“This isn’t where you belong…”

In the blur, a voice tolled like a bell under water. The misted world cracked like thin ice. He opened his eyes; a bald rooster flung dawn across everything. Light pooled by the window, and Ouyang stared into it, silent as a stone in a stream.

On the second day of the Gods-and-Demons Pilgrimage, Ouyang kept his promise to Loyin and Bai. All day he felt adrift, like fog that wouldn’t settle. He tried to rebuild last night’s dream, but a paper-thin film hung between him and it. One poke should have torn it, yet his fingers never found the skin of that paper. Vaguely he remembered a sea of nothingness, and someone who had driven him into the Little Overlord’s treasure vault. Li had banished that Tiered Being into eternal spacetime, yet in the dream he had seen the thing again, like a shadow returning with the tide.

He yawned, listless, the weariness landing before any motion. Even he couldn’t explain why his spirit felt this spent. He was a Realm God; a slump like this shouldn’t cling to him like damp clothes. It smelled like mental overdraw, yet he remembered no such drain, not a spark.

For a mind that could rival an Ancient God’s to feel this tired, the splash should’ve been tidal. Yet his memory lay smooth, no ripples, no rings. Last night he’d been keen as a new blade; this morning he woke thin as paper in the wind.

At some point a strange sigil had bloomed on the back of his left hand. It was intricate and unsayable, a knot of lines that led the eye in circles. He even wondered if someone had cursed him. For his own skin’s sake, he asked Litian. Litian stayed in the shape of the Heaven Departing Divine Sword, yet Ouyang could picture the dumbfounded face that sword couldn’t make.

In the end, Litian explained nothing. It only said, calm as rain, “If you meet a First-Tier Tiered Being, just show that sigil. Unless it’s a fight to the death, they’ll tuck their tails and run.”

Ouyang rubbed the sigil on his hand until the skin warmed. He had Loyin and Bai study it, too, but neither felt a single stir from it, like touching cold ash. Litian was being cryptic. Xi seemed to be in a meeting, and Dongze and Agas were in one too. For now, no expert stood within reach.

“Flash a badge and a Tiered Being bolts?” he muttered, thumb working the mark like a worry stone. He still couldn’t taste its meaning on his tongue. “Damn, I remember!” He jerked up so suddenly he scared a few passersby, pigeons taking off from a square. A couple of people glanced over like a patient had slipped the ward. “Litian’s blade has this sigil too!”

He fell into thought and ignored the stares that pricked like sleet. Not just Litian’s sword; he’d seen this same pattern on the cover of the Book of Epochs—what he called Diary Bro. And still, the question stood like a locked gate: what did this mark mean?

“Brother, what’s wrong?”

Loyin had long noticed Ouyang’s oddness, and his sudden move tightened her worry like a knot. Bai trotted over with three bags of snacks from a nearby stall. She held one out to Ouyang, her pure face lit with a small springtime smile.

“Yang, eat this. It’s really good… eat, and forget the unhappy,” Bai said, as always, comforting him in her own way.

He’d been tangling himself in last night’s “dream” and the sigil on his hand, but the concern on their faces felt like warm sunlight melting frost. His heart loosened, the bruise easing under a palm.

He took the snack from Bai and reached to ruffle her hair, as usual. His hand froze halfway. On the back of Bai’s right hand, the same sigil lay quiet as a brand under snow. His was on the left; hers was on the right. A thought struck like flint. He took Loyin’s right hand, soft as a petal, and checked. No mark. He checked her left. Also clean.

They had slept together, all three under one quilt of moonlight. Why did only he and Bai carry the mark, while Loyin didn’t?

A surprised voice from down the street cut his thoughts like a knife through paper. “Huh, Ouyang, brother, so that’s where you are…”

He didn’t want to look, but he did. The blond pretty-boy, Morris. At his side stood a woman, Belle, his fiancée. Since he’d bumped into the couple, Ouyang shelved the tangled puzzles for a while. When Xi finished her meeting, he would ask and be done with it. Litian could sell riddles, but Xi, his girlfriend, wouldn’t leave him in the dark.

“Oh, Mo, what a coincidence. This is my sister, Loyin. And this is my sister, Bai.” Ouyang pointed them out, then slung an arm over Morris’s shoulder, all easy warmth, the brooding gone like mist in sun. Morris, in turn, gave Loyin and Bai a quick rundown of their origins.

In the Aup World where Morris and Belle came from, miracles fell now and then like stray meteors. But here, gods walked the streets like wind under eaves. He chose to keep low-key. Knowing Ouyang, a likely scion of a local great clan, could smooth a lot of roads for him.

Morris and Ouyang clicked like brothers from centuries ago, a cup of wine and a lifetime at once. Belle stood awkward, unlike Morris. He was sun-bright and quick to make friends. She was ice-cool, the kind of cold that kept people at arm’s length.

By chance, Loyin ran the same icy river. She would only soften around Ouyang, and sometimes when she played with Xian; most of the time, she wore a “do not disturb” face. Bai was simple and kind, but shy as a fawn.

Belle knew that getting close to Loyin and the others would help her down the line. But her small talk fell like a cold joke on a winter street. In the end, both sides chose silence. Loyin and Bai didn’t want to engage, and Belle had no knack for opening lines. Up front, Ouyang and Morris were a bonfire. Behind them, between Belle and Loyin, the air iced over like a frost fence.

After a while, Morris slapped his forehead. “Ouyang, bro, I just remembered something…” He hesitated, words rubbing against his teeth. “Your family… you’ve got gods among you, right?”

Gods?

Ouyang thought it over. The house had more than a few at god-level. He and Xi didn’t even count. Loyin was one. The Jade Rabbit had recovered her other half and stepped into the divine ranks, even if on the lowest rung. Bai counted too. As his Guardian Angel, she could, under the right conditions, borrow his power; even normally, she hovered near god-level. He just rarely let her fight. A girl so easy on the eyes and so pure—why throw her into knives?

Eika and Nabelia hadn’t climbed the divine thrones, but they were his loyal followers, always circling among gods, and benefits fell on them like fruit in season. Among the Demon Kings, some loved digging up hoards or plundering other worlds. Back in the Source world, they’d sort the take and toss what they deemed useless. Trash to gods, treasure to mortals. Nabelia had a sweet tongue, so when they dumped “trash,” they often pinged her first.

Ouyang figured the siblings’ vaults were piled in mounds—priceless, if you asked a mortal eye. He had to admit Nabelia knew how to deal with people. Under her efforts, fed with top-shelf resources, the Hericot Clan was rising. A few ancient old-timers had reached Sky Level. Sky Level, because they were half in the grave and, without outside force, would never brush godhood.

“Gods? Yeah, we’ve got them. Why? You hit a snag?”

Hearing Ouyang’s yes, Morris wore an “as expected” look. “It’s like this, Ouyang. Not long ago, I met someone… How to put it, she’s utterly new to this world. She doesn’t know why she came here.”

“At first, she was a complete ordinary person. We didn’t share a language, so I had to use language magic to talk.”

By then Ouyang already felt a thread tug. Since the Source world entered the Demon King era—especially now—there were no ordinary people left. Even kids could toss a small fireball; at worst, they could whip up a dust-raising cantrip.

If she came from another world, a commoner couldn’t pass through by proper channels. Forget strength; the toll alone would beggar her.

“Anyway, that part’s not the key,” Morris said, leaning in as if to keep the wind out. “What matters is what came next. When I used language magic, she took me for a god. In her world, only gods can do that. From her words, I got a glimpse of her home. It’s a world tightly controlled by gods and the Church…”