In a white void, black iron chains coiled around black‑haired Ouyang like hunting serpents.

Ahead stood the gray‑haired Ouyang, walking closer, and around him black lightning and pitch‑dark fire fluttered like omen‑birds.

“What a coward… You fled reality, fled pain, and hid here. Heh, you do know how to run.”

“The host fell asleep, so we surfaced. Look at you—during your turn at the wheel, what did you do? You dragged the honor of the Seven Watchers through the mud.”

“You hold power that could erase all things, yet you keep dodging it, fearing it like a shadow at your back.”

“You’ve chosen escape. Fine—leave the rest to me.”

The chains wrapped black‑haired Ouyang, a dense cocoon like silkworm silk sealing him tight.

In a pitch‑black cell, Ouyang opened his eyes; a cold gaze swept the dark like winter wind.

Welts striped his face, neck, and arms, red tracks like thorn‑vines biting into skin.

“Oh, kid, didn’t think you’d live… heh… come taste my whip again.”

A weak lamp smeared yellow light; a uniformed officer lounged at a table, teacup steaming like lazy mist.

As he smirked, the half‑dead Ouyang’s hair paled, black draining to ash like frost licking fire.

“The hell is that? You’re Western Empire spy, aren’t you?”

Cables sprouted from his right hand like metallic roots; a ghostly glow rose, flesh turning to steel like ice over river.

“Die—Energy Cannon!”

A glare blazed from the mechanical arm, like a sun‑shard hurled down a well.

“Heh… ants living inside a mirage.”

The voice was cold, without hate or heat, drifting like dew into the ear.

The officer turned; the eerie kid was suddenly at his side, holding something wet and red that pulsed like a trapped bird.

Thump, thump—

He looked down. His chest was hollow, blood seeping slow as a dark spring. “That’s… my… heart…”

He collapsed.

With a wet pop, Ouyang crushed the heart; blood burst like a scarlet rain and painted his face.

“A false world… Wake the Azure Bird, and this painted sky tears open.

Of the Twelve Sages, some may be on the First Continent, but the Moon Sage surely is.

With that woman’s bleeding‑heart mercy, she won’t let the Azure Bird wake.”

“So I’ll rip this false firmament myself.”

“At the end of the Eighth Epoch, the Moon Sage was wounded.

Even so, I can’t beat her now, so I need a strong ally.”

He dipped a fingertip in blood and drew a twisting demon sigil, the officer’s corpse its cold center, lines like thorny vines looping inward.

“On this First Continent, only the Ancestor of Blood Night suits me.

She’ll enjoy hunting the Moon Sage.

Heh… the Temple of the Moon Goddess and its bleeding hearts keep crowing as if they forged order and guard it.”

Blood poured from the hollow chest, yet the sigil held it in, a red lake caught by black reeds.

The lines gleamed crimson; the blood boiled, gurgling like a hungry spring.

After a moment, a red skull surfaced from the seethe, big as a living room screen, its sockets cradling twin dancing flames.

“Seven Deadly Sins—Gluttony!”

Once, Ouyang birthed Wrath with a bull‑headed man, and that brute rampaged through Terracafe.

He suspected the Seven Sins linked to Original Sin, so he stayed his hand.

Now, he had no such brake.

Even if an Original Sin rose again, so what? He longed for it, dreamed of smashing this false world.

The red skull floated, then drifted down and ate the officer’s body bite by bite, crunching like a fried drumstick.

“Master… hungry…”

Gluttony pleaded like a child, hunger hanging on each word like winter fog.

Ouyang stepped close and stroked the skull, like calming a crying boy.

“Easy. Food’s coming—plenty, plenty. Every living thing is your meal. No—the world itself is your meal.”

Short ash hair. A strange face smeared with blood.

If anyone lived nearby, they’d feel the room drop ten degrees like midnight frost.

Footsteps scuffed outside.

“Move! We save him before they react!”

The iron door groaned open; masked figures in black surged in like crows.

They saw blood‑drenched Ouyang and drew a sharp breath, cold as steel.

They noticed the red pool, too, but time was a blade; if Ouyang lived, they’d haul him out and call the mission done.

“Kid, since you’re alive, you’re coming with us.”

One reached for Ouyang, voice perched high like a lord on a tower.

As if rescuing him earned them bowing thanks on a jade floor.

He never touched Ouyang.

A red skull flared up and bit off his arm like a crocodile snapping reeds.

“Ah!!!”

The scream tore the prison like a storm ripping canvas.

Crunch, crunch—

“Master, this one’s nice and crisp.”

Gluttony chewed and chatted, the arm clacking like dry twigs under teeth.

“What is that?”

The black‑clad crew staggered back like waves in retreat; the maimed man stared, shock freezing him into a stone.

Ouyang walked toward them, slow as a funeral drum.

For every step he took, they stepped back, as if a mountain beast padded closer through snow.

“Mon—monster… Stop. Don’t come closer!”

His steps kept falling, each one a death warrant stamped in ice.

“Stop!”

One fought back.

A steel tube pushed from his palm like a spear sprouting; a red beam fired, a comet line slicing air.

Boom—the floor shattered into a crater, rubble smoking like hot ash.

In their sight, the strange man’s lower half was gone, blown to gravel with the ground.

“Huff—hah—”

“Is he dead? Why hasn’t that red skull faded?”

Dust thinned.

Ouyang’s upper body grinned with an eerie curve, a moon‑slice smile in fog.

The skull hung untouched, floating, twin flames staring like twin suns.

“Mortals… you can’t kill me.”

His voice blew in like polar wind, chilling marrow; their bodies shivered like leaves.

Ouyang’s upper half hovered.

His missing lower half reassembled like shards finding a mirror, piece by piece, until he stood whole again.

“This… impossible. The Western Empire’s witches must’ve cast Immortality on him…”

They trembled, then feared, then fell into the black well of despair.

“Friends, my child is very hungry.”

Gluttony shot forward like a starving wolf.

“Run!”

Panic broke like a beehive.

Crunching never stopped; bodies were chewed to pieces, and the meat vanished as if swallowed by a sinkhole in the skull’s red mouth.

Outside chaos drew other officers, but their lasers and beams slid through Gluttony like arrows through mist.

No steel, light, or fire could touch this phantom skull.

They couldn’t harm Gluttony.

Gluttony could swallow them whole.

The end was written like frost on glass.

In the stampede, prisoners pried open cells and spilled out like fish in flood.

Most ran, feet slick with fear, clutching a rare chance like a talisman.

A few did not.

They walked behind Ouyang in silence, shadow to his winter sun.

He didn’t send them away.

He let them trail him like fallen leaves follow wind.

Ahead, a gray vortex turned like stormwater in a well.

Ouyang stepped in.

The rest met each other’s eyes, then followed.

They had already chosen when they chose to stay.

They crossed the gray spiral.

Green hills and clear water unfolded, a scroll painting breathing in the open air.

“Will you help me make a new order?”

“This chaotic, unjust world needs a new lattice of law, a fresh riverbed to guide its flood.”