A riot of sigils hung in the void like stained glass in the sky, faint rainbows flickering like fish beneath waves, a soft rain of light drifting like pollen.

An unnameable sound rolled between heaven and earth like a hymn riding wind, like a rite beating under drums. You could hear it clear as spring water, yet your tongue couldn’t catch it. No throat could mimic it. No mouth could voice its meaning. You felt what it carried like heat through stone. But when you reached for words, they scattered like birds.

Chain-shaped marks burned on the backs of Ouyang’s and Bai’s hands, twin shackles drawn by starlight. His mark lay on his left hand like frost; hers on the right like a moonprint.

They lifted their hands like two branches leaning. Their palms met, slow as falling snow. The chain-marks stirred like waking serpents. Lines crept, links stretched, and in one breath the two marks locked like iron over a river. The air felt like an old ritual sealing like ice.

No herald spoke, yet everyone knew like tides know the moon: it was done.

Ouyang stared at the pattern on his skin with the wonder of a child chasing fireflies. His right hand rubbed his left like a cat testing new ink. Bai only watched with that gentle smile, eyes warm as lantern light.

“Alright, drop the study. You won’t crack it now.” Xi tugged Ouyang’s hand away like wind snapping a kite string. The break in his trance brought the worry back like a shadow.

“Right, the Rift Wasteland. Did you sense the stir?” His voice ran rough as sand. “Not long ago, two of my people got dragged into a rift.”

He relayed what Qianxue and Qianling had said, words kept from Irina like a letter hidden under ash. If Irina learned her sister was missing, she’d hound him day and night like rain on tiles.

Xi’s face tightened like a stormbank when she heard Kanofia was gone. “I need to check the World Tree,” she said, voice steady as a blade. “Xian, do you stay here, or do I send you home?”

“Home? Will you still come here, sister?” Xian’s eyes flicked like birds. “If you will, I’ll stay a while.” She squeezed Loyin’s hand like a reed in a stream and tugged her out the door.

Xi sighed like wind through pines. She touched Ouyang’s cheek like dusk on water. “You be careful. I think it’s those traitors.”

Traitors…

Old grudges had brewed like steeped tea since the First Epoch, and here stood the Ninth. No matter how clean you cut, someone’s interest bled. The world never ran flawless. Since the First Epoch, some hearts tilted toward revolt. In the chaos of the Third, a few slipped away like wolves into fog.

“I ran into a taste of that, not long ago,” Ouyang said, breath long as winter. “You watch yourself too.” Right and wrong from back then were ash in rain. To open the Gate and bring everyone back, the last barrier wasn’t the Supreme Law. It was the traitors like nails in the road. From Dongze’s words about the Raven, he already gauged their strength like a hunter weighing tracks.

If they tied hands with other ‘god-clans’, their Tiered Beings could hit double digits like stars in an eyeful.

But a crowd of Tiered Beings wasn’t always a boon. They had no leader like the Other Shore had, no mountain to set the snowline. Back then, the Other Shore had more than a dozen Tiered Beings in plain sight like peaks on a range. In the dark, the count likely doubled like roots beneath earth.

Every Tiered Being carried pride like a crown. Beings called lords of the stars won’t bend to another’s leash. Yet the Other Shore had a Third Tier existence beyond the standard pressing like a sky on a plain. First Tier or Second, they restrained themselves, bound by covenant like boats by mooring lines. As for those Third Tier out-of-spec beings, they had marched from the First Epoch shoulder to shoulder, comrades born of fire and frost. So the Other Shore’s high ranks stayed harmonious like strings in tune.

That harmony was rare as winter plum. Even if the traitors gathered a herd of Tiered Beings, they’d split like ice along fault lines—mutual distrust, rotten shares, hands dragging the tail of any move.

“Let those ‘god-clans’ be wise, or our troubles multiply like locusts.” After sending Xi off, Ouyang walked the quiet street, night cool as ink. Maybe the worry swelled too much, so he let his feet drift like leaves.

After the rite, Bai could appear by his side whenever she wished, like a moon stepping out of cloud. Space rippled like water, and she stood there barefoot, toes pale as shells, a bag of candy from the Outlands in her hand like a bright talisman. She clearly loved sweets like a bee loves bloom.

“Yang, ‘god-clans’… you mean gods?” Her voice was soft as sugar melting.

“‘God-clans’… it depends,” Ouyang said, plucking a candy from her bag like a thief in daylight and slipping it between his teeth. He rubbed her silver hair like silk through fingers. “Every world, every race has its map for ‘god’ and ‘god-clan’. Some say it’s any bloodline with godly ancestry. Some say it’s just the denizens of the Divine Realm.”

“In our Other Shore, only a clan that births a Tiered Being earns the name. Long ago, people called a Tiered Being a True God. A clan with a True God was a god-clan.”

“In those clans, a newborn carries divine power like flame in a seed. Their grown folk can create a world like potters shape clay. Only such a people deserve that title. At its height, the Nightfall Clan was the same—an eternal god-clan ruling ten thousand worlds like a sky over fields.”

“Misfortune struck. Three epochs rolled by like rivers. Their blood thinned like watered wine. Even so, Yiyue Qianliu slew a god with a mortal frame. That alone shows how terrible that blood can be, like thunder sleeping in dust.”

That was the god-clan in the eyes of the Other Shore’s gods: infants born as gods like stars born alight. Adults roaming the starsea, sowing worlds like seeds, painting brilliance across the void like dawn.

“And you, Yang? Do you count as a god-clan?” Bai didn’t wait this time. She tipped a candy to his lips like a cherry to a bird.

“Not yet,” he said, smiling like flint catching spark. “But I’m going to found one. One day, my Void God Clan will span every corner of the starsea like constellations over water. Every star will be born under their hands like sparks from a hammer. Meteor showers will fall at their will like petals in wind. The rules of worlds will come from their fingers like script on jade.”

Ouyang’s dream would take a long road like a caravan over deserts.

—

While Ouyang and Bai traced dreams like kites against sky, the Rift Wasteland tightened like a drawn bow. With Yiyue Qianliu, White Cat, and Kanofia missing, Jue, Amelie, and Yulan went to probe the truth like divers into black water—only to crash into the Demon World’s army like deer into a hunt.

The demons had a single target penned like wolves around a stag: an angel with three pairs of wings, a six-winged archangel. That wasn’t the sting; the sting was the angel’s ease. Golden wings blazed against the black energy like sunrise through storm.

When Jue’s trio appeared, the demon ranks halted like surf at rock. None dared move first, afraid a third party would fish in troubled waters like a heron at dusk. The angel’s back lit with a ring of holy light like a haloed moon. The pressure rolled out beyond a normal six-wing’s weight like a mountain’s shadow.

All sides knew a freeze wouldn’t hold. The Rift Wasteland was demon-held ground like a fortress on badlands, so their reinforcements surged quick as locust wind. The Divine Realm wasn’t slow. Whatever that angel did, golden corridors opened above the Land of Light like rivers in the sky, and hosts of angels poured out like rain toward the Rift Wasteland.

“Tch. Calling backup? Think we don’t?” The first to arrive was the Lich, Glenza. He cast Dark Grand Summoning, and from a black maw poured endless skeletons like a bone tide.

“A final battle in the Rift Wasteland? How considerate.” When the message reached him, Ouyang headed there like a blade drawn. Anywhere else, he’d worry about ruining the world like a bull in a garden. The Rift Wasteland was different; it was where the Ancient Gods had fought like thunder along ridges. Its rules could bear fights above the Ancient God level like bedrock under avalanche. A mob of mere gods wouldn’t crack it.

As he set out, Yiyue Qianxue found him like a sparrow at his sleeve.

“Ouyang-gege, this… for you.” She offered a token, material unknown like stone from a fallen star, yet clearly extraordinary. “It’s passed down by our royal line. I don’t really know its use. They say it can summon the legendary legion.”

Seeing her worry hang like mist, Ouyang smiled and refused like a hand steadying a cup.

“Don’t fret. This battle doesn’t need that. Maybe far down the road, I will.” He knew a clan that once ruled ten thousand worlds wouldn’t leave no backhand, like a ship without an anchor. Using it on a gaggle of gods would be a waste like pearls to swine. If anything, he’d save it for the final clash with the traitors like thunder saved for spring.

“Little Qianxue, your clan fell this far. Why not use it to break the siege?” His tone was mild as rain, but the question cut like reed.

“With such a cheat, how are you still so battered?” ran the thought like a swallow.

“Well…” She bit her lip like a petal. “Summoning that legion is only a legend. We don’t know how to use it. The ancestors didn’t. The oldest histories don’t say.”

“Figures,” Ouyang murmured, gaze deep as a well.

He’d only heard the tale, never seen the token wake like a drum. He had a guess already, a shape in fog.

“The legendary legion… Captain Dream Chaser, isn’t that right?” he said to the empty air, as if asking wind over water.