Malegebi Grasslands. In the ribcage of a dead city, five figures sifted rubble like gulls combing a gray shore, hunting for something lost in the dust.

There were five in all, two men and three women, their shadows long like reeds in wind. Two men and two women were sixteen or so, quick as sparrows; the last woman looked young yet carried moon-cold poise that made age fall away like mist.

They searched a long time; the ruin was a husk, silent as a dried riverbed. The red twin-tail girl lifted her voice like a flare. “Aunt Lingwen, does this lost plane really hide a legendary beast?”

The red-haired boy, her mirror in color, pulled a bitter face like chewed bark. “The Void Smuggler Beast—does that thing even exist? This world’s bones have been dry for years; even a divine beast would be a fossil.”

Lingwen walked point, blue hair like sky-water tugged by wind. She only shook her head, a willow bowing, and kept quiet.

Just as the four teenagers began to fidget like sparrows in rain, a voice drifted from far off like a stone skimming a pond.

“Malegebi, what a damned place—where the hell are the caonima? Malegebi, caonima!” The tone was ragged, a gust against thorns. The words, though, were foreign to them, sand from another shore.

“Other worlders? Are they also chasing the Void Smuggler Beast?” The purple-haired boy with a shield on his back scanned the ruins like a wolf at dusk, calm where others froze.

Hearing the voice, Lingwen stopped, brow creasing like a folded fan. A breeze lifted her sky-blue fringe; she smoothed it back like rain on slate. She watched the city gate, where the sound rolled in like a tide.

Their reactions scattered like leaves. The shield-bearer bristled, a pine in winter. Lingwen frowned, a cold petal. The red-haired boy lit up like a lamp, glad for faces in the suffocating ruins.

“There are people over there from another world. Let’s say hi!” His voice popped like a firecracker.

He bolted, a fox through grass, ignoring hands that rose like nets. The twin-tail girl wasn’t so naïve; her words snapped like a branch. “Idiot, get back! Not every interloper is kind like Aunt Lingwen!”

On the other side, Ouyang and Mapleleaf had found a city husk and were grinning like miners spotting a vein. Where there’s a city, there were caonima settled like herds; maybe there were unhatched eggs sleeping like river stones.

A red-topped kid sprinted at them, babbling like a creek. From his open face, Ouyang read friendly intent, a summer breeze. But this was the Other Shore’s turf; appearing here made him an invader, a thorn in the garden.

It’s like someone warping into your house and ransacking drawers like crows; even if he smiles like sunshine, would you answer with the same warmth?

The answer was a cold no, a door slamming in wind.

At that red shock of hair, Ouyang and Mapleleaf remembered their task like a bell—drive out the outsiders, not hunt caonima like children chasing clouds.

Mapleleaf’s fingers twitched over the twin crossed sheaths on his back, dragonflies over water. Sensing the kid’s scant strength, he slid the blade back that one quivering centimeter.

“Just a little redhead…” His words were a dry leaf.

He vanished like a spark.

“Starburst No-Treatment Slash!” His shout was a comet tail.

He reappeared beside the boy like lightning hitting a lone tree. The redhead was down, face a map of bruises, blue tracks blooming where the scabbard kissed skin.

It all happened too fast, a hawk’s dive. The three in the distance saw only Mapleleaf re-sheathing, sunset on steel. How he closed in, when the scabbards came off, how many times they cracked across that face—those beats were smoke.

“Hmph. Outsider, dying under my scabbards is your honor.” Mapleleaf swept his hair like a river god, basking in the clean arc of his move.

Ouyang eyed the twitching redhead, foam pearled at his lips like surf. He swallowed, dry as sand. “Damn, it really was a ‘No-Treatment Slash.’ The kid’s beaten so bad he’s actually given up on treatment.”

The boy lay there, jerking like a fish on bank, eyes rolled white like winter moons, wondering why a friendly step turned into a storm of blows.

“Senyang, are you okay?” The twin-tail girl’s voice cracked like ice. Fear hit first, a cliffedge drop; then she knelt, hands trembling like leaves. She checked his nose for breath, finding it faint as smoke, and let out a shaky sigh.

Her gaze snagged on the bruises, blue grapes swelling. Her heart ached like a bruise pressed—her brother was slower than other kids, rain behind the herd. To call it “slow” was kind; harsh mouths called it sick in the head. Since childhood, Senyang had been a scarecrow in a gale, pecked by crows; she knew every sting, every jeer, every winter he endured.

The shield-bearing boy burned inside like banked coals, yet his eyes stayed cold—he couldn’t track Mapleleaf’s hand, a falcon above clouds. Anger curled back like smoke; they were outmatched from every angle.

The last woman stood at the rear, thought veiled like a pond. She tidied her dark-green hair, moss-long, and a pair of pointed ears pricked like new shoots.

“You… my brother’s face screams no malice, like a lamb in snow. What you did is beyond cruel!” The twin-tail girl’s cheeks flared red as maple, but her hands stayed careful as rain over his breath. Seeing those welts, tears threaded her lashes like dew.

Across the rubble, Ouyang and Mapleleaf exchanged a look, twin knives glinting.

“Ayang, what’s the twin-tail saying? Chewing me out?” Mapleleaf stared, lost as a child in fog; the words were stones to him.

Ouyang crossed his arms, watching like a man at theater. “How would I know? The stars are vast as seas; I can’t know every tongue. Judging her face—yeah, she’s cussing you. They’re a pack.”

Of the star-river of languages, Ouyang knew a few currents. The lingua franca of the Other Shore flowed through its vassal realms like tide. He knew the demon tongue of the endless Abyss, guttural as caves; the god tongue of the Divine Realm, bright as bells; and the demonfolk tongue of the Demon World, sharp as flint. The small backwater dialects were reeds he never bothered to learn.

“Hey… blame me? You barge into our house and kick up dust, and I swat you—you dare scold?” Mapleleaf rubbed his knuckles, thunder building.

“Ouyang, go on—leave the three weak chicks to me, the blue-haired woman’s yours.” His grin flashed like a fox’s.

The look said, I’m taking the crowd and leaving you one jewel; generous, right? Ouyang’s face twitched like a line plucked.

“No, no… as your brother, I’ll take the other guy. You take all the girls—every flower’s yours. Generous enough?” He spoke and lunged at the purple-haired shield-bearer, first move like a hawk’s shadow.

Mapleleaf swore, hot as steam. “Hell no, I don’t want the girls—leave the man to me!”

“Get lost. You want to dump the hardest one on me? Dream on!” Ouyang stomped, heel cracking ground like a drum. A stone wall surged up, an earth wave, cutting the two apart.

“Little Maple, the Creation-class woman’s yours. As your brother, I’ll ‘reluctantly’ handle the only awake dude.” His grin was a knife under cloth.

Mapleleaf shook his twin swords, the scabbards humming like cicadas. “Starburst… No-Treatment Slash!”

In an instant, shadows of scabbards bloomed across the stone like frost. A second later, the wall shattered into a rain of rocks, gravel strewn like seeds. Mapleleaf leveled a scabbard at Ouyang, swagger loud as brass. “Hand over that dude. The girls are all yours.”

They squared off, absurd as kittens puffing at storm. Ouyang wasn’t surprised; this was the First Cult’s way—no teammates, only marks, even themselves fair game, like gamblers cheating their own hands.

For no reason at all, both nodded in uncanny sync, geese turning together, and fixed on Lingwen like hunters sighting a white stag.

“Secret Art: Immortal Beyond the Sky!”

With a whoosh, Mapleleaf finally drew his twin blades, the sound a crane’s wing. Speed tore the scene, too sharp for even Lingwen, a mountain peak, to answer.

Who can taste the lonely heights of a single sword flying immortal? As Mapleleaf’s blade sang, the Divine Bloom drifted down like snow, a god’s flower falling the moment intent rose.

Edges came from all directions like winter rain; there was nowhere to hide, no cave, no tree. That sword fell from beyond the sky, swifter than lightning, faster than thought, a meteorslash.

Only a sweep of white stayed unique in the world, a lone gull over black water.

A killing stroke, proud as ice, cold as moon. No dust clung to it; it walked above mud, untouched.

That sword, that heartbeat, was peerless splendor, a comet blazing through night.