Simply put, the Crow had shed a body like a snake leaves its skin. When it crossed the Gate, it sealed that husk in dust, and sent its true self beyond.

Now it only refracts a projection back here, a shadow threading into the old husk like moonlight into a jar.

“I got cocky. Those traitors worked for years, then four or five Tiered Beings mobbed me. Good thing I ditched that body, or my projection would've been snuffed.”

Without a body, the Crow looks like a wavering mirage, a mist on glass—and truth is, it’s only a projection anyway.

“I heard something went wrong over there. You didn’t go back?” Dongze’s voice was steady, a river under ice.

“That problem… it’s huge. I went back. Feels like a brand‑new race. Everyone calls them Chaos Demon Gods. But my master worries about this side. I left a life here, so I came to check. Never thought…”

The Crow’s tone sinks, like dusk spilling over water.

“Chaos Demon Gods? Sigh. Things like that sit far from what we are now.” Dongze’s breath trails off like wind in pines.

Far off, time runs backward like a tide retreating. Sin didn’t rewind with it. It swallowed the artifact, so the emerald sword and Sin both vanish.

To Augustine and the others, Sin was swinging a world‑ending sword, then blink—gone. In that black‑and‑white world, the girl in a black Gothic dress fades, the sky‑splitting strike erased like chalk in rain.

It’s abrupt, jarring, like nothing ever happened. If not for Saya lying far away, barely breathing like a moth in frost, they’d think it was a dream.

“What’s going on? Where’s the enemy?” Durak searches the shadows, like a hound in fog, and comes up empty.

Augustine’s body is a baby, but his sense for time is still a blade. “Time… seems to have been pushed back.” His own time‑shift touches objects like snow on branches; this reversal feels like a law of the world, a hand on fate, river over life and death.

“Senior brothers!”

When Dongze and Agas arrive, everyone exhales, relief breaking like rain on dry earth.

“Please, can you save Saya? She’s not that bad.” Caro remembers Saya’s dim eyes, a lantern with dying oil, and her heart tightens.

She met Saya again with Ouyang later. The girl’s plainness, like clean water, stirred pity.

Eyes turn toward Saya. She stares at the sky in silence, blood flowing like a thin stream. Her green dress is stained dark red, a maple leaf at dusk. It’s like the world holds nothing left for her. Yet she won’t shut her eyes. Sin’s act cuts her like a cold knife—friends sworn, betrayal returned. It makes no sense.

They weigh Saya against the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts. Final Resentment turned an entire nation into corpses, a field of stone figures.

New Text on Anatomy scoured the world for bodies, leaving mangled remains like driftwood after a storm.

Blood‑Pool Samsara destroyed an empire, turning its splendor into a vast blood pool—no, a blood sea. In the northeast, the land is a red ocean.

By contrast, Saya changed a city and a small town into insects, yet never harmed the residents. Against other hosts, she’s a soft wind, not a hurricane.

“Please, save her. My hometown became this because of her, but she kept those changed residents safe.” Augustine’s voice is firm, a candle that refuses to gutter.

He’s right. After Seth City turned to insects, all sorts of people tried to snatch them for dissection, hunting secrets like crows eyeing silver. Without Saya’s guard, they’d have been dragged off for experiments long ago. Augustine is genuinely grateful.

Dongze looks to Agas. Agas nods, a stone under a stream. They step over, boots on a ruined roof, and come to Saya.

She must’ve fallen headfirst. Blood leaks steadily, a dark thread. Her dim eyes refuse to close, two windows on a moonless night.

“Miss Saya, hold on. It’s over now. We can be friends.” Caro crouches beside her, whispering like spring grass pushing up, trying to lift a will to live.

Saya’s eyes stay dull, a lake without stars.

“So dark… the world slid back to the place I hate. I can’t see people. I can’t see things.” Her voice barely stirs, like ash in wind.

Her words confirm Caro’s guess. Those dim pupils are a blind girl’s night. Saya could only see by leaning on the artifact’s light; without it, what does her world become?

Pitch black. A life alone. She turned people into insects because the darkness made people reject her, bully her, like thorns in every path. Insects wouldn’t reject her. Wouldn’t bully her. They could play with her, buzz like summer fields.

“No, Saya. We’ll all be your friends. Even in the dark, you won’t be alone.” Caro holds her hand, warm as a tea cup. The girl’s mischief is only loneliness in disguise. Caro knows that flavor.

She once lost her legs, a winter trapped indoors. Yet she could see the world’s colors, had her grandpa, watched the street from the shop, a lantern in a window.

Compared to Saya, Caro had spring after winter.

So she understands Saya more than anyone here. She feels that heart like rain on her own roof.

“Friends… that… that thing… never existed… from the start…” The last emotion slips out of Saya like smoke. Her eyes finally close.

She’s gone. At the end, she never saw the blue sky or flowers in full blaze. Only darkness held her, quiet as snow.

“Saya? Saya!” Caro shakes her, panic like a drumbeat, but the river has crossed its bank.

“Please, seniors, save her!” Caro turns to the two watching, hope like a kite straining at string. They’d promised to help. Why don’t they move?

Her pleading meets their helpless sighs, two reeds bending in wind.

How can this be?

Caro can’t accept it. “Seniors, you’re gods, right? If you’re gods, there must be a way to bring her back?”

Augustine recalls a path. “Caro, don’t panic. Even if she died, we can find her soul in the City of the Dead.” His words gleam, a lantern lit in a cave.

“Oh, right. Caro, breathe.” Irina lifts Caro gently, arms like silk.

Voices overlap, and the air eases like clouds parting. But if someone doesn’t cut across now, Dongze’s First Cult badge might as well be for show.

“Sorry. This girl is special. We can’t revive her. And even in the City of the Dead, you won’t find her soul.” Dongze’s words hit like cold water, a bucket dashed over coals.

Hopes that barely rose drop like stones in a well.

“Senior… is there no way?” Caro hangs on, knuckles pale as paper.

“A way… If you can find her soul, I have ten thousand ways to bring her back.” Agas speaks like night iron. His black‑magic line works with souls. He can feel it—Saya’s soul has vanished, slipped away in front of them, eerie as mist.

Caro lowers her head. She watches Saya’s serene face, and can only bless in silence, a prayer like incense.

“Then I’ll remove the barrier.”

With Agas’s words, the black‑and‑white world regains color, dawn pouring in. Insect corpses fade with the palette, like dream‑foam evaporating. Broken houses knit back to shape, streets familiar as old songs, faces familiar as neighbors at market.

With the artifact gone, the power on those residents dissolves like frost in sun. They become themselves again. People look around, dazed, as if waking from a long dream.

After a breath, they resume plans, footsteps finding grooves like carts on ruts, as if nothing happened.

It won’t last. When they find their spare food has spoiled, clocks don’t match memory, places don’t match recall, and the sunset sits bloody at the edge, they’ll feel the wrongness.

When Saya turned them to insects, it was noon. Now the dusk is crimson, like a river of wine.

“Augustine, aren’t you going home?” Priss, the prince of the Land of Light, asks the baby in Fei’s arms, a smile sharp as a fan.

Augustine shoots him a glare. “Save the cold jokes. Like this, how would my family recognize me?” Banter clinks like cups, yet Caro’s mood sinks, a stone in water. Failing to save Saya hits hard.

“Saya’s Song… it’s a tragedy by nature. Its host meets misfortune. From the moment she took it, fate was sealed.” Dongze sighs into the evening wind, a bamboo flute half‑heard.

Agas doesn’t fully grasp Dongze’s sigh. He can only wear a tired look, clouded as autumn.

Just as Dongze said—the road was a tragedy from the first step. Any choice meant a sacrifice. Saya chose to sacrifice herself, to drift away from this world like a leaf on dark water.