In the Demon King's City, Ouyang’s mobile fortress drifted like a black whale through cloud and stone—now it bore a name: Void Castle.

He’d mulled it over on the road back from Canopy City; the thought sat like a pebble in his boot. This fortress had followed him through fire and snow, earning both merits and scars. To leave it nameless felt like letting incense burn to ash.

So the moving fortress finally became Void Castle, its new name hanging over the battlements like a quiet moon.

Inside, in Ouyang’s room, a vast magic array hung in the air like frost-laced glass. Stars and moons braided together in its design, slowly turning like a millstone at night.

“Strange. The votive power feels thin, like a river in drought,” he muttered, unease scudding over his chest like stormclouds. “The Void Church should be famous across the continent by now. The Light Church’s idiocy made our name ring everywhere—good press, bad press, it all should feed the altar.”

He couldn’t figure it out, and the thought itched like sand under the eyelid. Votive power wasn’t faith; even if the world spat on the Void Church, the collection shouldn’t dry up. The Light Church had just trumpeted us as a cult and called all the small churches to resist. Because of that, the ‘cult’ called Void Church was now a bonfire of attention across the land.

“I don’t get it… damn it, I just don’t get it.” He watched the array for a long while, a hawk circling an empty field. Before he went to the City of the Dead, Yiyue Qianliu had already handed the Eternal Empire’s collection method to Dongze. The gathering array in the Demon King’s City was set by Dongze and Agas. Did something go wrong there?

“It shouldn’t have. Those two old monsters aren’t what they once were, but they don’t drop the blade mid-swing. Where’s the crack?”

As Ouyang worried himself into knots, two old monsters were peeking in like cats at a fishmonger’s stall.

“Dongze, we’re fine, right? Why do I feel that kid’s looking our way?” Agas, the teacher who’d just tripped his student, felt a thorn of guilt, like a splinter under the nail. He saw Ouyang thinking and started seeing ghosts in daylight.

Dongze, cloaked in black, stayed calm, his gaze flat as a winter pond. “Relax. The most basic trust between people doesn’t vanish like dew. You’re his teacher. The kid won’t suspect easily.”

The most basic trust between people? Agas’s brain short-circuited like a lantern in the rain. Then why are we doing this? From your mouth, that line’s got less weight than feather snow.

He didn’t say it aloud. He just gave Dongze a look sharp as a knife edge. The look said: you got any shame left?

Dongze remained unruffled, a stone in a stream. “Shame? Don’t tell me you forgot what our First Cult is.”

Agas found himself speechless, his tongue sticking like sap. Shame never shared a table with the First Cult. As a founding elder, telling Dongze about shame was like preaching frost to a glacier. The thought made him wary, like a wolf hearing brush move. In the First Cult, allies were wind-blown sand. Today they toast with you; tomorrow they trip you into a pit. They scam gods and swindle ghosts and then trip themselves for sport.

Sometimes they profited by ruining others, which made sense. But often they moved with zero aim, like leaves on a gust—if they ruined themselves, they shrugged and kept ruining, a bonfire fed by its own ash.

Agas watched Dongze with raised guard, a shield lifted in fog. He had almost forgotten the man was First Cult, elder among elders. If he hadn’t remembered, he might have been sold off and thanked the buyer.

Seeing the wary look, Dongze scratched the back of his neck, awkward as a crane in a doorway. “Old Ga, what’s with that look? Need to be that on edge with me? Sure, I’ve scammed a lot of people, but that was when I was young and dumb. I rarely scam folks now.”

Rarely didn’t mean never; that truth hung in the air like a hidden hook. And in the First Cult, scamming wasn’t about youth. It was a climate, not a season.

“The hell, old man, you serious?” Dongze frowned, his temper flaring like sparks off flint. “Where’s the most basic trust between people?”

“The most basic trust between people? From you, that’s a comedy line.” Agas’s eyelids twitched like moth wings. No matter how sweet Dongze made it sound, he wasn’t buying. On the Other Shore there was a saying: from a First Cult mouth, ten sentences might not hold one truth.

While the two titans stared each other down like mountains across a valley, Ouyang noticed them frozen outside the door.

“Huh? Boss Dongze, Teacher Agas, what brings you here? Good timing, I was just looking for you.” He frowned at the stand-off, confusion rising like steam. Did the two big shots take the wrong pills?

Hearing that Ouyang was looking for them, both men started like deer at a twig snap. A guilty heart rattles like a tin cup in the wind.

“He’s looking for us? Did the kid spot something?” Dongze spoke in soul-voice, his words a whisper of cold water.

“Maybe,” Agas answered without moving a muscle, anxiety pooling like ink. “Why else would he find us now of all times?”

Ouyang had no clue. He told them what had happened on the Other Shore, each sentence a pebble in a still lake. In an instant, both old monsters were furious, their anger flaring like a stormfront. Invisible force flipped everything in the room like a table in a tavern brawl. Even the castle shuddered, a tree in wild wind. If not for the fortress’s bones, the two might’ve torn it down to its roots.

Dongze squinted, his mouth curving into a dangerous grin like a crescent blade. “Old Ga, looks like we’ve got work. Heh… someone dared trample our honor. They can prepare for extermination.”

“Extermination? No. I’ll wipe out every world they’re in and scrub them from the stars,” Agas said, voice cold as winter iron. Ouyang had thought Dongze’s reaction fierce enough; Agas’s words were meteors, straight to planetary ruin.

After a long talk, they chose a path like soldiers mapping a night march. Ouyang would go to the Other Shore to investigate in detail. But the Source World still had loose threads like frayed rope. He wouldn’t send troops yet. The Source World was their home base. Right now the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts were rampaging like wild boars, and there were visitors from other worlds, like those from the Divine Realm. Sweep your own doorstep before ruling the street: if they marched to the Other Shore now, they might return to find their nest plundered and burned.

So, after speaking with the two elders, Ouyang convened a Demon King council once more.

This Demon King council was grimmer than any before, like thunderheads over a black sea. In the center of the hexagram conference table stood an ancient longsword, humming like a buried bell. Even Jue, whose living soul had begun to rot like old wood, drew in a breath when he saw it.

“Everyone, I think you can feel the pressure,” Ouyang said, his usual easy smile sealed away like a lamp in a box. His fingers tapped the table, a drum under rain. “Honestly, I’m in a foul mood—fouler than I’ve ever been.”

“Look at it. That sword of glory, webbed with fractures like dried riverbeds. The sword that once stood against the Supreme Law.” He pointed at the Divine Sword thrust into the hexagram’s heart. None of the Demon Kings here were born of the Other Shore, but under Ouyang’s lead they’d lived there for a time. To them, the Other Shore was half a home. Now, hearing that riff-raff had slipped in while the master was away, their rage rose like oil to flame.

They had heard many tales of the Other Shore from Ouyang, and in their hearts, that honor was a sunrise they shared.

Seeing them roll their shoulders and clench their fists, eager like hounds before the hunt, Ouyang smiled with quiet relief, a thaw after frost. Without knowing, under his shadow, they had come to claim the Other Shore. Its honor was their banner too.

He lifted the longsword from the hexagram, its weight a mountain and a vow. “This sword, symbol of the Other Shore’s honor, is my resolve made iron. But our home base still hides embers that could flare. Now, it’s our turn to strike. It’s time to reclaim what we were.”

“Divine Realm or Demon World, it’s all the same. The sword of honor in my hand will use their bones to carry the Other Shore’s glory forward.”

These Demon Kings had been out of the Sealed Land for some time, yet Ouyang hadn’t unleashed them. He’d chosen to watch the sky and read the wind. Now he’d seen enough, and with trouble on the Other Shore, he was done waiting. Time to knot the rope tight. With the Heaven Departing Divine Sword in hand, and his black-winged state’s Void arts and esoteric ultimates ready, he wasn’t worried.

“As for the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts… strike when you can,” he said, the words dropping like stones in deep water. “Don’t bother with fair duels. If you can gang up, then gang up. We only need to kill their hosts. No need to try destroying the artifacts. You can’t yet… Let me think… After you kill the hosts, seal the artifacts. Maybe, years from now, they’ll break the seal again, and the continent will spin a different tale.”

He said it in a deep tone like a bell at dusk, but the Demon Kings all gave him a look, dry as desert wind. He was clearly planting a time-bomb to let the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts plague the future.

Sensing their silent grumbling like ants under bark, Ouyang only smiled and let it pass like mist. He studied the Divine Sword in his hand, fingers tracing the cracks like river maps, and whispered, “This shard of pride exists for you. This measure of honor stands for you—my Other Shore within my heart.”