Morning in Ancient Memory Town lay wrapped in dreamlike mist, the air full of hush and hymn, as if elves skimmed past and gods whispered praise.

Inside the Glachidor Clan house, Snow slipped into the maid uniform she hadn’t worn in ages. Blue and white framed her, a white bow at her back, white thigh-highs sheathing a long leg.

“Miss, breakfast is ready.”

Disillusion hit first, cold as frost. After Xi dragged her back, Black Butterfly laid out the Sky Council’s intent, and Snow’s heart went gray. Not only had the grand elder she trusted sold her out, her clan had too. Otherwise, why would the grand elder hand her Suqingri, the artifact tied to the City of Holy Revelation, among the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts? As one of the Twelve Families, claiming it was just the elder’s scheme didn’t wash. A clan stands like a mountain; could her family be blind?

In short, she had been cast aside.

So she chose quiet over storm. She’d stay in Ancient Memory Town till old age, spend a lifetime in this clean little place. Months had passed since her return; outside, snow drifted down like feathered silence.

When Snow finished serving the food, Xi had already brought her younger sister to the table. Black Butterfly, Snow’s mirror image, sat there too. She wore a pitch-black princess dress, season regardless, and the black butterfly wings on her back shed a dim glow like night-lanterns. Beside her sat Ruola. With no outsiders around, she hadn’t folded her wings; pure white feathers spread like dawn, giving her a holy look.

Xi didn’t just bring back Snow and Black Butterfly. She also brought Leticia. Like Snow, Leticia wore a maid outfit and helped with chores in the Glachidor Clan compound.

“Aurora, Your Grace, is there truly no way to fix the Judgment Sun?”

Black Butterfly voiced the worry that had perched on her like a crow.

The Judgment Sun was forged by the God-King of the Divine Realm from an angel’s heart. In the Auroral Mirage, Xi had crushed its projection with ease. Afterward, she admitted that outside, she couldn’t defeat that lingering God-King.

“As long as he doesn’t court death, I can’t do much. My true body perished in the final war of the Eighth Epoch. This life is a so-called reincarnate shell. My soul is strong, but the body can’t bear it. I can only spook him on my own turf. My Auroral Mirage is, in essence, like the Hall of the Gods or the Eternal Celestial Palace. It still holds traces of my former power, so I can draw on a sliver.”

Xi’s words were fog to Snow and Leticia, but Black Butterfly caught the drift.

“When I sealed your Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts, I borrowed the Auroral Mirage’s strength. Think back. I barely acted at all then, because I didn’t have that kind of power.”

In the Eighth Epoch, to blast open a certain door, Xi had destroyed her own body. The God-King was half-dead, but Xi wasn’t much better. Over long ages, she fought as a remnant soul against several Tiered Beings who rang the hymn. Now, she was fragile to the extreme, a candle in wind.

Black Butterfly glanced at Ruola. Xian adored Ruola’s white wings; she nestled close, rubbing her fingers along soft feathers like stroking snow.

“Your Grace, then what about Ruola? She’s your Guardian Angel. Can’t she handle that guy?” From Ruola and Xi, Black Butterfly had learned that Ruola served as Xi’s Guardian Angel. To her, a Guardian Angel of a third-tier being should be able to defeat a first-tier, half-dead God-King.

Xi didn’t answer. Ruola smiled, gentle as warm milk. She stirred her cup with a spoon, the smile thinning like pale light. “Truth is, I’m the master’s second Guardian Angel. The first one perished with the master’s body in the Eighth Epoch. I was created by the master in later years. So I don’t have the strength my predecessor had.”

By “first,” Ruola meant Xi’s first Guardian Angel, born when the Aurora Goddess rang out her hymn.

Ruola lowered her head and drank, letting Xian stroke her white wings like petting a dove.

“This child… I made her after the fact,” Xi said, voice like low thunder behind clouds. “Long ago, when I fought several Tiered Beings, she almost let her soul unravel to shield me. I laid her soul in the Misty Dreamscape to recuperate, and let the Book of Epochs stitch her back, thread by thread. Not long ago, when Ruola’s soul was nearly restored, the Book of Epochs simply tossed her to Ouyang, and Ouyang brought her home.”

When Ouyang used the Heaven Departing Divine Sword to cut through void and real, Ruola’s appearance was inevitable. Even if he hadn’t severed the angel’s link to the Misty Dreamscape, she would’ve appeared—by another path.

Seeing Ouyang’s state, the Book of Epochs let the still-dazed Ruola out. Only after she arrived in the ‘Origin’ world did Ruola recover her former memories.

From Xi’s words, Black Butterfly understood: Ruola was like a patient fresh from a long illness, not yet recovered from that ancient war. A flower still opening after frost.

“But don’t worry,” Xi said, a spark in her tone. “This world was created by me. It also holds my former power. If that Divine Realm fool dares descend here, he won’t be returning.”

Black Butterfly let out a breath, a sparrow freed from a snare.

Ruola stayed silent, burden heavy as rain. Seeing her mood, Xi sighed. “Ruola, in a few days, shall we go find Ouyang?”

“Ah…” Ruola’s head popped up like a startled fawn. “Really? Master, you’re the best!”

Ruola felt like a child right now, joy spilling like sunlight, and it rubbed Xi the wrong way.

“Big sis, take me too. I haven’t seen big brother in ages!” Afraid Xi would refuse, Xian clung to her arm, unleashing a barrage of sugar-sweet pleas. The voice melted Xi like warm honey. She ruffled her sister’s hair. “Alright. I’ll take you.”

“Hee-hee. Sis, you’re the best!”

Even with her Guardian Angel and sister singing her praises, Xi felt no joy. Her resentment toward Ouyang deepened like gathering clouds.

“You eat first. I’m going out for some air…”

She wouldn’t be chilled by this weather, yet she instinctively threw on a thick coat, a habit like a cloak.

Outside, snow flew and whispered.

In residents’ eyes, Ancient Memory Town was spring all year. This was its first snow. The drifting flakes felt like farewell for something gone. “Xilian…” Xi breathed to the sky. Her white breath faded among the falling lace. She stretched out a hand. A hexagonal snowflake landed on her palm like a crystal sigil.

She remembered a girl like an ice-snow spirit. Their first meeting was at the dawn of the Third Epoch. In the First Epoch, Dream Chaser sacrificed the Boundless Sea, used another starry sky’s laws to strike the Night King down hard. By the end of the Second Epoch, Dream Chaser and Fallen Leaf walked a sky soaked in gods’ blood and bones, and rang the world’s hymn. At the start of the Third Epoch, they stormed the place where the Night King licked his wounds.

The main force then was those two hymn-keepers. Xi fought too. The Night King and the White Empress were handled by those two; the other Primordial Deities cleared out the Night Clan and the White Elves like sweeping a forest fire’s embers.

Xi felt the ice-snow spirit shouldn’t have fallen like that. The White Empress didn’t know the Night King’s rabid scheme. Ouyang and Xi both pleaded for her. In the end, the Night King fell, and the White Empress fell too. Even though Ouyang stepped in once to block Dream Chaser’s strike for her, the outcome didn’t change. It was that move which let, after Ouyang and the Night King perished together, the White Empress cling to one last obsession and remain in another form.

Perhaps out of guilt toward Ouyang, everyone allowed that fragile way of remaining.

Because of that hatred, everyone shunned her. Only Xi quietly placed the White Empress in the seams of time, letting her wait for Ouyang’s return. That was Aurora and Xilian’s first meeting. In the end, Xilian waited for Ouyang, waited for the Void Watcher. In the end, their souls, sustained by belief, dissolved like mist at dawn.

Because Ouyang shielded Xilian once, Xilian spent a lifetime of remains waiting for him.

“Maybe for those two, this was a good ending. Ancient Memory Town’s first snow falls just for you…” The Ouyang Xi loved was the Ouyang now, the one she met by chance in the Starry Citadel.

So toward the former Void Watcher and Xilian, she felt pure gratitude. She drew Xilian into this world. She let Xilian meet Ouyang. But Ouyang and others being sealed, and Ouyang believing Xilian betrayed him—those were slips beyond her plan, stones in the river.

“Though Xilian never said, who else could it be but those traitors?” Xi watched the sky. Hexagonal flakes were blades of light and lace. The reason for Xilian’s ‘betrayal’ may have vanished with her, gone like footprints in snow.

Maybe she was bored, so she cooperated with those traitors. Or maybe she wanted to force out the Void Watcher, to see him one last time. What intention she held, perhaps only Xilian knew, and she’s gone like smoke.

In the central square, the ancient tree wore no snow, ringed by an unseen force that kept flakes at bay. Beside it, White Soul, a white-haired elder, stooped on his cane, breath thin as winter haze. “Teacher!” Seeing Xi, White Soul bowed with a hunched back.

“Mm. Where’s the little sprite?”

Xi meant Moer, sleeping inside the ancient tree, and White Soul knew. “That little sprite… Unless someone like Lord Ouyang lights a fire and burns the tree, she won’t wake.”

A rueful smile creased White Soul’s face. Sprites, once asleep, are a headache to rouse. Ouyang’s method works like flint—wakes them in minutes. But that way is too…

“I know. We’ll have Ouyang wake the little thing, then.”

White Soul’s face twitched. He knew that method would anger a sprite. Xi’s plan was wise: let Ouyang carry the blame. If she gets mad, she’ll be mad at him.

“Watch Ancient Memory Town. If a strong enemy comes, I authorize you to release the projections left by the ancient kinds in the town. I’m taking a trip to Miracle City.”

“Teacher, I’ll guard the town’s peace. Rest assured.”