“They all moved,” the rabbit brightened like a dawn stripe; “We placed them in the south of the Outer Domain, where the soil is rich and radishes take root like fat fingers.”

Fertile soil, radishes alive like red torches—those rabbits had seized the best loam like plow teeth biting gold, and humans grumbled like thunder under their breath.

They had wanted rice fields swaying like seas of green, but they couldn’t budge the Black Rabbit clan, not with the First Demon King’s butler wearing black like law.

The Jade Rabbit drew lines like a cartographer and claimed the finest land as if it were a garden behind a palace gate.

Humans, elves, dwarves, goblins—curses buzzed like flies, calling the Jade Rabbit a bookless bandit and the Black Rabbits cruder than orcs under a storm.

“I’m going to Terracafe,” Ouyang said, voice steady as a blade; “You watch the castle.”

The rabbit flinched, eagerness bright as lantern light; “My lord, take me. I haven’t moved with you in ages, like a bow left unstrung.”

It had walked with him only briefly, then he’d sent it off with Valiant; before that, back before the end times, the Demon Kings had roamed unsealed like wolves under stars.

By one measure the Jade Rabbit was Ouyang’s creation, kin forged like iron from the same fire; to a child parted from family, reunion feels like spring after snow.

Seeing those expectant eyes, bright as pools under moon, Ouyang nodded like a quiet bell.

He stepped through the castle gate, face twitching like a thread in wind; just beyond was Yulan’s lair, a plant‑demon’s home grown as a hollowed giant tree.

Around that tree, flowers swelled like a sea at noon, studded with countless Man‑eating Flowers, their maws bright as lacquered knives.

They spilled over the wall like vines gone feral, ravaging into Ouyang’s courtyard like a flood through a breached levee.

Past patience, he spread the castle’s barrier like a glass dome, a shield to stop more of those Man‑eating Flowers from storming in.

He hadn’t kept the barrier up in the Demon King’s City, trusting calm like a lazy cat; now he knew he’d been wrong, and this odd land needed iron fences.

Black flames licked from his fingers like ravens, turning a heap of Man‑eating Flowers to ash that drifted like cold snow.

He sighed, the sound thin as reed wind; “Let the Inner Domain gain a few normal folks—staying beside these odd neighbors, I’ve had my fill.”

Even so, not just anyone earned entry like a seal on silk; few had the right to step into the Inner Domain at all.

“Rabbit, keep watch,” he said, words clipped like knives; “Don’t let those strange next‑door things hop this way.”

“Yes, my lord,” the rabbit said, ears up like spears.

Muttering under his breath like a creek in stones, Ouyang left with the rabbit; the Inner Domain’s layout was broad as a parade ground.

Each Demon King held a square of land big as four football fields, fenced by rails or walls like chessboard lines.

Between those plots, bluestone roads crisscrossed like river channels, cutting the gaps into neat lanes.

Unlike the Outer Domain, where living folk popped up like birds at dusk, the Inner Domain sat still as a pond, empty roads yawning like dry riverbeds.

It made sense; the Inner Domain was vast as prairie, and fewer than twenty beings moved inside, with Demon Kings wandering out like hawks on the wind.

After a time, they reached a gate, a mouth in a wall of obsidian gleaming like night ice.

The gate itself was a phantom, formed by cyan light like mist; crystal lamps on both sides shed a green glow day and night like foxfire.

Two skeletons guarded the passage, their skulls tipped with bull horns like carved ivory, bone armor stained dark red like blood‑soaked lacquer.

Black flames burned on them without end, candles of the void; creatures of the Outer Domain gave them wide berth like ships steering off a reef.

No one dared slip past those dread bones to pry into the Inner Domain, a hush like grave soil hanging over the threshold.

When Ouyang and the rabbit reached the gate, the skeletons fell to one knee like statues waking; Ouyang nodded to them and stepped into the Outer Domain like a shadow crossing light.

Passersby saw this and staggered back like leaves before wind; only a Demon King could draw such honor from the gate’s guardians.

“A Demon King walking out of the Inner Domain—are they set to wipe out a nation?” someone whispered, fear thin as a flute.

“Shh,” an artist‑looking fellow hissed, tugging a chatty youth away like a parent leading a child; “Watch your tongue, or trouble will find you like lightning.”

Ouyang kept his black wings furled, quiet as knives in a sheath, but the Jade Rabbit’s presence shouted his identity like a drum.

Few knew Ouyang’s name, but the rabbit was famous as a market tale, the First Demon King’s butler, known in every corner of the Outer Domain.

“Rabbit, what did you do?” he asked, tone dry as sand; “Why does everyone know you?”

“My lord, I’ve no idea,” the rabbit said, baffled as mist over water.

He let that empty question die like smoke; soon they reached the Outer Domain gate, plain as a farmhouse door compared to the Inner Domain’s grim mouth.

The guards here looked ordinary as field stones, and nothing like the skeletons that watched the Inner Domain, those pillars of flame.

“Rabbit, these guards—orc, human, barbarian—who formed them?” Ouyang asked, curiosity like a pebble flicked down a well.

The Inner Domain’s skeletons were his craft, but the Outer Domain’s gate was a different story, and Demon Kings rarely cared for the Outer Domain’s gossip.

“My lord, the Outer Domain had no guards, no patrols,” the rabbit said, words marching like boots; “Then came the Man‑eating Flower incident.”

“A multi‑race allied force beat them back like a fireline, and that made them crave an army like farmers crave rain.”

“Lord Wutong agreed like a nodding oak, and that’s how we got today’s setup,” the rabbit finished, voice steady as rope.

Man‑eating Flowers, he thought, a memory fluttering like a black leaf; he didn’t realize those were the ones he’d tossed out.

He didn’t dig deeper; to the Outer Domain, the Inner Domain’s ‘trash’ fell like meteors—disaster from a careless hand.

When Ouyang and the rabbit drew near the gate, the guards stirred like a coop of chickens, loud and bright.

“That rabbit—it’s that rabbit!” someone barked, anger hot as a pan.

“Damn rabbit, I’ll roast it,” another growled, saliva like a wolf’s.

“Cabbage stewed with rabbit—now that’s a dish,” a third mused, hunger like a drumbeat.

Ouyang glanced back, sardonic as a thin smile; there was a story coiled there like a vine, but the rabbit offered no word, and he let it be like a stone left unturned.

“Quiet!” the Jade Rabbit snapped, voice cracking like a whip; “The Demon King is present—show respect instead of braying like donkeys.”

“Demon King?” the front guard squinted at Ouyang, seeing a clean‑cut man like a student instead of a storm crowned in wings.

But no one in the Demon King’s City dared joke about gods walking; the rabbit wouldn’t risk a jest like a man dancing on a cliff.

“Captain Andy of the Seventh Gate Squad, Outer Domain, greets the Demon King,” a thirty‑ish man said, right hand on his spear like a staff.

He drove the spear butt to the ground and dropped his right knee, and the other guards followed like stalks bending in wind, kneeling to Ouyang on one knee.