Crimson flowers flared, lush and vivid, red like flame, uncanny like spilled blood.
A straight dirt road ran between banks of blood-red blooms. Far ahead, mist pooled like milk, hiding every destination.
“Other Shore flowers… does this lead to the nether prison? No.” The thought snapped into place. Ouyang’s dazed eyes cleared. “This isn’t that starfield. There’s no ancient nether prison here. Which means the end of this road is… the Other Shore.”
Memory flickered behind a throbbing temple. He’d brawled with that spiky-headed Bango, returned to the church, dozed off, and woke here. His temples ached like a nail driven in. He rubbed them, but the pain clung like cold iron. That pain tugged a buried thread: a year ago, when Xi unsealed him, a meteor dropped into a cheap inn, shrank, and sank into his skull.
That was his first entry into the Other Shore after being sealed. All year, he’d tried every door and found none. The meteor was the key, yet it slept like a stone. And now, it had woken.
He walked unsteadily, palm clamped to his head, along a path lined with Other Shore blooms. A seethe rose from the throbbing point, anger leaking like smoke through bone.
Who was angry? Angry over what?
Anger filled the hollow like night tide. Not the kind that craves ruin. It was desolate anger, helpless anger, an ache that won’t resolve. Who? Who was it? Head splitting, Ouyang clung to his last inch of reason.
Time blurred like frost on glass. He didn’t know how long it lasted. He held onto that shard of clarity as if for centuries. When his mind focused again, the flowers on both banks had already withered.
“Blossom a thousand years, wither a thousand years…” He panted. Had he bled through a millennium of pain? He wasn’t sure. But a voice in his gut urged him on: forward, to the road’s end—an answer waits there.
The road was so long it felt like an oath. The straight dirt track stretched on, and Ouyang kept walking.
The scarlet flowers bloomed again, fire points brightening a lonely road.
“The flowers… opened?” He felt perpetually fogged. Each time he came up for air, it seemed ages had passed. If the red spider lilies kept their old rhythm, another thousand years had peeled away.
“What’s going on?”
Doubt and confusion clouded his skull. Then a simple question struck like a bell: the sky—he hadn’t looked up even once.
He lifted his head. In the somber sky, phantom gears turned in layered rings. A giant clock hung like a moon. Ding-ling, ding-ling… wind-chime tones threaded into his ear, delicate as ice.
He remembered. “That winter, sunlight slipped through my fingers. Snow… fell with the chimes… Legendary Art: City of Time.”
As the tale said, snow drifted in sheets when the chimes rang.
He reached out. The unreal snow passed through his palm like fog. Confusion nipped at him. Why would a Legendary Art stand on this road to the Other Shore? And why was it active?
He walked and watched. Flowers withered, flowers bloomed, a cycle drawing silent circles. His head still throbbed like drumskin, yet he gritted his teeth and kept moving. He slipped through curtain after curtain of mist, staying to the path where the Other Shore flowers flamed.
With the snowfall, the bloom-and-fall quickened, a wheel spun faster. If their growth law held true, he’d lived through countless ten-thousands of years. At last, a river lay ahead. The far bank was wrapped in seven-colored mist, its face hidden behind rainbows.
“Weakwater. And the Other Shore. Cross the Weakwater River, and you reach the Other Shore.” The closer he came to that prismatic shroud, the stronger the anger swelled, heavy as thunder under skin. “Weakwater River… how do I get across?”
Normally, you’d blink across with a teleport. But on this road, he couldn’t use an ounce of power. He was a mortal with callused feet. It’s the rule: on every road to the Other Shore, all beings lose their power. Only those beyond a Primordial Deity keep a fragment.
“If the City of Time hadn’t sped the years up, I might never finish this road…”
He watched the Weakwater River, sifting old memories for a map. He found none. No such river. No such endless stretch. If he counted, he’d walked through unnumbered ages.
While he wrestled with that, the pain vanished. A stone glowing with ghostly blue light drilled out of his brow like a fish from deep water.
The stone floated above the Weakwater. An old wooden bridge unfurled, linking both banks with grain dark as tea. Ouyang shot the stone a glance and followed it onto the bridge. No surprises. He stepped off the far end. One more step, and the seven-colored mist would swallow him.
“What’s going on? If you’re the key to the Other Shore, give me an explanation.” He knew it now. The root was this stone. It dragged him here, hammered his head, and burned that endless anger. Every thread led to this shard.
He didn’t rush into the mist. He wanted answers before the plunge. Anything else would be foolish.
The stone kept shedding blue light. It hovered before him, steady as a lantern.
“According to records left from the Eighth Epoch—the End Epoch, I should address you as Your Majesty of the Void.” The voice inside the stone was cool, almost sexless. Ouyang didn’t care about the accent. He cared about the facts.
“Void… Correction. I’m the Void Messenger.”
“Void Messenger… Understood. The database is updated. Happy to serve, Your Majesty the Void Messenger. You may call me Number Seven.” The voice warmed a shade, like dawn against frost.
“Number Seven… then, Little Seven, explain what’s happening.” Ouyang didn’t look at the stone. His gaze held on the rainbow fog, as if sight alone could pierce it.
“Majesty… perhaps only after you enter will you know.”
Seven didn’t hand him the answer. Ouyang frowned, then nodded. He stepped into the mist.
In an instant, the world turned. The gloom and the gears dissolved. A bright azure firmament spread overhead. Castle after castle, built of white cloud, floated like dreams. Rainbow bridges arched between them like spun glass.
On the ground, no more fire-red nether flowers. A vast green lay out like velvet, blossoms pebbling the grass with color. Trees with green sheen stood along the road, and slow rain of verdant light fell from their crowns.
It looked flawless. But in the far distance, black smoke coiled, and a roar kept pounding like drums.
“Majesty, for reasons unknown, the Other Shore has torn open with countless breaches. Many intruders have come in. They’re fighting over the rare plants that grow here, and over the ores… This place has become an expedition site.”
“An expedition… site…”
Ouyang clenched his jaw. Now he understood the anger in Seven’s voice. The Other Shore—once a dream realm—had been turned into a scavenger’s ground.
“I promised them I’d carry the Other Shore’s honor forward. I never thought…” No matter why those people stood here, their presence stained its oath. He couldn’t accept that.
Since the Third Epoch, when the supreme Sovereign gathered the glory of ten thousand worlds and sounded the anthem, then founded the Other Shore in the Fourth Epoch, and on through the Eighth—this place swallowed their labor and their love.
This land held their laughter. It held their tears. It was their only paradise.
Crack, crack… His fingers popped one after another. He kept his face cold, words sealed, while fire rolled in his chest. The holy ground that once drew the myriad worlds beneath its starry banner had been filed down to an adventurer’s map.
“Little Seven, as the key, you should be able to start the defense system, right? Why didn’t you?”
On this vast continent, every inch was laced with intricate arrays. If they all lit at once, Ouyang didn’t believe anyone could get in. Seven fell silent.
“The defense system… got hacked.”
Hacked?
Ouyang’s eyelids twitched hard. His first thought was of their own. What other force could crack this defense? “Those bastards…” Veins stood on his forehead, the shape of fury more honest than words.
At the End, not everyone chose to withdraw behind the Gate of Return. Some stayed. He wouldn’t say all who stayed were traitors. But most were.
Now, his guess was drowned in proof.
