Miracle City’s “miracle” shocked the continent like a bell struck at midnight. Anywhere with ears to the wind was talking about Miracle City.

The miracle hit too hard, like a meteor through dusk. A god who walked the streets fell, and a mortal climbed onto a god’s throne like a hawk riding thermals.

Those so-called miracles left countless beings gaping like fish hauled into cold air. A god walking the world is tough as iron; but a god falling?

Only a miracle can fell a god, so Angel Daniel’s fall was a miracle, like a star torn from the sky. For ten thousand years, no mortal ever became a god. Now one did, stepping over another god’s bones like white cliffs— isn’t that a miracle?

Angel Daniel’s fall shocked the Divine Realm like lightning racing over silk clouds. It shook the Land of Light and the Light Church like wind through reeds.

In the capital of the Land of Light, inside a hall of gold and jade where light pooled like honey, the king met his ministers as usual. Today, every word circled Daniel’s fall like crows around a field.

“Your Majesty, a… a letter…” A courier burst into the hall like a startled deer through brush.

A letter? The word dropped like a pebble into a tense pond.

A cluster of ministers glared at him like knives flashing in frost. They were in session, and if it wasn’t urgent, the courier would lose his head like a leaf cut by wind. They were fretting over the Divine Realm’s blame, their tempers raw like salt on wounds; and this fool had rushed in like a boar into a shrine.

The courier met the stares of dukes, counts, and the chancellor— a wall of eyes like storm clouds. Without a convincing reason, his neck felt as brittle as winter reed.

“Your Majesty, a letter has arrived…” His voice slid out like water in a tight throat.

A letter? What kind? The king flicked a hand, a signal like a fan opening, for the courier to go on.

“It’s from the City Lord of Miracle City! He also sent Your Majesty a gift box.” The words landed like stones on a drum.

After a few deep breaths, the courier finally stitched his speech together like thread through cloth.

Miracle City? A City Lord? A gift box? The questions rose like sparks in dry grass.

If this had come from any other ruler, the king and ministers would’ve dragged the courier out like a goat to the block. But the City Lord of Miracle City was an exception, a lone peak under storm. That was Miracle City— where gods fall like rain and gods are born like dawn.

In Miracle City’s string of wonders, the City Lord was said to slaughter gods with ease, like a scythe through wheat. Some swore they saw an angel swatted away with one slap like a moth. Some said a nameless underling hacked off the angel’s wings like frozen branches. Some said the City Lord’s dog chased the angel down the streets like a wolf after a hare.

True or false, the City Lord clearly wasn’t ordinary, a shadowed mountain against a bruised sky.

“Bring it!” Hearing that name, the king spoke like thunder and snatched the letter from the courier’s hands like a hawk snatching prey.

“Your Majesty, what does it say?” Usually, they wouldn’t dare lean in, like birds wary of a snare; but this touched Miracle City, so they crowded close like reeds in a stream. The king, oddly, didn’t push them away, his mood flat as a lake.

“Respected King, sorry, I don’t know your name, and I’m too lazy to ask, so I’ll just call you King…” The opening itself carried contempt like ash on a breeze. The word “respected” was there, but no respect stood behind it, like an empty shell.

“As for your country sending a dimwit angel to make trouble in my Miracle City, I must express strong condemnation,” the letter went on like a cold rain. “That egg-for-brains should’ve been locked up like a mad dog, yet you let him out to bite. Even if he can’t bite, he’ll still scare children like a shadow at dusk. If kids in Miracle City get scared by your dimwit angel and carry that shadow through childhood like frost in bone, they’ll grow up despairing, lashing out at the world like thorns. They might turn into anti-human, anti-continent terrorists— a wildfire hard to stamp out.

“And the root is you, for setting your dimwit angel loose to frighten them. You are sinners of the continent, a stain like pitch. I speak not as a lone man, but on behalf of the residents of my Miracle City, issuing you a strong condemnation…”

Even the king, a veteran roosted high like an eagle on a cliff, was stunned, his mind blank as fog. The others were worse, their thoughts scattered like leaves. What kind of rant was this? And “dimwit angel”… really?

“Gotta admit, ‘dimwit’ fits that angel,” the king murmured, the words slipping out like wine from a cracked cup.

“Huh? Your Majesty, were you speaking to us just now? I didn’t catch that— could you repeat?” The chancellor had been buried in Ouyang’s letter like a mole in earth, and missed the king’s reflexive jab.

“Nothing… let’s keep reading.” The king’s tone lay calm again like snow smoothing tracks.

Loose lips, but iron nerves— he stayed composed, like a pine in wind, as if that stray remark meant nothing.

“I hear you lot are lapdogs of my little Fias,” the letter stung like nettles. “I’ll say it plainly: stop messing around with that brat.”

Little Fias? The words hung in the air like a kite with a cut string.

“Who’s he talking about?” A minister scratched his head like a rooster pecking dust, and came up empty.

“We serve the Goddess of Light… her taboo name…” The king’s voice trailed off like smoke. Mouths opened and wouldn’t close, as if time had frozen like ice. Fias— Clafias! The legendary Goddess of Light, Clafias. Her name was rarely spoken, like a blade kept sheathed, so they didn’t react at first. Once they realized who “little Fias” meant, faces turned stiff as masks.

“This City Lord is too arrogant,” someone hissed, words sharp as sleet. “The Goddess is a chief deity in the Divine Realm, and she ranks among the top.” The Goddess of Light, Clafias, was a great power, a mountain range under heaven. An angel and a chief deity were worlds apart, like creek and ocean. None of them believed the City Lord of Miracle City could match the Goddess of Light; killing a two-wing trash angel didn’t grant you license to sneer at a chief deity.

The king didn’t think quite the same. Unease first, like a pebble in his shoe; then memory stirred, like dust under sunlight. “Little Fias… could Rex’s words… be true?” At first he’d thought Rex was just posturing, hacking at their morale like wind at banners. But after reading the City Lord’s letter, doubt crept in like vines.

“I know you’re grinding your teeth at me right now,” the letter continued, laughter dry as sand. “So I prepared a deluxe bundle for you…”

A deluxe bundle? Their gazes slid to the gift box like iron filings to a magnet.

“Open it?” They looked to the king like birds to a tree. For some reason, the box felt toxic, a thing with thorns; people edged away like crabs from flame, afraid something awful would leap out.

“Then… open it. Who’ll take this dangerous task?” The king’s words fell like stones into a well.

Quickly, they hit a wall, a stubborn rock in the path. From the letter alone they could taste the City Lord’s malice like bitter tea; whatever he’d sent wasn’t a sack of local sweets.

Who would go? That was the thorn— whoever opened it had an eighty percent chance of dying young, like a candle blown in a draft.

“Ahem… Duke, doesn’t such a holy and glorious task tempt you?” The chancellor cut a glance at the duke like a blade of light. Several men lined up behind him like birds on a wire— clearly his faction.

Another cluster drifted to the duke’s side like a small flock, and a few stood between them like stones in a stream— the neutral camp.

“Sigh, I’m getting on in years,” the duke said, voice calm as rain on tile. “Leave legacy-making to the young; I’ll pass my twilight in peace.” He was just past fifty, not one to bicker like hot-blooded youths; he parried with ease, like a hand to falling snow. The chancellor’s punch landed on cotton, force lost like wind in reeds.

The chancellor, in his thirties, wore his feelings on his face like clouds at noon. The duke, by contrast, was a still pond, unreadable, only that steady calm.

“Enough. Since that’s the case, call a guard to open the box.” The king’s order dropped like a gavel. The chancellor tucked his swagger away like a folded fan.

“Your Majesty, let the court mages examine it first,” the chancellor urged, eagerness bright as a fresh blade. Youth pushes to perform, like sap rising in spring.

The king didn’t agree right away; he turned to the duke like a ship to a lighthouse. “Duke, your thoughts?”

The duke, a statue till now, finally stirred like stone warmed by sun. “Your Majesty, no need to summon the court mages. If they did plant tricks, in the face of power that fells gods like trees, our mages would see nothing but fog. And gods on higher tiers wouldn’t stoop to this method to kill us,” he said, words steady as a drum.

“Hah? Duke, you mean there’s no malice?” The chancellor jabbed like a stick in muck, prying at the duke’s phrasing.

“No, we can feel the malice,” the duke replied, and heads nodded like grains under wind. The letter painted the City Lord as someone who didn’t put the Land of Light, the Light Church, or even the Goddess of Light in his eyes— a blaze of insolence. Every line was steeped in bile like ink in water. If the duke had claimed otherwise, the ministers would’ve spat in his face like rain.

He paused, then went on, voice like low thunder. “There is malice, but it shouldn’t threaten our lives. The box likely holds something to hammer our morale, like a bell in our bones. In theory, no lethal danger.”

Before the words cooled, the king flipped the box open himself like a fan snapped wide.