The two full moons had vanished like pale lamps snuffed out, and black clouds smothered the stars. In the dark, only dead stillness crawled. After the thunder’s snarl and lightning’s claw, the rain came down in a furious sheet.

The gloves on Ouyang’s hands were gone, replaced by an old Oil Paper Umbrella, simple as a village well and steady as a pine. The third persona had reshaped Youwen into that umbrella, copying the one Ouyang once gifted Wutong, a memory opening like a lotus in storm. Rain drummed on its skin like thousands of little drums; on any normal night, an umbrella sheltered the head while the body soaked like reeds in a flood.

But this umbrella wasn’t normal. Under its circle of shade, water and fire broke like waves against rock. As long as Ouyang held it, he could walk into the deep sea and breathe inside a calm pocket of air, a lantern of space in a drowned world.

“A rainy night… perfect for blood and silence,” he murmured, voice low as mist. “Chiba Family—vanish in this rain.”

He walked the avenue as the storm hissed, and everyone brushed past him like fish in a river. They didn’t just ignore him; they couldn’t see him at all, as if fog swallowed his outline. Youwen’s umbrella had two faces: warding water and fire, and veiling the wearer like a shadow at noon.

Lightning still roared now and then, a silver serpent thrashing behind the clouds.

“Azure Bird… is it waking?” His thought rose like a chill wind before his step could follow.

Ouyang guessed that the deaths of his parents and the disappearance of his brother had stirred Youwen’s heart like a storm in a well, warping the world’s order like heat over a desert road. The sky’s strange omens were proof, burning like red script in a black book.

“But the Moon Sage won’t let the Azure Bird wake so easily,” he breathed, worry heavy as rain. “If it wakes, the world cracks like ice on a river, and countless lives fade like ash. With a heart like a saint’s, she won’t allow it.”

Soon, the lightning’s rage thinned like a dying fire, but the rain kept falling, drumming like a war beat.

“After I finish the Chiba Family, I’ll head to the Western Empire and wake Kanofia, the Ancestor of Blood Night,” he said, resolve tight as a bowstring.

Head bowed, Ouyang held the Oil Paper Umbrella and moved through the storm, slow as a mountain. Ahead, a No Entry line glowed, and a long perimeter wall sealed the district like a dam around a lake. He didn’t know the size, only felt its bulk like a cliff in fog. From Gluttony’s spilled memories, the Chiba Family’s seat was a city within the city, a walled hive. That whole zone belonged to them, their roots spread over a tenth of the Eastern Empire’s capital like dark roots under stone.

Sensors studded the wall, keen as hawks, clearly set to guard against the Western Empire’s hand. Ouyang couldn’t just phase through like smoke, nor cut a space gate through like a blade.

Strange, he thought, as the rain washed the streets like a riverbed. They held tech sharp enough to hunt the supernatural like steel teeth, yet the umbrellas people used were hardly fancier than his Oil Paper Umbrella, plain as a farmer’s hat. It was a crooked note in a dream. In a hazy dream, no matter how skewed the world, everything feels natural as falling snow, and no one sees the seams.

He stood before the high wall like a stone lantern, and the wraiths circling him moved at last. They swarmed like a cloud of crows, flooding into houses, into doorways, into warm rooms like a cold tide. Night pressed down. Rain roared. The crash of water hid screams like thorns stitched into silk. No one heard the pain braided into the storm.

Soon, people poured out of those houses like ants from a nest, running toward the Chiba wall, faces lit by rain-slick neon like cold moons.

Mechanical voices barked, hard as iron. A man’s back snapped together a pair of steel wings in a heartbeat, and he leapt the wall like a hawk. Others’ hands turned into cannons, and beams carved the wall like lightning chisels. Some roared up in their vehicles and rammed the barrier like bulls hitting a gate. Ouyang watched in stillness, a shadow under his umbrella, hidden in the void like an ink stroke in water. He didn’t lift a hand.

Alarms screamed from the Chiba side, shrill as knives. Red lights flickered like blood on waves.

The blasts tore the city’s sleep like a torn curtain. In the dead of night, folks in slippers and rain-washed faces ran out, umbrellas blooming like dark flowers.

A middle-aged man drove by and stopped, his engine breathing steam like a horse in winter. He asked a passerby, not knowing the wraith rode inside that body like frost under skin.

“Brother, what’s going on?” His voice cut through the rain like a thrown stone.

“Hm? You—no time to explain,” the wraith snapped, quick as a spark. “Attack. Western Empire spies are inside. Catch one, and promotion and fortune fall like ripe fruit. Hurry. There’re hundreds of spies, but we’re a sea. If you’re late, you won’t even get a head to claim.”

Clever thing, Ouyang thought, watching like a river watching leaves. At first it stumbled, then flowed smooth as oil. The man heard, doubt flickering like a moth, but he saw so many already moving—bodies all driven by wraiths like wind through reeds—and didn’t think further. He yanked a launcher from his trunk, hands sure as a craftsman.

“Make way, folks! Demolition’s for professionals!” he shouted, voice loud as a gong. The launcher spat a red bar of light, and it slammed the wall like a falling meteor. The Chiba wall held, hard as bedrock.

Bypassing gawkers along the curb watched the talk and the shot, and their patience frayed like wet paper.

The blasts pulled more people like tide pulls driftwood, and the wraith’s story spread by mouths like seeds in wind. A tale told once, ten times, a hundred, until it turned into a new beast.

“Go, brothers! Inside are Empire-wanted felons. Bag one and you get a million Imperial credits,” someone shouted, greed hot as a brazier.

“Wanted felons? I heard they’re rebelling,” another argued, doubt thin as smoke.

“Why fuss the details?” a third laughed, eyes bright as foxfire. “We’re awake anyway. Blast the wall. With this many, we’re on the right side.”

A man whipped out his communicator, voice fast as rain. “Hey, Tiger? Yeah, big deal. Sunshine Avenue. Word is, rebellion. Empire’s posted it—catch one, get a hundred million Imperial credits. Hurry. They’ve only got a thousand or so inside. Plenty of targets. Our odds are sweet. We team up, snag one, split a hundred mil, never worry again.”

“A thousand? You want us dead?” came the reply, wary as a cat.

“Nah, Tiger. Plenty outside the wall like us. Folks trying to grab heads like fish in a frenzy—probably tens of thousands. We’ll pick through chaos like crows. Bag one and we’re set.”

Seconds later, praise came like warm wind through the line. “Monkey, nice work. If it pans out, I’ll make you a hall master. Hold there. I’m gathering the brothers.”

Of course, a few didn’t lose their heads; they knew this was Chiba land, ground with teeth like a tiger.

In a dim corner, a small group whispered like night insects.

“Boss, those idiots are charging blind,” a fat man muttered, belly round as a drum. “That’s Chiba turf. It’s suicide.” He spoke to a man in a black suit and a tall black top hat, a silhouette like a raven. The man didn’t agree. He lit a cigarette and blew a ring that floated like a pale moon.

“Shallow,” he said, tone cool as rain. “You think they’re all fools? So many pounding that wall, and more will come like a rising tide. When it collapses, the crowd will flood in like a river breaking a bank. That’s our window. They’re top three in the Empire. Even a random antique is worth tens of millions, stones heavy as stars. With a sea of bodies, even if the Chibas get stripped clean, who’ll know we pulled the pearl?”

Admiration rippled through his boys like wind through grass.

He exhaled smoke, a thin gray stream. “So we won’t tell those gawkers the truth. We’ll bury it deeper, like seeds under frost. The messier the storm, the better our odds.”

He flicked the cigarette, ember falling like a firefly, and crushed it under heel. “Brothers, move.”

Not far from Sunshine Avenue, a man drove like a wolf in rain, stopped at a house, and hammered the security door, fists loud as drums.

Thump, thump, thump…

The door swung open. Several faces blinked at him, puzzled as owls.

“Brothers, no time to explain,” he grinned, urgency bright as lightning. “Into the car! Sunshine Avenue’s where our bright future waits like sunrise.”

He hauled them in anyway, rough as a river current. The engine roared, and the car shot toward Sunshine Avenue like an arrow.

That night, even storm and gale couldn’t smother the heat of clueless gawkers. From every corner of the city, called by friends and kin like bells, people streamed toward Sunshine Avenue like migrating fish.

“Ha, brother, out this late—headed to Sunshine Avenue too?” one driver shouted, joy sparking like wine.

“Well, what a coincidence—I am,” the other laughed, wheels hissing like snakes. An aerial vehicle flashed past overhead, a quick silver fish. In that heartbeat, they still saw the figures inside, faces lit like lanterns.

“Damn, that sky-train’s packed. Looks bound for Sunshine Avenue. Floor it, or we’ll arrive to empty nets!”

Both cars opened up, engines howling like wolves. With a whoosh, they tore forward. Other drivers saw, panic fluttering like sparrows, and stomped their pedals. Under the storm, cars screamed down the avenues, the street a wild racecourse lit by rain.

A tide of clueless gawkers surged toward Sunshine Avenue like a flood through gates. Firepower hammered the wall like storm on a cliff. At last, the barrier couldn’t bear the crowd’s fury, and it fell, collapsing like a rotten tree under lightning.