From afar, Augustine’s childhood home, Seth City, lay under a dim square barrier, a gray coffin lid over a world where color bled out and time went numb.

“Dongze, is this really okay?” Agas worried, his voice thin as wind over bones; only a First Cult man would toss those brats aside like dice. He felt blameless—the strength to clean up the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts was in reach, yet Dongze dragged them aside to spectate like theater-goers in a storm.

Dongze’s black greatcoat lifted like a raven’s wing; his face showed no worry, a calm pond under night. “Relax. Trust those brats. Besides, that woman named Saya… she doesn’t fit the Song of Saya.” Without a love steeped in despair, she couldn’t resonate with the artifact; their hands could rest like stones at riverbed.

“Fine. In that lore, I’m not your equal,” Agas said, and bowed like grass in rain. So he stood aside and watched.

In the gray world, two vast jade wings blazed, emerald rain spilling with each beat. The ground crawled with insect husks; born of mutual gnawing, not one corpse was whole, like torn paper in a muddy street. Liquids of many colors dripped from eaves; chunks of carcass slid off roofs like sleet.

“Miss Saya, we don’t want a fight to the death,” Caro called, her voice a lantern in fog. “If you restore everyone, we can be friends.” She believed Saya wasn’t that bad; she tried to sway her, or at least draw her eye like a moth to flame.

Above, two identical Sayas kept fighting—same face, same dress, same power; the sky felt like mirrors hung in war. Everyone felt they were twin sisters torn by fate, two reeds bending under one wind.

“You… are a fake in the end,” the real Saya said, her voice cold, a porcelain doll without a heart. Her jade wings drew close; green rain gathered into a storm before her. She extended her hand; the rain set into a sword of emerald light, a river crystallized. “Such a boring game. End it.”

Seeing her move, Augustine felt the air tilt wrong, a boat listing in sudden tide. Irina did copy Saya, yes, but Saya’s power came from the emerald bracelet. The Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts—Irina couldn’t parse them, like riddles written in thunder. Any new ability from an artifact needed fresh decoding.

“Fei, get Irina back now,” he said, the order sharp as flint.

Before Fei could relay, Saya raised the jade sword high, a sickle against the moon. In a blink, black beads drifted from Seth’s frozen residents—those insects locked in time—toward the blade like ash to a flame. Black breath coiled around the emerald edge like smoke around pine.

“This world… has no reason to exist.” For a heartbeat, everyone seemed to see Saya crying, a tear like rain in ash. “Bury it—the world’s sad song.”

The sword fell, carrying chaos; an emerald arc cleaved down like heaven’s guillotine, a falling glacier of light. It looked ready to split the city in two, a fault line through hearts and stone.

“Too late. Durak, array ready or not, start it now,” Augustine said; his words dropped like stones into deep water. He watched the slash that smothered the sky; there was no running, only shadow. That arc could erase the city; there weren’t seconds to escape its reach, their hope thin as spider silk. Their only hope was Durak’s spell array, a trump meant to beat Saya, now a shield made of prayer.

Arcane sigils surfaced; tiers of hexagrams rose, wrapping them like layered glass, a hive of light. In that brink, a black blade flashed along the horizon in Augustine’s eyes, swift as a swallow.

Shhk—Saya’s right arm, the one gripping the jade sword, got cut clean, severed like bamboo in frost. “Who?”

The shock froze everyone; who unleashed that black edge, a shadow behind the sun? Freed from the emerald bracelet, the jade wings behind Saya turned to rain and vanished, a garden folding into mist. Stripped of power, she fell, a petal torn from wind. “What happened?”

Saya’s powerless fall needed no telling—blood spread like ink across black and white, a stain that crawled. A girl in a black gothic dress gripped the severed arm; her crooked smile chilled Augustine, a knife wrapped in lace.

“W-why?” She landed on a rooftop, not quite dead; confusion burned as she stared at the cutter, eyes clouded like dusk. “Weren’t… we friends?”

“Friends?” Her voice was faint, but none here were ordinary; every ear heard her dying breath like a reed flute in night. “Friends? Heh… this world… sometimes even the self can’t trust the self.” “Friends don’t exist from the start,” she said, words falling like sleet.

The black-haired loli hoisted the arm; the jade sword still coiled in black mist like a viper. The girl named Sin gazed down; her taunting smile needled Augustine’s crew, a thorn under nail. Crimson pupils shone, warm with madness like embers in a gale.

“The Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts—once I devour them whole, the world’s anthem will sing for me.” She swung the black-wreathed jade blade; wherever it traced, dread blackness yawned open, a mouth in the sky. Space shards crumbled like dry leaves in winter wind. She kept that wicked little smile—no readable hate, no visible grudge, a mask carved in midnight.

“We’re… we’re done,” Augustine breathed, his hope collapsing like a sand tower. That space-shattering strike couldn’t be stopped, a storm that ate sails and sea. Saya’s blade was terrifying already; in this hand, its power more than doubled, a tide under a blood moon.

Boom—black energy erupted; Seth City turned to dust in one stroke, a candle snuffed by a tempest. The earth split; a chasm fell without end, a throat for the dark. Floating above, Sin removed the emerald bracelet from Saya’s wrist, fingers neat as scissors. Crunch—she bit the ring apart, swallowing piece by piece like a predator at feast.

“The Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts… to me, they’re just top-grade tonics,” she said, words sweet as poison.

By the time Dongze and Agas reacted, it was too late; Seth City was ash, earth ripped open like old scars. “All our calculations, and we forgot to count Original Sin,” Dongze said, regret heavy as rain. In Miracle City, Loyin had looked like a sweet, coy loli to him; he let it slide like mist through fingers. He didn’t expect Sin, of “Original and Sin,” to teach him with action, a lesson carved in bone.

“Heh… long time no see, Original Sin,” Dongze said, facing her across the air, two mountains under black cloud. Sin turned, smile still crooked, a crescent blade. “Eastern Heavenly King, heh, walking as a remnant—are you bringing me tonics?” She floated without fear, tongue wetting her lips like a cat before milk.

“Troublesome,” Agas muttered, brow knotted like twisted rope. With their old power, this would be nothing; now, they were tigers stuck in flatland mud, claws dulled by fate.

As they held, Caw—the razor cry of a crow cut the dead sky like a stitch ripped. “Crows?!” Sin seemed to recall; her wicked smile froze, a frost over ink. Far off, a black storm rolled; look close—a mass of crows, a locust-like tide, turning the sky to iron. Her face tightened; the flock neared; she bit her lip, a cherry under teeth. A bronze gate bloomed behind her like old war metal, green with age.

Before slipping inside, her blood-red eyes glanced at Dongze, a blade’s flicker. “What a pity…”

The bronze door yawned; Sin stepped through; her black silhouette left a nameless ache, a hollow bell. Caw~ The storm arrived; its bodies fused into one giant crow, a night-ship. Dark-red pupils gazed down at a land cracked like dry clay, a parched map.

“Think you can run?” The crow spoke human words and dove through the half-closed bronze gate, a spear of feathers. From within, blasts hammered; a crow screamed like torn steel, a shriek that scraped stone. At last, the bronze door slammed shut, a lid on thunder.

The crow couldn’t return; it was trapped over there, a shadow in an old hall. Soon, a crow of magic alone appeared to Dongze’s view, a ghost-feather. It shook out broken black feathers like soot from a hearth. “Those traitors have plenty of experts. They even made Granddad Crow leave his body there; can’t reclaim it soon.”

“Dead crow, not the point,” Dongze said, familiar as rain to roof, pointing at the land full of cracks like shattered glass. “Got any way to mend this?”

“Easy,” the crow chirped, light as smoke. The crow lifted both wings high, like cupping an invisible bowl, a priest holding sky. In a breath, phantom gears flowered over the land; wind-chime notes rang; snowflakes drifted down with each chime, pale moths in dusk. Each unreal flake kissed ground; time ran upstream like a river, silver and sure. Flowers, grass, and trees returned; houses knit themselves from dust, stitches of light. Everything slid back to the instant before that sword fell, a clock rewound.

“Hold on—why didn’t Original Sin come back with time?” Dongze doubted the crow’s craft, a finger tapping wood.

“Duh,” the crow said, preening ragged feathers, wincing like a man with bruised ribs. “The City of Time’s grand art—I only forced a fake by borrowing the Flowing Light Wheel.” Besides, Granddad Crow’s soul was under another starry sky; those traitors held his body hostage. “You think this is easy?”