In Miracle City’s inner ward, Ouyang lay on the castle’s own lawn, a blade of grass on his lips, worry pooling on his brow like storm-shadow. “This… I should tell that crow. If they learn the ending early, will they bend that tragic fate?”

He’d meant to open a path from the Boundless Sea to his castle, yet a sliver of tomorrow flashed like lightning between clouds. No—inevitable. The watcher of time and eternity had shown him that way, a lantern over deep water. But Ouyang missed the most crucial line. He blinked and found himself back in his castle, and that unfinished sentence hung like mist, a riddle that wouldn’t lift.

Since the great battle a month ago, gods and demons withered like frostbitten leaves. Divine Bloom fell for a full month like pale snow, and it kept drifting. Ouyang guessed those flowers would fall for a year before the sky quieted.

The Night Clan that marched from the Demon World was erased like chalk in rain. It wasn’t Ragnarok proper, yet that tribe was scrubbed from the slate. Even Tiered Beings couldn’t haul them back. Worse, Ouyang had cut them down with the Heaven Departing Divine Sword. That blade once severed rules like silk, so the Night Clan had no road back.

In the Divine Realm, none survived except a single angel with golden wings, a candle in a gutted temple. Compared to the Demon World’s full wipeout, the Divine Realm at least had one breath left. That war, the one that keeps the Divine Bloom falling, made the Divine Realm shut its gate to this world. The demon side had long since slammed theirs.

After one clash, offworld visitors trembled like reeds in a gale. The day of god-and-demon fall turned into a nightmare many couldn’t wake from. The world that birthed a god-war became a name on everyone’s lips, a thunderhead on the horizon.

“Hey, you hear? There’s an inside scoop from the Void Church…”

In a corner of Canopy City, a bearded uncle with stubble like bristles stared at the youth in the middle of a ring of people. The uncle’s voice came quick, like a kettle at boil. “Kid, what’s the news?”

“Yeah, spill it… That church has a god walking the earth…”

“What god? That’s a Demon King! If zealots hear you, you’re dead meat!”

The crowd chirped and buzzed like sparrows under eaves. The topic looped back to the start. The youth grinned and rubbed his hands, palm against palm like flint. “Ahem, brothers, you know the drill. Don’t fob me off with old prints…”

“You should’ve said so! I’ve got the newest booklet. Word is, the heroine’s the Rose Duke’s daughter, one of the kingdom’s top ten beauties…” The uncle tugged a little booklet from his pack like a magician palming doves.

“The Rose Duke’s daughter? Damn, she’s got a booklet now? How? With that much pull, how’d she end up published…”

“Easy, brother, breathe… I’ve even got one on the Goddess of Light…”

Satisfied with his haul of spicy booklets, the youth finally spoke, voice low like a whisper at a shrine. “That inside scoop? If my brother weren’t the Pope of the Void Church, I’d never know.”

“Pope? Hell, kid, you were sitting on that family tree all along?”

“Relax, relax…”

He tidied his hair like a rooster smoothing crest, then continued. “You know about the fall of gods and demons a month ago. I’m telling you, the one who caused it was the Void Messenger the Void Church keeps preaching. The Demon King who holds the first seat in Miracle City.”

“For real?”

“You ain’t feeding us trash for a few booklets, right?”

“Why would I lie? Go ask in Miracle City and you’ll hear the same thunder. What do I gain by lying? A stack of paper and ink?”

The crowd felt the logic click like a lock. As they began to drift off like smoke, the youth called to the stubbled uncle. “Hey, uncle, you know why the Rose Duke’s daughter ended up with a booklet?”

Everyone froze mid-step like startled cats, then slunk back with pricked ears.

The uncle glanced left and right, then lowered his voice till it walked on tiptoe. “They say a kid named Kado hawked booklets in the night market, bold as moonlight on water. The Rose Duke fined him on the spot. You don’t know, that Kado kid—these booklets started with him, like sparks in summer grass. Not long after the fine, the Duke’s daughter got her own booklet…”

“Savage. If I could draw, anyone who crossed me, I’d publish their whole family in every city under the sun.”

…

For a month, Miracle City swept the continent’s open resistance with thunderclap speed, like storm-wind flattening reeds. The Karosen Kingdom handled the minnows that hid in the dark.

The legend of the Demon King spread like wildfire running uphill. The Demon King of Miracle City. The ruler of the Age of Chaos. Old tales rose from silt like drowned bells. This was a world ruled by a cohort of Demon Kings, a world where gods were butchered and demons fell. On the continent, no race or power dared stand up in daylight.

Even the once-dominant Light Church raised white flags like winter fields. The king of the Land of Light came to Miracle City the day after the fall of gods and demons, pledging to follow Miracle City’s commands. He announced the Land of Light would obey Miracle City’s arrangement.

When the strongest power bows, who else is blind enough to resist? Of course, zealots in the Light Church chose death over surrender. Their heads swung above the capital of the Land of Light, grim lanterns in a cold wind.

This is an age for Demon Kings. The continent split into fifteen regions, each the banner of a Demon King’s rule. In years to come, nations will fade like old paint. Only numbered regions will remain. The work’s details are thorny as brambles, so they’ll start the project in the Karosen Kingdom.

At first, people feared Demon King rule would be a nightmare, a wolf at the door. But a month passed, and life walked the same path. Work stayed work. Bread stayed bread. Everyone let out a breath like steam in winter. If there’s land to till and a steady roof, most folks won’t chase storms. Some even support the Demon Kings more.

Beings like living divinities, they don’t tax the people, because Demon Kings have no need. Folks don’t fear rulers grinding them like millstones. Think of it that way, and being ruled by Demon Kings doesn’t sound so dark.

Beyond Miracle City, one more banner rose bright across the land—the Void Church. Miracle City made it the official church. It wasn’t built to worship one face. From the First Demon King to the Fifteenth, everyone could choose the Demon King they liked. With so many temperaments, believers would always find a king who fit their own pulse.

Cold as Amelie. Sprightly as Eunice. Elegant as Devila. Gentle as Bartley. The Demon Kings’ profiles were bound into volumes for seekers to flip like prayer wheels, so each could choose a line to follow. Because people chose differently, they quarreled like clashing sparrows. Factions argued, factions sparred, banners met banners.

It was a flourishing era, a sapling-green era brimming with breath.

After the Age of Chaos, the Demon Kings ruled the world again. Compared to that far-off age, their rule now was meticulous as needlework, with more heart and blood poured in. They were taking this world seriously, not treating it like a toy tossed between storms.

In the high firmament, the scar that ripped everything still gaped like a wound that wouldn’t scab. Divine Bloom kept drifting like pale rain. Both the falling flowers and the sky’s wound kept reminding everyone—this is the Demon Kings’ time.

In the Sealed Land, Ouyang came with a knot of feelings, heavy as wet cloth. The strange lake lay still, its black water a mirror without a ripple. In its center, an oval monolith stood like a spear of dusk. On the shore, a square stele bore the place’s name. The script was ancient and twisted like roots; no one on the continent had read it for ages.

“The Shores of Three Lives… the Three Lives Stone…”

As Ouyang murmured, a phantom crow perched upon the Three Lives Stone like night folded into wings.

“You seem to be looking for me?” The crow knew Ouyang hadn’t come to sightsee; the air around him smelled of iron and rain. Think it through, and there was no other reason to come here but the crow. Ouyang nodded, his face heavy as a stormfront.

He opened his mouth, searching for words like hands feeling in the dark, yet nothing came. He sighed, a tide ebbing. “Nanyang, do you know how things are on the other side?”

Nanyang—that was the crow’s name, sharing the yang with Ouyang. The name wasn’t something its master picked on a whim; something deep shimmered beneath it like a buried spring.

Nanyang tilted its head, puzzled why Ouyang asked now. Caring about the other side felt like counting stars at noon.

“Don’t worry. It’s holding. I’m just tied up.” Nanyang answered, doubt glinting in its eye like a needle, wanting to know why Ouyang asked.

“I saw… an accidental accident… or rather, the only road. In the future, you all lose to the Chaotic Demon God. In the dim starfield, only the one who watches time and eternity stands by the river of time and sighs.”

There was no hint of play on Ouyang’s face, only weight like lead. Nanyang felt it too, and it didn’t take him for a jester.

“Knowing the ending ahead of time—can you change the future?” Ouyang hoped his warning could throw them a rope. What he saw through the river of time was too heavy, too sad, like winter struck through the bones.

Nanyang shook its head, a slow fall of ash. “No way. Even Luo, famed for never losing in life, went down. The enemy’s strength should be overwhelming, like a mountain on a chest. Kid, I’ve got to go. This time I’m truly leaving. If what you saw is right, this might be our last meeting. Your side… will be the last hope.”

Black feathers drifted down like night-snow. The crow left and pulled its projection away. Ouyang picked up the scattered feathers, each like a cold blade, and his heart sank like a stone in deep water.

“In that catastrophe, I wasn’t there. And if the other side collapses completely, they should come through the Golden Constant Gate to take refuge. But in those visions, I didn’t see even a shadow of the Golden Constant Gate.”

“That means the Golden Constant Gate wasn’t open then. We couldn’t send support.”

“That shouldn’t be. By plan, at most a few thousand years, at least a hundred, the Golden Constant Gate should open like dawn. Did something go wrong then? Did those traitors… do something in the future?”