There was a way out inside Qiuya City—the spatial rift Ouyang had torn open, a wound in the air like a dark river. If they reached that cursed land, their odds would swell like a tide.

But that was wishful wind over water. The one who called herself the Reaper stood over Qiuya like a storm cloud, and she blocked the path like a dam. To reach the city, to pass the rift, they had to break through her like a gate of iron.

Their retreat was bricked over like a sealed tomb. A black glove bloomed on Ouyang’s right hand like night frost, and blood traced his face like red rain. The Reaper’s scythe had kissed him and split skin.

“A-Yang, I’ll stall her. You go.” Mapleleaf’s voice shook like a taut bowstring, earnest and fierce, but Ouyang only shook his head, calm as stone.

Several figures appeared nearby, vague as shadows at dusk. Their looks said nothing, but their aura reeked like rot in summer. Mapleleaf caught it in one breath.

Traitors.

They moved like hounds off a leash. They rushed in and cut Mapleleaf away from Ouyang like waves splitting a boat.

“Fuck—your lot dares show up in front of me?” Mapleleaf spat like a spark on oil. He knew those faces—former members of the First Cult. They knew him too. Clubs rose like thorny branches, and they closed on him in a ring.

Knuckles cracked like seeds. “Yo, the Fifth. The bitch finally shows.” Their grins were knives.

“Damn it, brothers, kill him! He screwed us back then!” Rage came like a drumbeat.

“Rare chance, boys! Go!” The shout rolled like thunder.

Mapleleaf eyed their numbers, and his half-gnawed fruit trembled like a leaf in wind. “Oh, come on, you—” The rest never landed. The mad dogs were already sprinting like a flood down a slope.

His power was shackled like a hawk on a leash. They had a crowd like reeds in a marsh. He could only run like a rabbit under hawk shadow.

“You dumbasses, hear me? You’ll never catch me!” Mapleleaf bolted like a streaking fox and yelled back, still biting his fruit like he had all the time in spring.

A bunch of clowns popped in like bubbles, then popped out just as fast.

Qiuya City. Two figures appeared, blurred like heat mirages, as if they existed half a step out of space.

“Those idiots. Their top priority was to kill Ouyang. Why are they all chasing the other guy?” One voice grated like sand. The other answered low, like wind under a door. “That’s how the First Cult is. Never trust driftwood. Today they’re with us; tomorrow they’ll float to the other bank.”

“Forget it. We knew they couldn’t hold a line. That’s why we tailed. Wait for the opening. When he dies, our work is done.” Their words fell like cold dew.

High over Qiuya, Ouyang kept retreating like a tide pulled by a black moon. He dismissed the weapon-form of Youwen, the blade fading like a firefly at dawn. Youwen’s strength was still young, and the Reaper’s scythe was a winter crescent that would cut it clean in two.

The wind whooshed like a flag in a gale. Black silk streamed from the Reaper like seaweed in a storm, every swing clean and certain, because Ouyang couldn’t truly block, only bend like grass.

“Heh. Interesting human. You’ve lasted like a stubborn ember…” Her voice was ice over deep water.

She raised the scythe high, and the air tensed like a bow at full draw. Ouyang’s pupils tightened like pinpoints. She was going all out.

The black Cursed Wings flared in a rush like ravens, wrapping him tight. In that blink, the scythe fell along the seams of space, a harvest of ghost blades like a rain of black moons. One sweep dropped, and green hills and bright waters washed away like ink in a storm. All things shriveled like frostbitten leaves.

When the strike passed, the earth lay hushed like a grave. Grass withered like old parchment.

A distant mountain wore a fresh crater like a gaping wound, naked and stark on the bald ridge.

Huff, huff. Ouyang bled beneath the black wings, bloodlines like crimson threads stitched over his skin.

“This level… apex divine.” His breath smoked like winter air. Many a godling scorned the gods of faith, yet the ones who fed well on devotion were iron mountains. This Reaper was one. The Millennial War cursed this world like a clockwork plague; every thousand years, a continent-crushing war. Fear of death bloomed on schedule like a poisonous flower, and the Reaper fattened on it like a shadow at dusk.

In a world that bound outsiders with chains like oaths, the faith-fed gods were the peak beasts. Without the leash of divine thrones and offices, the Eastern Empire might never match the Western Empire’s pantheon. Or so the rumor flowed like an underground spring.

But nothing was certain. If the Eastern Empire ever went mad enough to torch the world, the Western Empire’s gods couldn’t smother that fire. Western gods wore titles and offices like collars, while the Eastern Empire’s science was leashed by human conscience like a bridle.

The black glove surfaced fully, and night-fire spilled from Ouyang’s palm like tarred flame. The mountain caught and burned like dry pine.

Boom—boom.

Under black flame, the mountain warped like clay in a kiln. Awareness stirred like a newborn beast. Half-awake, it lunged at the greatest threat like a bull at red, seeking to crush the danger in its gut-sense.

The enormous mountain sprouted limbs, a titan turtle crawling slow as tide. The ground shivered like drumskin. Each step spread black fire like spilled oil.

Boom—boom.

The giant mountain crouched, then leaped like a whale breaching. It tried to pin the Reaper under stone and fire.

It soared, and the cloud-choked sky went darker, like a lid slammed over a pot. That bulk fell, and the windwave blew stones off the ground like chaff, carving spiderweb cracks in dirt even before the body landed. If it struck, it would bowl a basin into the land.

Black energy coiled the Reaper’s scythe like snakes around a staff. As the mountain loomed, the gathered power fattened like a storm cell.

Seeing impact racing in, Ouyang snapped the Cursed Wings and veered away like a swallow. A heartbeat later, an explosion tore the air like ripping silk. Dirt and gravel fountained like a brown storm. The mountain met a titanic black blade of condensed doom and split like firewood. It didn’t stop. In seconds, the halves unraveled like rotten bread, falling into a rain of soil and stone.

That mingled rain drifted down like ash. Dust veiled the land like fog.

Watching it, Ouyang’s eyes wavered like water in a shaken cup. He weighed something heavy, hesitating as if at a cliff-edge. The Reaper closed step by step like frost creeping over a window. He set his jaw like iron.

“I wanted to linger longer… but the end came like a sudden winter. Even so, before I go, I’ll leave my footprint on this world, my scratch on this starry sea.” His voice rang like a bell in mist.

The Reaper’s strength was a mountain he hadn’t expected. The rules were a net tighter than he’d guessed, strangling tool after tool. The Calamity Cloak, the Void Principle, the feather that crow dropped at parting—they all lay beyond reach like stars behind glass.

At root, he wasn’t the Primary. If he were, he might slip the net like smoke. He was a Secondary, and he lacked that key like a lock without its notch.

A blank world opened like a white page. Something lay cocooned in black iron chains, wrapped like a chrysalis.

Gray-haired Ouyang walked toward it like a pilgrim, each step ringing. Clang, clang. Chains scraped like winter wind. The links slid back like serpents, revealing the Ouyang bound within, black-haired and pale.

“You’re… the Third Persona?” the black-haired one murmured, harmless as a deer, no threat in his eyes, only water.

The gray-haired Ouyang dipped his head like a nodding reed. “Second Persona, we’re out of time.”

“Time’s up?” The question floated like a leaf.

“No. A great foe presses us outside.” The answer fell like a stone.

They stood in silence like two trees in snow. When the black-haired one didn’t move, the gray-haired one held out a hand, palm up like an offered flame. “Come. With me, let’s paint the brightest stroke across that world and that sky. Let’s prove we were here.”

“But… I don’t want to disappear.” His voice shook like wet firewood.

“We have no road back.” The words were a blade.

Gray-haired Ouyang stepped close like a shadow. “Second Persona. Come.”

The black-haired Ouyang looked up at that outstretched hand in the white air. He closed his eyes like a man accepting rain, and reached.

Their fingers met, and starlight sparked like flint. Beads of light rose from their bodies like fireflies, and they thinned like fading mist.

“Hey, Third… are we vanishing?” The black-haired one’s nerves fluttered like birds.

“Idiot. I don’t know why a coward like you ever formed. Even if we vanish, we’ll score a bright wound across the starry night. We’ll leave a scar that says we were here.” The voice cut and warmed like sunlight on ice.

Starlight swelled like a tide. Their bodies faded like dawn fog. Then nothing.

Near Qiuya, under a sky raining soil and stone like a muddy monsoon, Ouyang hovered like a lone kite. His eyes snapped open. The right was pure black, ink without a speck of white. The left was blank white, snow without a shadow.

Those yin-yang eyes fixed forward, and space ahead warped like heat haze.

Behind him, the black Cursed Wings shifted like a turning season. The left wing went white like a swan. His gray-white hair split at the crown, right half deepening to black like nightfall. Half his body wore white eye, white hair, white wing. The other half wore black like midnight.

“I said it. Even if I end, I’ll make this world and this starry sea admit I was here.” The voice was chilly, layered like two bells chiming at once.

As he settled into that state, far away in a wasteland like a dead sea, a statue-like turtle opened its eyes like dawn.

“Who… art thou?” The question crawled like old thunder.

The Reaper saw the half-black, half-white Ouyang and felt retreat stir like a cold draft at her back.

“Me?” Ouyang’s doubled voice rippled like two stones skipping a lake. “I am… the Void Messenger.”

He spoke and curled his hand into a fist like a closing sun. He drew back. He punched.

A black-and-white ray grazed the Reaper’s brow like a razor wind. It shot into the heavens like a spear, and something far in the stars burst like a silenced drum. Golden chains spilled from the sky like rain, dipping into this world as if to bind him like a snare.

Ouyang beat the twin wings, black and white flashing like knives. As the chains closed, his feathers sliced them clean like silk, two halves falling like cut vines.

“You can’t bind me.” He lifted his face to the stars like a wolf howling, his mixed voice addressing someone unseen above the firmament.

He pointed once, a casual touch like a falling petal, and pierced the Reaper’s heart. Blood bloomed like a dark flower.

“As you are… you’re not qualified to face me.” The mixed voice brushed her ear like a cold wind. Before she could react, Ouyang was gone. Black and white flares wove like braided lightning, and he streaked for the horizon of heaven. His target was the golden chains blazing in the star-sea.

“This world—we were here…” His whisper spread like smoke.

Clang, clang. Chains shattered like brittle ice. Not just chains—the sky rained golden runes like falling leaves, and golden lightning webbed the vault like roots.

The starry sky blazed like a festival.

No one knew how long. At last, the torn sky stilled like a pond after stones. A corpse fell from above like a withered leaf.

“That’s him. Now’s our best chance!” The two lurkers rushed in like hawks stooping.

“Cough… you… stop.” The Reaper dragged her pierced body like a broken statue. Even a divine body couldn’t sew shut Ouyang’s wound. She watched the starry heights where he had warred, and now he seemed spent to the dregs like a lantern guttering.

By rule, the Reaper shouldn’t step in. Still, her heart stalled like wind before a storm.

First, Ouyang had left her a line to live—a single thread spared. Whether he held back on purpose or simply underestimated and failed to finish her, that was for later.

Second, the Reaper honored power; to those who left her not a breath to counter, she owed reverence. She couldn’t stomach those two creeping shadows.

But Ouyang had pierced her divine body with one finger, like lightning spearing a tree’s heart. She had no strength left to bar their way.

Blood burst like scarlet petals; red rain drifted through the air as scraps of cloth spun like torn leaves.