He glanced at Xian—taller now, like bamboo after rain; she looked fifteen or sixteen. The exact age? Ouyang couldn’t tell, a mist over numbers. Then he looked at Loyin—still a pocket-sized loli, stuck like a sapling in winter. Had Eunice’s spell rubbed off on her?

The water goddess was a millennia-old loli, yes, yet she carried adult poise, like moonlight smoothing a lake. Eunice’s grown form was stunning, a blossom at high summer. Too bad it lasted only a few seconds. He hadn’t seen her shift again. But Loyin? This girl seemed frozen in that loli form, a portrait sealed in lacquer.

Loyin noticed Ouyang tracing shapes in the air, his gaze a fishing line cast between Xian and her. She looked at Xian, then at herself. She touched her chest, flat as a board on a quiet dock. “Mm… Brother, why didn’t I develop?”

She tugged at her black short skirt, pouty as a cat in rain. Black light welled up. Her skirt stretched and pooled, trailing the ground like spilled ink. “Brother, did I grow up now?” Ouyang: “…”

Her stunt made everyone laugh, a courtyard ringing with bells. The little loli stayed foggy, not understanding why the river of laughter flowed.

After the brief reunion, Ouyang learned from Xi where Kanofia and the others had gone. This world was Xi’s past creation, a garden she had planted in old seasons. So she could probe things his hands couldn’t reach.

“That place… no, that world—we’ve all been there.” The ones pulled into the rift didn’t seem endangered. Yet the world they landed in left Ouyang stunned, thunder under clear skies.

There was no single name for that world. Everyone called it something different, like stars with their own myths. It was a world once ruined, a battlefield scorched to ash. Millions of years later, that soil birthed life again, spring creeping over old stone to weave a world anew.

“The place where it all began. The first continent.” Ouyang bit his lip. His face stayed calm, but his heart beat like drums under snow.

Xi went on. “By my sensing, countless forces veil that world like layered mist. Beings above the Divine level can’t cross. They can only descend as projections. And they mustn’t disturb what sleeps in that world.”

He didn’t know what power that sleeper held. But Xi’s grave expression said enough—a mountain under the sea, heavy and hidden.

“I’m going to prep. In a while, we’ll project over. I do worry about those few.” He sighed, a wind through pines, then moved. With the Jade Rabbit, Ouyang headed for Dragon Gorge. Three years ago, the golden dragon, right before it self-destructed, told him where the taken dragons hid. He hadn’t agreed on the spot. But after the war, he settled the dragon race back in their old home—Dragon Gorge.

Dragon Gorge and the Nightfall Forest lay like twin shadows in the First Domain, the territory under Ouyang, the First Demon King. The First Domain was smallest among Tianhen’s Fifteen Domains, only those two lands. Yet it held the most experts. False gods and Demigods gathered around the Nightfall Forest like hawks around a cliff.

They arrived at Dragon Gorge. Dragons wheeled through the canyon like storm clouds. Ouyang even saw mortals moving about, ants among emerald boulders.

“Rabbit, are these dragons on good terms with mortals?”

The Jade Rabbit squinted, then drew a carrot from its tuxedo like a magician. “My lord, dragons and humans get along fine. Three years ago, the dragon race chose a new chief. Xia Zuo of the Wood Dragon line took the mantle. Wood Dragons are gentle by nature, like rain on moss. With our Miracle City keeping a steady hand, their foreign policy shifted hard.”

“And the dragons now sign contracts with humans, letting them ride dragons into battle…” As the Jade Rabbit said that, Ouyang cut in, eyes sharp as blades. “That’s the legendary Dragon Riders, right? Nice. Looks like we’ve got more capital to invade other worlds. A Dragon Rider legion… heh, that could sweep a low-tier world like fire through dry grass.”

He gave the dragon race a hundred thumbs-ups in his heart, applause beating like rain on drumskin. Even he hadn’t pitched that idea. With a Dragon Rider legion, the Demon Kings wouldn’t need to act. Send fodder troops, and worlds without divinities would fall like autumn leaves.

As he mused, he spotted a human riding a dragon. The rider wore black armor and held a long spear, scanning the canyon like a hawk on patrol. The patrolling Dragon Rider saw Ouyang and the Jade Rabbit. The dragon banked, arrowing toward them.

“You two… Dragon Gorge forbids any non-dragon race flying over their skies! Land at once!”

“Huh?” Ouyang was stunned on the spot, like a cat splashed with cold water. These dragons enforced air superiority?

Ouyang didn’t answer. The Jade Rabbit stepped up, ears cocked like banners, and waved at the Dragon Rider with swagger. “Kid, new to the saddle? You dare stop Grandpa Rabbit? Your dragon chief calls me Lord Jade Rabbit. And you think you can bar me?”

That swaggering tone made both rider and dragon hesitate, hooves skidding on wet stone. In other worlds, a Dragon Rider was top-tier. But in Tianhen’s First Domain, where Demigods walked like common birds and skies were crowded like marketplaces, the dragon race didn’t dare be too arrogant.

“What business brings you two lords to Dragon Gorge?” The rider didn’t recognize them, but the dragon did. Three years ago, Ouyang had hurled a flock of dragons out of a hidden subspace into Dragon Gorge. That terrifying image had burned into draconic memory like a brand.

“Hmph. Smart little dragon. Lord Ouyang’s here to discuss matters with your chief. Go fetch your chief, now!” The Jade Rabbit’s domineering bark made the rider flinch back. The dragon didn’t argue—he darted off to report.

Watching that, Ouyang realized this rabbit might lack many virtues, but when it came to flexing, it was first-class, a peacock in full plume.

“Rabbit, when are you taking back your other share of power?” The Jade Rabbit had been ‘gene-modified’ by Ouyang during the Age of Chaos using all kinds of odd tools, a chimera born of midnight workshops. After the Demon Kings were sealed, it hid far from crowds. As time flowed, its power swelled like a tide. Right as it aimed for a Divine throne, a figure from the Divine Realm, the Kitchen God, captured it.

A human was seized alongside it. The Kitchen God seemed keen to study the Jade Rabbit’s immortality. He carved off a portion of its power and grafted it onto that human, moonlight poured into a jar. Later, the Kitchen God left. The human and the rabbit broke out together from his lab.

The rabbit and that human had a love-to-kill tale Ouyang had heard when he first reached the Nightfall Forest. The human wanted to eat the rabbit, to make the power whole. The Jade Rabbit wanted to kill the human, to reclaim what was its own. Man and rabbit stalemated for countless years—an unaging human, an undying rabbit—two candles refusing to burn out.

Now, Miracle City brimmed with experts like stars in a crowded sky. Finding someone to kill that hiding human for the Jade Rabbit would be easy. Yet in recent years, the Jade Rabbit seemed to have forgotten the man’s existence, a name fading on old wood.

“My lord… about that… the human won’t live more than a few years anyway. Let him hop a bit longer. After so many years as old rivals, I’m oddly reluctant.”

Hearing that, Ouyang didn’t know what to say. So the rabbit and the man had grown feelings—threads knotted by time.

“What happened? Why only a few years?” After some talk, Ouyang learned the human had been wounded in the chaos three years ago by the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts. Their power kept gnawing at him like rust in bone. In a few years, he would die.

“Ah, reluctant—an old rival of many years…” The Jade Rabbit sighed, hands behind its back, posing like a lonely master under moonlight. “I told him, after he dies I’ll refer him to that torch-bearing group of eternal singles in the City of the Dead. Honestly, the guy’s pitiful. So many years as my rival, and he really stayed single for ten thousand.”

At that mischievous kindness, Ouyang could only wipe imaginary cold sweat from his brow. The man was already miserable—single for ten thousand years in life. After death, that damned rabbit would sign him up with a singles club. Wasn’t that condemning him to stay single forever?

“Rabbit, that’s something. Good. Very strong.” Ouyang could only offer those layered words, dry as tea.

Soon, the dragon chief, Xia Zuo, flew over with a flock of elders, scales flashing like a river of shields. With the First Demon King visiting, they had to show sincerity, or the dragon race might truly go extinct in this world.

Before coming, Ouyang just wanted a stroll under clouds, a casual look. But after seeing the Dragon Rider profession, a new idea flared like flint. There were still too few dragons.

Ouyang first praised Xia Zuo. Dragon Riders mattered for keeping peace, bridges over rough waters. They could save people in other worlds drowning in fire and flood. So the number of Dragon Riders must keep growing, and the dragon race must strive to proliferate…

His speech left the dragons in a fog. Even after he left, they still didn’t grasp it. “Chief, what did the First Demon King mean?” Xia Zuo lifted his dragon head to the sky, face wise as old stone. After a pause, he spoke slowly. “The First Demon King… means we should sign more contracts with humans, birth more Dragon Riders, and then go attack other worlds…” The dragons woke at once, torches catching flame. “As expected of the First Demon King—making a simple thing sound so profound, mist over a stream.”

Miracle City, inner domain.

“Everyone, let’s move out. In the Other Shore, the places that need clearing—it’s time.” Because of the Twelve Divine Demon Artifacts and matters of the Divine Realm and the Demon World, Ouyang hadn’t had time to handle the Other Shore. Now, it was due, like harvest after long rain.

“Aurora, you command from the Astral Plaza. I’m making a trip to the Starry Citadel.” The Starry Citadel, a place woven with memories—he hadn’t gone back in a long time. When he first broke the seal, his soul drifted there once. Back then he felt like an abandoned child, a leaf in a cold alley, no mood to look around. Now, he would head there again, footsteps set like stones in a river.