“Um… Little Tyrant, could you let me out? I was forced in here, like a fish swept into a whirlpool.”

Ouyang swallowed his pride like bitter tea, and tried the dragon. If it remembered the past, all the better. He’d once served in the Crimson Night Star; for Ivica’s sake, things could be negotiated.

But the knot in his gut tightened. The Little Tyrant had no memories of before, like a mountain with its peak sheared clean.

“Out? If someone pushed you in, that means their strength dwarfs yours. Even if you leave, what changes?” The Noonday Sky Dragon’s voice fell like cold rain.

Ouyang had no words, his rebuttal drowned like a spark under a tide.

Silence returned, thick as ink in the void. The Noonday Sky Dragon neither killed him nor released him. It sprawled in midair like a coiled mountain, eyes shut, as if asleep.

Time felt false here, like a clock with its face rubbed away. Ouyang didn’t know how long he drifted in that still lake. “Little Tyrant, can I ask you something?”

Twin pupils opened, slow as moons rising over water.

“Since you’re the first Tiered Being I find interesting, I’ll answer one more question.”

“You said you’re guarding a treasure. What exactly is it?”

He was only probing, tossing a pebble into a deep well. The Noonday Sky Dragon had kept watch for endless ages; it wouldn’t spill secrets like seeds in the wind.

“Before I entered the cave, I found a corpse by the exit. That person should’ve been a guardian like you, right? If that happened, then a powerful enemy broke in. Is your treasure still there?”

For some reason, the Noonday Sky Dragon looked baffled, like fog over a river. That expression didn’t belong on a dragon’s face. Fake or not, a guardian should sense intruders like thunder senses lightning.

Bafflement lingered. The dragon seemed to sink into thought, like an anchor dropping into dark water.

“My memory… has a blank stretch, a winter with no footprints. If what you said is true, the issue lies in that blank.” Calm returned to its voice like a steady drum. “Kid, I’ll show you the treasure…”

Seven-colored light blossomed in the void like shattered rainbows. Blackness broke into colored shards, which stitched together like a mosaic. In moments, a gold-and-jade cavern unfurled before Ouyang. It was the same vast cavern he’d glimpsed before. A black-haired man had forced him to step into it, and he’d fallen into the void. Now he finally stood on the real floor.

Treasure piled like hills. Ouyang noticed scars—marks of battle carved into the walls like clawed ice. He tried dragging his own power across the stone. With strength rivaling an Ancient God, he couldn’t scratch it, not even a hair-width.

So those deep gouges spoke for themselves, like thunder answering lightning.

He kept walking. Some walls were blasted down, some punched clean through. It felt less like a cave, more like an underground world, a buried sky where treasure lay like glowing dunes.

Gold light washed everywhere, bright as dawn on snow. It looked as if the ground itself was paved with luminous relics.

“Damn it!”

Seeing the collapsed walls, the Noonday Sky Dragon needed no memory to guess. The vault had been invaded. Worse—the guardian had no memory of it. The shame burned like a brand.

Flames rippled along the small dragon’s body, a wildfire breaking through pine, its anger thrown into the air.

With a hiss and a whip-crack, its tail smashed treasure mounds into avalanches.

“Little Tyrant, calm down!”

Ouyang ducked aside, heart thudding like a drum. Just as he feared—something had gone wrong. The Little Tyrant arrowed toward a set direction, roaring all the way, fury like storm surf.

Ouyang followed into a clearing. A spring lay ahead, clear as polished jade. Around it, flowers bloomed—unknown names, moon-soft colors. In the spring’s center rested an egg…

That wasn’t the most important thing. In the flower sea by the spring, a girl leaned against a tree, staring at Ouyang as if waking from snow. Not far from her, a creature like a horse grazed the blossoms with its head down.

“Bai?!”

He knew her at a glance. Silver hair streamed like frost-lit silk. She wore the white mage robe Ouyang had once given her, its wide folds hiding her shape. Her feet were bare, still quiet as petals.

As for the animal by her side—wasn’t that an alpaca… a Void Smuggler Beast! Back when he and Mapleleaf headed for the First Continent, Mapleleaf had taken that beast somewhere. That rascal never explained it, even when they returned to the future.

The sight hit Ouyang like a hammer of honey and confusion—sweet and baffling.

“Yang…”

Emerald eyes brightened like spring rain. Bai suddenly threw herself at him. She wasn’t good with words, but in that heartbeat he felt her joy spill like sunlight.

After Ouyang clawed back from the Boundless Sea, he’d crossed paths with Bai a few times. Months ago, she said she was going to look for something. He hadn’t worried; inside the Source world, with him around, Bai shouldn’t face real danger. He’d only told her to be careful, light as a leaf’s advice on wind. He never thought this dragon girl would search her way straight into the Little Tyrant’s vault.

He could only look up and sigh—heaven and earth, what a mess.

Bai had become his Guardian Angel through a ritual, but this was not a tourist spot.

“Alright, I get your situation. But what about that alpaca? Why’s it here?” Ouyang rubbed his temples. Bai had wandered the Sealed Land like window-shopping, and then drifted into this vault. She didn’t remember the route; she’d just… arrived.

The Void Smuggler Beast lifted its head, flowers dropping like confetti.

“A lord sent me here. I don’t know the details. He left something for you.”

A lord? Ouyang thought. It had to be Mapleleaf. Had that guy set his affairs in order? A gem hung at the beast’s neck, glittering like a frozen drop of sunset. That must be Mapleleaf’s keepsake.

The moment Ouyang’s fingers brushed the jewel, it burst into starlight and sank into his mind like a comet.

Time stretched, then snapped—an eternity, a blink, a lantern going out.

Ouyang rubbed his head. “Weird. What… what just happened to me?” He remembered a meeting, long as winter nights. The subject slipped away, dream-faint and fog-soft.

“What’s with you, kid? How’d we know? You just zoned out… no, for a heartbeat you didn’t belong to this time.” The Noonday Sky Dragon’s eyes widened like twin suns. Strangely, its earlier fury had melted on seeing Bai, like ice under spring wind. The agitation was gone.

“Didn’t belong… to this time?”

His ‘dream’ stirred, ripples in a still pond. It felt like a wondrous conference—people from different timelines meeting under a hidden sky. He tried to focus; the details ran like sand.

“Forget it. I can’t recall it either. Little Tyrant, I think I know your deal now.” Mapleleaf’s gem had given him the dragon’s outline. “You were killed back then, when the invader came. That’s why your memory has a hole…”

He knew nothing more. Mapleleaf’s jewel wasn’t just about the dragon; those tidbits were extras. The real purpose was that hazy meeting. What they discussed, who attended—blank. The laws of time had sealed it like lacquer, and pulling that off at all was a miracle.

“Little Tyrant, where’s the treasure you mentioned?”

The Noonday Sky Dragon flopped down, lazy as a cat in noon sun. It was nothing like the roaring beast from moments ago.

“There.” It flicked a claw toward the spring’s center. The egg had cracked. Something unknown had pierced the shell. Dark red blood had leaked and now set like lacquer.

Ouyang felt Bai’s hand trembling in his. Tears slid from the corner of her eye like dew streaking jade.

“There were two eggs here, said to be remnants from the era of the Sealed Land. Unlike the First Continent, which had survivors, the Sealed Land’s species went extinct. Only two eggs remained.”

The dragon spoke, and a white glow rose from its body like mist. Stardust drifted off it, fireflies in a night field.

“I remember. A Tiered Being broke in. One egg was pierced. Before I was scattered, I sent the other away. I never thought, after endless ages, the egg I sent would hatch. Seeing the child with my own eyes… my duty’s done.”

It didn’t name the other egg, but its gaze rested on Bai like a gentle moon.

“No… no way. Bai is the egg you sent out? Then the dead egg here is her sibling?” Ouyang finally understood why Bai cried, the realization like a stone falling through water.

He also recalled their first meeting. Back then, Bai hadn’t hatched. She was still an egg, cold as a winter plum. Without Ouyang, that egg might have died completely in a few years, a candle snuffed by an empty wind.