“Vice Captain, got anything to eat? It’s a crime to face a night like this without something tasty.” Ouyang’s craving rose like steam in cold air, and Devila ignored him like stone in rain.

“Eternal loli, go rustle up some snacks.” His tone was light, his hunger a small drumbeat under the moon.

The little goddess drifted down the slope toward the lake, quiet as a blue wisp sliding over grass. Ouyang lay on the meadow, baffled, his doubt like mist over still water.

Whoosh, whoosh. The lake reared up in pillars, like serpents of glass lunging uphill.

“Food? Hee-hee, then let’s have a feast of water.” Eunice, goddess of water, smiled like a crescent moon and flicked her wrist. One column after another hammered the bank like drums of rain.

“Meow the hell, who’s disturbing Lord Cat’s sacred nap…” White Cat had been sprawled on Augustine’s head like a snowcap. Augustine ducked the first blast in a panic and forgot the cat. One hard turn, and White Cat hit the turf like a dropped pillow, tail raised high like a flag of outrage.

“Cat Lord, dodge!”

Dodge?

Before White Cat could blink, a water jet drenched him head to tail. “Mrow~” His fur stood like bristling pine needles, and golden lightning crawled over him like fireflies after a storm. The crackle sang sharp as dry twigs snapping.

Ouyang flashed past White Cat like a shadow crossing a lantern. White Cat opened his mouth to accuse, and a fat waterball smacked him squarely. It had been meant for Ouyang; the man slipped by, and fate handed the splash to the cat.

“Meow the hell!”

The zzzzt of lightning grew shriller, like a hive waking at dawn. Ouyang crouched behind a thick tree, heart thumping like a drum. “Oh, crap. This cat’s about to cast the forbidden spell—One Hundred Thousand Volts! Run!”

One Hundred Thousand Volts? Augustine and the others didn’t know the trick, but the words “forbidden spell” rolled like thunder across their nerves.

“Little brat, Lord Cat’s endured you long enough!” White Cat pegged Eunice as the culprit and fluffed up like frost on a boulder. He couldn’t beat Ouyang’s mouth, and Devila was fifty-fifty before he recovered. But this pint-sized not-even-god dared challenge the pride of the White Cat?

Unforgivable.

“Mrow~ Taste Lord Cat’s One Hundred Th—ptui, taste Lord Cat’s Thunder Cannon!” Ouyang’s nonsense had rubbed off; the cat almost named the wrong move, then snapped back like a reed in wind.

Zzzzip…

Golden lightning sprouted from each raised hair, sparks beading along his tail like dew. At the tail-tip it gathered into a small sun, bright and vicious. The orb flicked away with his tail’s sway and shot toward the lake like a comet.

By the shore, Eunice froze like a doll caught in stormlight. She hadn’t thought the cat would really strike. “Stupid cat, counting grudges with a girl like that? I curse you to never find a lady cat.”

Zzzzip stitched the night, and a white glare burst from the lake, turning the dark like day and painting the world in noon-light.

“Hmph. Fight Lord Cat? Too green.” White Cat stood aloof like a lone peak in snow. In his eyes, Ouyang read that vibe of a life too cool for company.

“Mighty Cat Lord!”

Augustine shivered behind a trunk, awed by that searing flash like a sunrise from nowhere. Even Canopy City might’ve caught that blaze, a shock fit to rival a grand curse. The onlookers gaped, their minds still snowed under.

“You… that… White Cat…”

When the light ebbed like tide, a thin, sticky voice drifted from the slope below. It was Eunice, syrup-soft even now. In the lakebed, now dry as cracked earth, a charcoal figure twitched like a burnt match.

“Mrow~” White Cat felt malice rise from Eunice like winter wind. He padded back a few steps, guilty as a pawprint in wet paint. She’d only splashed him, and he had answered with a Thunder Cannon that left her a sight. Of course, he’d pulled the fangs; to a god, it barely stung, like an ant bite under armor.

But a girl, humiliated in front of everyone? That hate would bloom like nightshade.

Knowing he was in the wrong, White Cat kept retreating, tail low like a truce flag. “Mrow~ Little one, we’re civilized beings. Let’s talk this out.” Everyone rolled their eyes. Civilized? Who just lit up half the mountain?

“Go die.”

Eunice’s voice flipped from sticky-sweet to ghost-cold, like ice whispering under the moon. The chill climbed everyone’s spine like a wet finger.

Chill?

“Holy crap, the eternal loli’s about to freeze the whole mountain!” Ouyang felt the wrongness hit like sleet. He grabbed the rabbit at his side and barked at Bai, “Bai, take Caro. Now.”

“Vice Captain, take the brat and our pope!”

Bai nodded. Her back split cloth with a snap, dragon wings unfurling like night sails. She swooped and scooped up Caro, light as a snowflake caught in palm. Devila lifted Collin with one hand and Augustine with the other, his bat wings spreading like shadow. He slid through his clothes without a tear, smooth as smoke through gauze.

A Blood Kin beyond gods doesn’t scuff his coat. Even his wings show courtesy to fabric.

By the time Ouyang sprinted to the foot with the Jade Rabbit under his arm, the mountain behind them had become a glacier. In the chill moonlight it gleamed like a jade blade. “Teacher Ouyang, White Cat and Sister Eunice are terrifying.” Caro’s voice trembled like a chime in wind.

It was overwhelming, a method fit for a legendary archmage. Then calm returned like settling snow. White Cat could face the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts; that power wasn’t shocking. The surprise was Eunice herself—soft voice, cute face—hiding a storm that could freeze a peak.

Before long, a figure walked down from the ice-wreathed mountain, mist curling like breath around her. Blue short hair held smudges of black like soot on frost. Her water-blue skirt looked like it had crawled from a fire. In her hand she gripped a frozen tail. The White Cat was sealed head to paw, an ice sculpture with whiskers.

“Okay, you froze the cat. Your anger should be spent.” Ouyang coaxed, voice warm as a brazier in winter. Truth was, Eunice couldn’t have iced him if he didn’t yield. White Cat was guilty and let it happen, water on stone. He’d apologized in the only way a proud cat would.

Eunice wasn’t small-minded. She huffed, tossed the cat-popsicle to Ouyang, and let the cold in her eyes thaw a notch.

Ouyang eyed the “popsicle” in his hands and called to Devila. “Vice Captain, give it a roast.”

“No need… mrow~ Lord Cat can get out.” The voice came muffled, like a bell under snow.

Cracks veined the ice like spiderwebs at dawn, then chunks fell away with clacks like pebbles. White Cat leaped back onto Augustine’s head and shook hard. Ice flakes flew like silver confetti.

“Sigh. We sat down to admire the moon, and look what you turned it into.” Ouyang saw Bai’s clothes torn by her wings and pulled a white magic robe from his space ring. He wrapped it over her shoulders like fresh snow. Bai clutched the hem, small hands careful as if holding cloud. Her shyness hovered like a blush on frost.

That robe was the one he’d given her when she fought the tentacle monster. Later, in Canopy City, Caro took her shopping. Without a space ring, she hadn’t kept it. Ouyang had. Now he brought out the white robe again, and Bai treasured it like a relic.

“Blame me? It was the cat who hit first. I was just being naughty.” Eunice puffed her cheeks, her face smudged black like a little beggar dragged from a chimney.

“Mrow~” White Cat meowed from Augustine’s head, voice unreadable as a cat’s half-lidded eyes.

On the side, Collin still looked rattled, worry hanging on him like damp cloth. He stared at the icebound mountain. “Lord Ouyang, can we remove the ice? It’ll affect the city.”

“Affect?” The Jade Rabbit sniffed, moonlight in his tone. “By Rabbit Lord’s eye, it’s perfect. It’s a miracle. The gods of the Void system left a sign. From now on, this ice peak is a holy mountain.”

Collin had no retort. Augustine and Caro traded a look, puzzled like two sparrows in snow. Void system—so the Void Church had many gods? Augustine didn’t link Eunice to “god.” He figured the rabbit meant Collin should spin this ice into doctrine and tell the flock it was a miracle.

He didn’t know it actually was.

“Huh? Heh. Not bad, rabbit.” Eunice missed it at first. Then the idea lit her eyes like stars on water. If they played it that way, the Water Goddess Eunice would get famous. When wanderers from a thousand worlds passed through, they’d know the ice mountain near the Void Church’s First Church was the Water Goddess’s miracle.

She was a forever-loli with sky-high ambition. Eunice would be a goddess praised by the multiverse.

“Lord Ouyang, let the ice mountain stay. It’s a miracle~ Our pope will have room to work. He can use it to sway the mortals better.” Eunice tugged Ouyang’s sleeve, voice sugary as candied haw, shameless as a cat begging fish. To keep the “miracle,” she tossed shame like a pebble into the lake.

Pope? Sway mortals?

Back when the kingdom held its meeting, Augustine and the others weren’t allowed in. They still didn’t know Collin had leveled from bishop to pope.

“Sway mortals… You talk like you’re gods.” Augustine muttered, his words small as embers.

White Cat rolled his eyes on Augustine’s head, slow as a moon cloud. Right in front of Augustine sat a pile of god-tier beings.